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Author Topic: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???  (Read 118651 times)

Chris Barrett

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #140 on: March 05, 2013, 12:56:53 pm »

How do you manage to capture an image with just a digital back?

Or do you bill for lenses, cameras, software, computing time, etc etc under separate accounts?

I only mentioned the capture fee.  That is specifically relevant to the digital back and is what used to be our film, processing and polaroid part of the budget.  Retouching, licensing and DayRate are all separate from this of course.  I don't charge rental fees on my camera gear, that is more common in the motion industry.

gerald.d

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #141 on: March 05, 2013, 01:07:05 pm »

I only mentioned the capture fee.  That is specifically relevant to the digital back and is what used to be our film, processing and polaroid part of the budget.  Retouching, licensing and DayRate are all separate from this of course.  I don't charge rental fees on my camera gear, that is more common in the motion industry.

Thanks for the explanation - I know nothing of the professional side of things, and it initially seemed odd that you'd consider the ROI on just the back, without taking into account the cost of lenses, cameras, and other kit (personally, I have considerably more value in my cameras and lenses than I do my back).
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pixjohn

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #142 on: March 05, 2013, 03:02:05 pm »

TOO MANY TROLLS ???

Why do you even bother responding to them.
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HarperPhotos

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #143 on: March 05, 2013, 03:13:55 pm »

Hello Pixjohn,

Sorry but I have to disagree with your comment “TOO MANY TROLLS”

This is a open forum where people can freely write there opinions on the subject at hand.

You don’t have to agree with them but calling them trolls just make you look like a bigot.

I for one have personally decided to keep out of this discussion as its my business and no one else's what equipment I think is better for my work.

Cheers

Simon
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Simon Harper
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jerome_m

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #144 on: March 05, 2013, 06:05:55 pm »

Hi,

It is about pixels being sharp. If you look at an image at actual pixels the pixels should look sharp, that is sensor resolution would limit sharpness and not the lens. An OLP filtered image would be slightly fuzzy, but would respond well to sharpening.

Here are some images I got from Tim Parkin with different sharpening. Just to make clear, all these images were processed by me, using LR 4.3. I used my standard sharpening EKRNES which uses deconvolution at a small radius and another setting I call Tim Parkin which is a bit wider radius, higher amount and halo supression.

D800 - no sharpening

D800 - EKRNES (LR, 45,0.7,100, 17, 20)

D800 - TimParkin (LR, 100, 1, 0, 0)

The images below are from Tim's test image with the same sharpening settings as above




This is your image as from camera JPEG (which also has some sharpening)

And this is your image with my sharpening


You may note that the unsharpened IQ180 image is a bit soft, this depends on the pixels being small so the lens transfers little contrast at the pixel level. The higher the resolution the worse the pixels look. But the IQ180 has a lot of pixels.

I hope I have Tim's permission to use the images. He permitted me to use them in this article:
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/index.php/photoarticles/71-mf-digital-myths-or-facts

Tim Parkin is the editor of On Landscape: http://www.onlandscape.co.uk/

Best regards
Erik


I don't understand what you are asking from me. Do you want the raw files to try your own sharpening on it?
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jerome_m

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #145 on: March 05, 2013, 06:07:56 pm »

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ErikKaffehr

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #146 on: March 05, 2013, 11:27:36 pm »

Hi,

I'm not asking. Just try to explain why I'm skeptical about that image. Very clearly, a D800 image would need much more sharpening than a MFD image as it has an optical low pass filter which the MFD has not.

I presume that the MFD image is not a in camera JPEG but a raw image converted by Phocus, Capture One, LR, ACR or some other converter. All those converters apply (or may apply) significant sharpening. Having raw images for comparison may help.

In general I would a good lens stopped down to f/8 (or f/5.6) on an MFD produce better sharpness than a good lens at similar aperture on a smaller frame. This is described here: http://echophoto.smugmug.com/Travel/Stuff/i-465SpQG/0/O/20121112-_DSC0235.jpg (using an APS-C to MF comparison).

Best regards
Erik

I don't understand what you are asking from me. Do you want the raw files to try your own sharpening on it?
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FredBGG

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #147 on: March 06, 2013, 12:41:20 am »

If you want different samples, there is another one on my flickr account...

Why do you dismiss the sample from the D800 as "not typical", but accept a sample from a 7 years old Hasselblad camera with a resolution too low to be offered today? "Typical" for an Hasselblad would be a H4D-50...

Jerome

I took a look at some of the other samples you have on flickr and compared these two:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerome_munich/8517989977/sizes/o/in/set-72157632871812709/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerome_munich/8517975831/sizes/o/in/set-72157632871812709/

I found that there was not the difference that was visible in the previous comparison you showed.

While it is remarkable what the Hasselblad can do considering it is 7 years old, however it is remarkable that Nikon
can achieve this quality at a fraction of the price and with the significantly more flexible option
of an ultra wide zoom compared to a fixed focal length, not to mention the much wider angle the Nikon zoom is capable of.

Add to that that Nikon also makes a TS 24mm. The 14-24mm plus the 24mm TSE would be $ 4,000 while the Hasselblad 28mm only is $ 5,300.

