X1D vs GFX 50s - Repro Studio

[scyth]

The DTDCH setup

OP stated - the money matter... so the whole point is to find something that works for him yet costs less than that...

[Doug Peterson]

Fair enough. I'll wait till I can compare.

Big news incidentally for me, C1 will load a DNG made from the Fuji GFX file. It has no presets but we make our own ICC profiles and curves anyway. That is indeed very interesting! Allows us a level playing field for testing.

The GFX is not supported in Capture One, and will not be supported in Capture One.

Any workarounds, hacks, or temporary exceptions (e.g. older versions of C1 may sometimes work with DNGs from newer unsupported cameras) will come with significant limitations and are unlikely to work at all for very long.

The GFX is a nice camera. But if you want to use the GFX you should plan to use it with LightRoom or other software which supports it.

[Doug Peterson]

that moire correction in C1 is simply a desaturation...

Presumably he is referring to the demoasicing algorithms in Capture One, not the after-the-fact moire tool.

It's very common for a given raw file to show as having moire in a more general-purpose raw convertor and show completely cleanly in Capture One. The math in Capture One for demosaicing highly detailed raw files from single-shot cameras with no AA filter and ultra-sharp lenses is better than any on the market in my experience.

In fact it's my belief and experience that historically, it's the surprisingly sub-par demosaicing of the raw processors used by some companies making multi-shot cameras that often errantly exaggerate the sharpness gap between single-shot and multi-shot cameras. Presumably since they had multishot hardware they didn't have much motivation to put the enormous R+D investment needed to bring single-shot demosaicing to very nearly the same level as a multishot capture.

People often accuse Capture One of adding some sharpening that can't be disabled; that's incorrect – it's math is just that much better.

[Doug Peterson]

Technical camera solutions and specifically the new iXR system with its relative simplicity, electronic shutter with extended lifetime and superior lenses are of interest however they are a significant jump in budget which has to be considered. It is also a brand new system which is always a consideration.

Two notes:
- You mean iXG not iXR.
- It is a new incarnation, but it not a brand new system like the XF was when it launched (and had a couple months of the teething problems any brand new system has). The iXG operating system, firmware, sensor, electronics, user interface, and most of the subsystems are from the iXU and iXA which are heavily proven systems, and of course the tethering is provided by Capture One CH which is by far the most mature tethering software made. The "brand new" part of the iXG system is the focusing mount (encoded linear slide built for precision and shooting straight down rather than a general purpose focus barrel), and in engineering terms this is a pretty "routine" component.

It's also being built by the Phase One Industrial team who have an extreme dedication to reliability. It's one thing to build a camera that works really really reliably in a commercial context, and quite another to build camera models where five units go up in a plane and cannot miss (or even be a few milliseconds behind on) capturing even a single frame on any of the five cameras during a multi-hour survey of continuous shooting, lest the run need to be repeated in it's entirety.

We've been testing iXG since the prototype phase and have had absolutely no issues even at that point.

None of this means I can guarantee zero problems of course. That would be silly.

But it is to say there is every reason to view it differently than you would a "brand new system".

I know you're abroad, but if by any chance you're coming to ALA Conference next week (the largest CH show in north america) we will have three iXG cameras there ready to play with.

[Doug Peterson]

I'll say this, if you're a dealer and don't use your actual name, don't have contract info in your profile or signature, and say to email info@ for help, don't bother.

From this and his/her other posts it would seem HBIEVP is actually a Hassy employee, not working at a dealer.

For what it's worth I think we should be very welcoming to anyone from Hasselblad who would like to post here. I try very hard to provide level-headed, experienced-based, truthful advice and comments. But there is zero question that I am biased; having someone from Hasselblad (or Leica, Sony, etc) to even that out is very welcome! I think the community would benefit from that.

So, while I agree it's good advice for HBIEVP to add a signature with his/her name and contact info I'd also like to say "Welcome!" and "Hope you stick around".

[Joe Towner]

OP stated - the money matter... so the whole point is to find something that works for him yet costs less than that...

Yep, money matters, but it didn't sound like he's got the full budget number of what the DTDCH solution would be, especially adding on things like the workstations and added storage.  Depending on the subject, the cost of getting an object back in a year or two to reshoot at a higher MP would cost.

When dealing with one of a kind, priceless artifacts, each time you digitize it, there's risk to damage, be it in transport, in the tech shooting it, etc.

