Will more pixels ironically result in less sharp images?

[ThierryH]

Dear Evgeny,

see my previous posts: to have a cristal clear live video image, you NEED a LC shutter in front of the lens to avoid the sensor to get saturated of light (which it gets, since getting light continuously). The LC shutter closes/opens a few times per second to avoid saturation: the result is a perfect live image.

Best regards,
Thierry

Live Video in a $200 camera is Superb comparing to LV in Sinar 54H/54M.

OR I do it wrong with Sinar. Here is how I do LV in Sinar 54H:

1. Light a subject using one Modeling Light in a studio strobe. My Modeling Lights are 300W with output proportional to flash power.
2. Open Shutter in Contax 645 ("B" mode, for unlimited time)
3. Enable Live View in Capture Shop.
4. Enable Focus mode in Live View in Capture Shop.

What I see is a chaos of pixels where I hardly see the Subject, and ever more harder see the magnified part to perform focus.

[JerryReed]

response removed, I thought that the question was addressed to me.

[evgeny]

Evgeny,

Do you have an LC shutter on the front of the lens?   An LC shutter is definitely needed for quality live video on the 54H.

Hi,
no I don't have the LC shutter.
Thierry, thank for detailed answer. I don't really want to invest over $1K in the LC while I can manually focus using the camera focus indicator.
I think Yevgeny told me that fact in the past, that I need the LC for LV.

[bdp]

I don't know about Captureshop, but with eXposure the LV has contrast, brightness and WB controls, so with enough ambient light (but not too much!) you can get a pretty good Live View, with focus windows to easily check focus. I use it with my Contax and eMotion 75 back when I do overheads and don't want to stand on the ladder near the ceiling of my studio to look through the viewfinder. Sometimes I might put a piece of black paper on the set to get a contrasty edge to check focus on.

Also, when shooting without LV I always have the Detail window visible to check 100% focus on an area of every shot I take. It is easy to get things out of focus due to the 'thinness' of the CCD compared to film. Film's width and grain made it much more forgiving to focus errors. In my opinion it is dangerous to rely on your eyes or just the focus confirmation in the viewfinder when shooting at large apertures, but at f8 or so it should be fine.

Also when going from my first back 11MP to a 22MP back and now to this 33MP back, I can only say sharpness looks like it had increased, presumably due to the greater number and smaller size of samples taken of the image. But I suppose a point may come where the pixels will become so small that the lens may not have the resolution to cope with it, so maybe at the 100% level images will look softer than with a lower MP chip. Is this what you are alluding to Jerry? Maybe new lenses will keep up with the chips, or maybe we should only view our images at 50% magnification!

Ben

[JerryReed]

Ben,

What I was saying is that the optical paths of the lens; to the eye and to the sensor may be different in length (as digital back grow larger that difference even ever so slight now can be significant in some cases).  Which may result in the camera indication that focus has been achieved, when it has not been.  This difference is not so important - as others have said - when the images are no so detailed as they are with the current  high end digital backs.  The Hy6 is a camera that can be used in situations outside the studio, where tethered connection to LV is not convenient, meaning one must rely on focus confirmation.  Earlier, I was discussing a situation in which using a manual focusing lens, the image was fine generally, but viewed at the pixel level it was just so so.  Since it took progress to arrive at at point in time where we had all these wonderful pixels, I just thought that it took that progress to "show up" the basis of focusing that has been used in general photography previously.

I would like to have the possibility of adjusting the two paths of light until they are equal, so that when the camera says focus has been achieved, it has been.

Canon has developed a means of compensating for this in the camera.  Lens Align (see attached) provides a means to find and correct this adjustment.

Jerry

[bdp]

Ben,

What I was saying is that the optical paths of the lens; to the eye and to the sensor may be different in length (as digital back grow larger that difference even ever so slight now can be significant in some cases).  Which may result in the camera indication that focus has been achieved, when it has not been.  This difference is not so important - as others have said - when the images are no so detailed as they are with the current  high end digital backs.  The Hy6 is a camera that can be used in situations outside the studio, where tethered connection to LV is not convenient, meaning one must rely on focus confirmation.  Earlier, I was discussing a situation in which using a manual focusing lens, the image was fine generally, but viewed at the pixel level it was just so so.  Since it took progress to arrive at at point in time where we had all these wonderful pixels, I just thought that it took that progress to "show up" the basis of focusing that has been used in general photography previously.

