X1D vs GFX 50s - Repro Studio

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi Ben,

Please feel free to contact me on or off line if the iXG is on your radar.

Cheers
Yair

Very nice to hear from you again Yair! I will call you when I get a free second, thanks!

[scyth]

The Canon 50 megapixel solution is not sufficient for an upgrade from side to side testing. The files just aren't as robust.

what is not robust in them (I am not a Canon user btw) ? not enough light to saturate the sensor and you have to push in raw conversion or the pages you are shooting are somehow challenging the DR ?

[Doug Peterson]

I'm with Yair. This screams iXG. No SLR or general purpose body is as fine tuned for copystand work as the iXG or the RCam it grew out of.

[scyth]

We work too fast for multi shot to be an option except in special circumstances.

seriously ? exposure time is 1/125 , so 8 shots will in 1 sec for 80mp raw from E-M1 II... are you replacing pages manually on a copy stand that fast ?

[Ben Rubinstein]

what is not robust in them (I am not a Canon user btw) ? not enough light to saturate the sensor and you have to push in raw conversion or the pages you are shooting are somehow challenging the DR ?

We cannot allow for there to be a banding problem in the shadows. I used to shoot a 5D3 personally so know the issue. Although our current needs do not dictate the need for such shadow pushing, we still have no idea what newer technology might bring to the table. Recovering rubbed out text, seeing into ink spots, seperating ink bleed through from the other side of the page, deciphering text from among bad ink acid damage, etc, etc.

[Ben Rubinstein]

seriously ? exposure time is 1/125 , so 8 shots will in 1 sec for 80mp raw from E-M1 II... are you replacing pages manually on a copy stand that fast ?

I'm afraid that sensors of that size do not begin to be sufficient for our needs.

[Juanito]

Given your past experience, I would cross Hasselblad off of your list. Their repair turnaround times are horrible. My H5 took nearly three months and a trip to Sweden to have a simple repair performed. My X1D is seriously flawed. Instead of replacing it, they're sending it off to Sweden where it will be months before I see it. I shipped it off back in April and there's no return in sight. Really can't say anything good about Hasselblad service. If you count on your camera to make a living, don't count on Hasselblad.

John

[Doug Peterson]

I wrote CI a long email asking about their repro tech cam solution (the one with electronic shutter) and asking for a trial of the C1 Cultural Heritage software. The automatic cropping alone might have been worth the heart stopping price ($6000). Currently we employ a person in the studio whose only task all day every day is cropping. The National Library here have 6 people doing cropping. That was months ago, still no reply.

In the US, Capture One Cultural Heritage is exclusive to Digital Transitions Division of Cultural Heritage, as is the iXG, the DT RCam, the Schneider 120ASPH, the Schneider 72mm Digitar, the DT BC100, DT RG 3040, DT RGC 180, DT Atom, DT Photon and other solutions specific to this market. CI (Capture Integration) is not a reseller of these products.

Outside of the US these products are represented by Phase One Cultural Heritage Dealers. Since you are in Israel, Yair, who has replied on this thread, would be your appropriate point of contact.

If "CI" in your post was a typo, and you contacted us (DT / DTDCH) please know that if we received your email we would have replied, so if you did not receive a reply we did not receive your email. Our answer would have been to connect you to Yair, but we would have answered. We do sometimes have issues with spam filters, so if you ever wish to reach out to us and do not respond a very prompt reply then please call or text me. (US +1) 740-707-2183.

[Ben Rubinstein]

In the US, Capture One Cultural Heritage is exclusive to Digital Transitions Division of Cultural Heritage, as is the iXG, the DT RCam, the Schneider 120ASPH, the Schneider 72mm Digitar, the DT BC100, DT RG 3040, DT RGC 180, DT Atom, DT Photon and other solutions specific to this market. CI (Capture Integration) is not a reseller of these products.

Outside of the US these products are represented by Phase One Cultural Heritage Dealers. Since you are in Israel, Yair, who has replied on this thread, would be your appropriate point of contact.

If "CI" in your post was a typo, and you contacted us (DT / DTDCH) please know that if we received your email we would have replied, so if you did not receive a reply we did not receive your email. Our answer would have been to connect you to Yair, but we would have answered. We do sometimes have issues with spam filters, so if you ever wish to reach out to us and do not respond a very prompt reply then please call or text me. (US +1) 740-707-2183.