It is also worth noting that the D800 is not quite as fine detailed as the D800E for this sort of thing

« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 01:40:34 am by FredBGG »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #148 on: March 06, 2013, 12:47:02 am »

Hi Fred,

And what did you find? Much interested about your findings.

Best regards
Erik



Jerome

I took a look at some of the other samples you have on flickr and compared these two:
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jerome_m

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #149 on: March 06, 2013, 02:02:04 am »

Jerome

I took a look at some of the other samples you have on flickr and compared these two:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerome_munich/8517989977/sizes/o/in/set-72157632871812709/

and

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jerome_munich/8517975831/sizes/o/in/set-72157632871812709/

I found that there was not the difference that was visible in the previous comparison you showed.

You are now comparing a H3D sample to a D800 sample treated from a NEF (raw) file. The D800 in camera jpeg is here.

But you chose a comparison taken at ISO 800. I took the same pictures at iso 100 (and 200, 400, 1600) and they are here (H3D) and here (D800 from RAW) or here (D800 from jpeg).

The whole set of pictures can be seen here.

This is what the whole picture looks like:


And this is a crop showing the two cameras side by side at ISO 100 when the colour balances are matched (click for pixel level detail):



In these pictures, I was not particularly interested in comparing sharpness, but rather to find about dynamic range, colour and noise of the H3D-31 in a low-light situation.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2013, 02:08:26 am by jerome_m »
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #150 on: March 06, 2013, 02:25:37 am »

Hi Jerome,

Thanks for the images. It would be nice to have the 100 ISO raw images. Phocus does some lens corrections in software, for instance it would eliminate lateral chromatic aberration. LR 4 would do that (by checking a checkbox) but it seems Aperture does not.

I essentially would be interested to have raw from both Hassy and Nikon.

Best regards
Erik
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #151 on: March 06, 2013, 02:26:23 am »

Nice church, where is it located if I may ask?

Cheers,
Bernard

jerome_m

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #152 on: March 06, 2013, 02:28:22 am »

Nice church, where is it located if I may ask?

That church as its own wikipedia article...  ;)
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torger

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #153 on: March 06, 2013, 02:29:26 am »

I call that just buying the right camera. ;)

I also think the "upgrade" idea is wrong. No matter what camera is released, my 645D will continue to produce wonderful images. Those images are not diminished because something else has better noise or high ISO or a nicer finish. THE most important factor in the quality of my work is me. If my work is only valued because of the number of pixels, I should start looking for another career.

I agree. However, the whole MFD business model is designed for frequent upgrading, so the business depends on people desiring to have the latest and greatest :)
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jerome_m

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #154 on: March 06, 2013, 02:29:55 am »

I essentially would be interested to have raw from both Hassy and Nikon.

How do you suggest I send you the files? They are quite big.
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Chris Livsey

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #155 on: March 06, 2013, 02:44:43 am »

I agree. However, the whole MFD business model is designed for frequent upgrading, so the business depends on people desiring to have the latest and greatest :)
That applies equally to the 35mm SLR model only the refresh rate there seems to be faster and the incremental "improvements" in larger steps.

Against that the 35mm SLR had big steps to take to catch up eg at the time of the P20 it was untouchable (base iso) to SLR (on pure quality) now with the D800E we have this thread which has moved from the SLR versatility argument to one on outright quality.
Arguably the versatility has been diminished with the requirement for optimum results to MLU and tripod the SLR. Has that levelled the playing field ?
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FredBGG

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #156 on: March 06, 2013, 02:45:50 am »

In these pictures, I was not particularly interested in comparing sharpness, but rather to find about dynamic range, color and noise of the H3D-31 in a low-light situation.

I compared both the ISO 800 and the ISO 100.

However to compare them more clearly when viewing crops I scaled down the Nikon so that
the features in the image were the same size.

The result was that the Nikon and Hasselblad were the same as far as detail goes, but that the Nikon
has better highlights and shadows thus being more descriptive. The difference is not huge, but it's there.
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FredBGG

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #157 on: March 06, 2013, 02:54:27 am »

That applies equally to the 35mm SLR model only the refresh rate there seems to be faster and the incremental "improvements" in larger steps.

Against that the 35mm SLR had big steps to take to catch up eg at the time of the P20 it was untouchable (base iso) to SLR (on pure quality) now with the D800E we have this thread which has moved from the SLR versatility argument to one on outright quality.
Arguably the versatility has been diminished with the requirement for optimum results to MLU and tripod the SLR. Has that levelled the playing field ?

D700 >>> D800    12MP >>> 36MP  One generation 3x the MP count as well as improved dynamic range.

The D7100 sensor scaled to FF would be 54MP

Also take away the tripod going hand held and compare the D800 with an image stabilized lens to the Hasselblad
at slow to slowish shutter speeds and the Nikon produce better results.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #158 on: March 06, 2013, 02:54:35 am »

Hi Jerome,

Working on it, will send you a PM with login info this evening.

Best regards
Erik
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???
« Reply #159 on: March 06, 2013, 03:29:53 am »

That church as its own wikipedia article...  ;)

Thanks. Too bad, I was in Munich in Jan 2011... wish I had known about it then.  :)

Cheers,
Bernard
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