I would like to have the possibility of adjusting the two paths of light until they are equal, so that when the camera says focus has been achieved, it has been.

Canon has developed a means of compensating for this in the camera.  Lens Align (see attached) provides a means to find and correct this adjustment.

Jerry

I am still surprised that at f8 or f11 the focus confirmation in the camera is still not accurate enough to render the image sharp at 100% magnification.

My old Jenoptik back had the ability to adjust the CCD to lens distance in 1/20th of a mm steps through the use of 'foil stacks' which were shims that went between the camera adapter and digital back. Once the layers had been peeled off they could not be replaced. They were designed to compensate for variances in body manufacturing tolerances, and for my old Fuji 680 I needed a different foil stack for each lens.... a crappy camera if ever there was one. Close distance and far distance focus could have used different stacks too, but it was close enough and a quick check on the screen was OK for the stuff I shot. My Contax is fine with the standard Sinar adapter however, with every lens, close or far. I can definitely see the sense in the Canon/Nikon ability to adjust the CCD for each lens and for close/mid/far focus with lens align.

Ben

[Rob C]

I am still surprised that at f8 or f11 the focus confirmation in the camera is still not accurate enough to render the image sharp at 100% magnification.

Ben

It´s been a long time since I had to study these things, but there´s a memory lurking about depth of field and depth of focus being two different - very! - things and that longer focal length lenses have more depth of focus than short, an apparent inversion of what one might expect. What a hocus pocus photography is becoming!

Maybe using shorter focal lengths could make focus more precise instead? Remember, if what I seem to recall is correct, you would be seeing the depth of field changes in the viewfinder as you change focus or aperture, and not the depth of focus effect of the movements at the sensor/film, which might not be properly spaced at the best of times. Help!

Rob C

[tho_mas]

The Hy6 is a camera that can be used in situations outside the studio, where tethered connection to LV is not convenient, meaning one must rely on focus confirmation.

at the risk of getting boring... you don't have to rely on AF confirmation. Just mount a split image screen.
With a, say, 2.0/80 lens you really see if focus is at 30 meters or 29,8 meters... or if it is at 5 meters or 4,95 meters. In close distances you can tell millimeters.
... as long as the screen is adjusted really accurate to the film plane.
Microadjustment of lenses in current DSLRs is a great feature. But as long as you can't do it with your MF camera you might try to help yourself with more traditional tools.

[ziocan]

Better autofocus is the way to go for me.
A slightly out of focus or not tack sharp photo may be worth from 15 to 30mp less.
Dependently of which MF back someone is using.

That could cause waste of 39,000$, if someone is using a 60mp DB and the AF is not exactly working as it should and they get only 12mp worth of image.  
Kidding a part, that could easily happen shooting a model while she is just tilting her head back and forth. Shutter lag and slow AF could well deliver an image that could be made with an canon 5d.

[Dick Roadnight]

at the risk of getting boring... you don't have to rely on AF confirmation. Just mount a split image screen.
With a, say, 2.0/80 lens you really see if focus is at 30 meters or 29,8 meters... or if it is at 5 meters or 4,95 meters. In close distances you can tell millimeters.
... as long as the screen is adjusted really accurate to the film plane.
Microadjustment of lenses in current DSLRs is a great feature. But as long as you can't do it with your MF camera you might try to help yourself with more traditional tools.

Are split image screens available for all systems? I don't think Hasselblad have made them for the 50... have Silvestri made them for their sliding stitching back? and what is wrong with live view (when they make it for the H3D11-50)

Better autofocus is the way to go for me.

I used a split image screen for portraiture (of females), and focussed on the ears - so the hair was pin sharp, giving the impression that the whole picture was sharp, but with the face slightly soft... do you have an autofocus system that can do that for you? Can you have he eyes sharp and the cheeks soft?

[tho_mas]

Are split image screens available for all systems? I don't think Hasselblad have made them for the 50... have Silvestri made them for their sliding stitching back? and what is wrong with live view (when they make it for the H3D11-50)

don't know which system offers split screens but you can certainly get a third party screen (Brightscreen, Bill Maxwell).
A split image on groundglass for tech camera is possible but only with fast lenses. Around f5.6 the split goes dark.
As to the part of my quote you marked bold: do it yourself to align the screen to your specific DB.
And nothing is wrong with live view... as long as it works flawlessly.