I did contact the DTDCH, apologies. I wrote my letter via the contact form but never heard back.

[landscapephoto]

With the GFX you could use the electronic one and have NO movement at all.

Indeed. I had not thought about that. But see below.

Something that I hadn't considered, readout speed from these sensors, specifically when using our LED lighting. I've read that the readout speed of the Fuji is 1/4 second which would be problematic with most LED's.  Anyone know if this is the same with the Hasselblad?

The long readout time will produce bands when using the electronic shutter, but not when using a mechanical shutter. So the GFX indeed has an electronic shutter, but you cannot use it.

[Doug Peterson]

Indeed. I had not thought about that. But see below.

The long readout time will produce bands when using the electronic shutter, but not when using a mechanical shutter. So the GFX indeed has an electronic shutter, but you cannot use it.

Note that the Phase One IQ3 100mp electronic shutter has an anti-flicker/banding setting that can be placed at either 50hz or 60hz and works beautifully with LED light sources such as our DT Photon. So this is not an issue that eliminates electronic shutter from use; only those without a sufficiently sophisticated implementation.

[Doug Peterson]

I did contact the DTDCH, apologies. I wrote my letter via the contact form but never heard back.

Must be a black hole of the internet. In any case you have my cell phone number (and the office numbers are on our website) in case you should ever wish to reach us and don't get an immediate response.

[eronald]

Must be a black hole of the internet. In any case you have my cell phone number (and the office numbers are on our website) in case you should ever wish to reach us and don't get an immediate response.

Doug is always eager to hear from a sales lead, and always there for a customer who needs help
I don't lnow why but he always reminds me of the Energizer Bunny -

Edmund

[BobShaw]

You probably should rewind and think about the budget. $10K cameras or $40K cameras?
You could buy a cupboard full of X1D's for some of the suggestions and never have to worry about service (:-)

[Ben Rubinstein]

Must be a black hole of the internet. In any case you have my cell phone number (and the office numbers are on our website) in case you should ever wish to reach us and don't get an immediate response.

Thanks!

You probably should rewind and think about the budget. $10K cameras or $40K cameras?
You could buy a cupboard full of X1D's for some of the suggestions and never have to worry about service (:-)

You are of course correct. This is very much a consideration. As I am constantly having to explain to the powers that be, we do not buy a camera, we buy a camera solution. Features, cost, ease of use, reliability, access to problem solving, support, repair, replacement, etc. The best and greatest does not always equal the correct solution.

[jduncan]

How about looking at the Phase One IQ3 100mp which has an electronic shutter that will give you vibration free shooting and you don't have to worry about the mirror or leaf shutter. The warranty is 5 year without any activation count restrictions. This would give you complete C1 tethering support etc.

It's reproduction work: if money was not an object the proper solution will be the H5D-200 either the CMOS or the CCD version, buy consistent lighting and be done with it.
A multishot back will have better color separation, and that is more important than having almost twice the resolution.
 
Best regards,

[Ben Rubinstein]

It's reproduction work: if money was not an object the proper solution will be the H5D-200 either the CMOS or the CCD version, buy consistent lighting and be done with it.
A multishot back will have better color separation, and that is more important than having almost twice the resolution.
 
Best regards,

So speaks a man who knows what museum/library budgets are like for studios. The powers that be who live in a bubble of academia and history seem to have less patience than we might prefer for the latest technological advances in photographic tools when it comes to budgetary concerns.

I would also talk about what the actual necessities may be for reproduction quality. Ultimate quality is always a worthwhile goal but perhaps not always a realistic one. We are photographing ancient manuscripts and documents 98% of the time. Not material which has a requirement for such exacting colour accuracy. Although multishot colour accuracy may perhaps be wonderful to imagine, I do not believe it is a priority in comparison to the need for that level of colour accuracy in a studio doing precious artwork reproduction for example. Certainly not sufficient enough to persuade the purse string holders. It is an unfortunate truism that it is hard to persuade people to invest in technological advances which they cannot see on their own screens. Even when I got the boss a NEC Spectraview because I was getting fed up of this limitation.