[Joe Towner]

From this and his/her other posts it would seem HBIEVP is actually a Hassy employee, not working at a dealer.

For what it's worth I think we should be very welcoming to anyone from Hasselblad who would like to post here. I try very hard to provide level-headed, experienced-based, truthful advice and comments. But there is zero question that I am biased; having someone from Hasselblad (or Leica, Sony, etc) to even that out is very welcome! I think the community would benefit from that.

So, while I agree it's good advice for HBIEVP to add a signature with his/her name and contact info I'd also like to say "Welcome!" and "Hope you stick around".

Yes, I apologize HBIEVP, please introduce yourself, we love to have more Hassy folks part of the discussion. Unfortunately, I am assuming the info@Hassy email would literally get shuffled to the local dealer for Ben, who based on the original posting had issues.

-Joe

[BobShaw]

Yes, I apologize HBIEVP, please introduce yourself, we love to have more Hassy folks part of the discussion. Unfortunately, I am assuming the info@Hassy email would literally get shuffled to the local dealer for Ben, who based on the original posting had issues.

-Joe

He didn't say "info@Hassy" or info@hasselblad.com which is the international address. He said info@hasselbladbron.com which is country specific afaik.

[Ben Rubinstein]

I'll say this, if you're a dealer and don't use your actual name, don't have contract info in your profile or signature, and say to email info@ for help, don't bother.

I'm not sure that up-resing the multishot 35mm products is really fair.  It's creating information, and even with a multishot setup, it's faking it.  Real details require real pixel wells.

The DTDCH setup is the pre-built, supported as a package that is hard to compete with.  That it plugs into your current workflow makes it that much better.  Yes, you could recreate it to some effect with 35mm gear, but what are you really saving?  You could also build a motorized base and move the subject around and stitching those photos.  You could build a rig with 4 of the Nikon D810's and sync shoot them & stitch those files.  You could do a large format lens and a sliding back that would again need stitching.

All of the rig & stitching can be done with the IQ 100mp as well, so why not start there?  Get a price on the full DTDCH iXR with the lighting, add in 2 top end workstations with 5k monitors & 100TB of storage.  See what push back you get from that cost.  Yes, it's the Rolls Royce option, but it'll give you a starting point.  Price adverse? Try with the 50/60/80mp options and upgrade the back in a year or two once they have some experience in the differences.

Yes, there will be higher MP backs in the 33x44 size relatively soon, but I wouldn't wait for them.  The larger backs will be the current 100mp chip for a while, and you should be ready to ask at what point you'll need to reshoot subjects due to higher MP & quality being available.  The cost of reshooting in a year or two because you can do higher resolution can quickly make up for the larger investment now.

I didn't uprez the oly files. I uprezzed the canon and fuji files to match the native resolution MS Oly. Where it failed, badly. I uprezzed the Pentax file to see if it could match the higher resolution cameras due to its MS capability as had been suggested. It could not despite providing an otherwise superlative IQ for it's megapixel value.

Any camera we buy would have to work across our stations. The station, the equipment used to hold the element being photographed, always, always takes precedence to the camera and will always dictate the camera requirements. Although we are interested in the iXG (spelt properly this time Doug ) camera system, the station which is being marketed with it does not answer our specific requirements (if that is what you are recommeding?). I have talked to Yair about taking a trip to London in the coming months to try out the system with our travelling station which would provide a good benchmark for our studio in general.

Please note that I have several possible requirements at present which will need to be answered. We need a high resolution solution, a higher resolution solution (than current) and a higher resolution solution which could be answered with MS in theory (one which we are currently looking into a scanner solution for but I'm open minded). That is why the iXG is interesting me even while I investigate the Fuji or even 35mm MS.

Doug, although I appreciate the confidence you have in the new system, it is my responsibility to keep a 7am-9pm studio running 5 days a week without fail. We are attached to a research centre where materials are often available for digitization for only hours at a time, most of the material we digitize belongs to private collectors from outside the country and with a (justified) mania for security. As such they are almost always on a very short term loan. You will understand that my recommendation of a new systems reliability based on 'the dealer said so' would hardly carry any weight. We will do our research into the system, try it out hopefully within the next few months and come to our conclusions based on factors such as local dealer support, repair turnaround times, etc. Murphy loves confidence. It gives him a chuckle when planning to make things go wrong because the poor goofs don't expect it.