Chas and Rodolfo:
Thanks for your input. First, Chas\' suggestion to use MF digital is a good one if you have experience with shooting food with that system... not to mention processing files in Capture One. I don\'t. There is significantly less depth of field with MF optics than with a 1.37 cropped sensor on the DMR. Not being familiar with the system being rented, I\'d be a fool not to rent the camera for several days (weeks?) before the shoot to try and learn the ins and outs of shooting with a new camera and attempting to learn the software. Any time saved over stitching with the Leica would be lost 3X over while attempting to deal with the limited depth of field on the MF digital camera (not to mention trying to understand the software for processing images). If I were familiar with a particular MF digital system and it\'s requisite software this would be a no brainer. I have 5 lenses from 50 to 135, all fixed focal length and none with internal focus, for the Leica so there will be no shifting of the nodal point depending on focus (as there can be with internal focus lenses). These lenses are sharp wide open and I\'m intimately familiar with them.
W/respect to Rodolfo\'s high megapixel Nikon, Canon or Sony suggestion: again I am unfamiliar with these cameras. All three will have less depth of field than my cropped sensor Leica and none will have the color rendition the Leica has (16 bits). Stitching 6-24 megapixel images will take much longer than six to nine 10 megapixel images. Then there is the aspect of being completely unfamiliar with these cameras. This is not something you want to be doing for a paying job at a large hotel where you\'re under the gun.
Another point is that it only makes sense to focus manually for such subject matter. The Leica is a manual focus camera and I have focus magnifiers and viewing screens that will aid with focusing. I\'d rather not let a Nikon, Canon or Sony choose my focus (not that you can\'t manually focus with them as you can... but why try and reinvent the wheel when the Leica is optimized for autofocus?)
Thanks for the suggestions though. I think I\'ll stick with what I\'m familiar with. The initial question was about whether stitching with a RRS bracket would work with food photography. I\'m satisfied with Stuart\'s answer that it will... and that there is no substitute for spending sufficient time to practice, practice and practice with the bracket so as to make the best use of it.
One question I still have w/respect to stitching is concerning overlap: given that I\'ll be working in a controlled lighting situation, will it still be necessary to overlap by 30%?
Nov 02, 2009 at 10:58 AM
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