That said I witnessed a fascinating project at the National Library here recently. They were photographing half size 35mm contact prints which had been smuggled out of wartime Poland, images of a valuable and large (A3+) manuscript photographed page by page. The library, using the 50MS back, were achieving legible detail. Legible enough to be read and copied. I would never have believed it possible. Would never have believed a tiny contact print could contain so much detail? The text would have been marginal for a 12 megapixel camera never mind the contact prints from a handheld WWII era 35mm camera (leica?). Truly impressive.

[Ben Rubinstein]

I just had a very worthwhile hour long conversation with Yair. The leaps and bounds made by the Cultural Heritage program since the days when we were using MFD are truly impressive. The more information we have the better we can consider our options.

[HBIEVP]

Hi folks,

I'm sure you've had to put up with this question a lot but I'm hoping my rather specific niche requirement might let me off asking this question again. 

I run a large Reproduction studio for an antiquities museum in Jerusalem. Over the past 5 years we have digitized well over 1 million pages from ancient manuscripts dating back over the past 900 years.

We did use a Leaf Aptus II-8 back on a DF camera but due to ongoing issues with the camera system we changed over to Nikon some years ago with the D800e and lately the D810 and haven't looked back. Our first ever repair on a Nikon has just gone in after 4 years of constant daily use of around 2000 frames a day. The issue is the USB port which had worked loose dropping the tethering. That's the sum total of repairs. Repair within a couple of days. In comparison the DF shutter and/or mirror box would die about twice a year requiring shipping to Denmark for repair.

We are currently looking at a higher resolution solution for our studio for at least one of the copy stations and for use with more precious works which require the additional resolution.

Until recently we had not looked back into medium format solutions due to our previous history with them. The release of two 50 megapixel cameras which are mirrorless is making us rethink our options. No mirror and a far better shutter rating than Mamiya system ever had brings these tools right back into the spotlight. Please note that for various reasons technical cameras are not being considered at this time. Chief among which is price, local availability and a required integration into a specific custom electronic workflow.

Currently we shoot tethered directly into Capture One. Using Live View in C1 for framing, precise manual focus and indeed shooting. With our Nikons we can shoot for hours straight directly from live view in C1. Incredibly useful when working with piles of documents which need to be placed accurately within the frame and photographed without hesitation before moving to the next one. Not a deal breaker though, however useful. We never had this ability with the digital back of course. Another essential element is the use of custom ICC profiles (currently made with our Gretag Colorchecker Digital SG chart). We cannot achieve true accuracy without this ability.

Which ever choice we would use for our higher resolution option would need to include these two abilities. Tethered Live View and ICC profiling. Please note that we will probably not be using native lenses with either option.

Fuji:
Pro's: Cheaper, reliable in country service and parts availability (confirmed today actually).
Con's: Does it do tethered LV at all? Cannot be processed in C1 and LR will not allow 'real' ICC profiling.

Hasselblad:
Pro's: Phocus software allows LV and in depth colour calibration.
Con's: Dealer here has a bad reputation and I personally did not get any feeling of confidence from him, is there any ability to photograph during LV? Has to be sent out of country for service.

A big con for both systems, albeit a temporary one, is that neither has had enough field time to be considered a reliable workhorse within the industry. Like any new system or software or computer, etc. That has to be taken under consideration and we are not 'running' into either solution quite yet.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks!

Ben, it seems that there's little consideration for "your" need (price and image quality) to qualify a mirrorless medium format camera system. Please feel free to send an email to: info@hasselbladbron.com and we'll do our best to pair you up with Dealer that will allow you to test the X1D-50c in your environment and see if it fits or can be adapted to your workflow. Furthermore, if I wish to redirect you too, I would offer the H5D-200c multi-shot camera system which can generate up to a 1.3 GB file, tethered to our Phocus image processing software do live view composing with critical focus adjustments, enable reproduction mode for linear capture for profiling and screen calibration.

[landscapephoto]

I find it a bit amusing to see that dealers in this thread insist on a multishot back while:
-there is no apparent need for the increased color accuracy
-the multishot technique would require new, more expensive lights
-the multishot technique would need longer time per shot (capture and processing), which is a real disadvantage.