gdanmitchell
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 p.5 #9 · Worth it to Upgrade from Fujifilm X to GFX Series for Landscapes? | |
gear-nut wrote:
Diffraction is real, was real, and visible onscreen at 100% with 24 MP Fx with the best lenses of the day after f8. With today's 3.76u sensors --which includes GFX100 and the topic of this thread, Fx 60MP and Dx 40mp-- it is now visible after f5.6 on ANY system using good glass.
As @gdanmitchell@ stated above, *how* you choose to balance the relative plethora of high-resolution capture issues now becomes more critical; not always obvious to the uninitiated eye, but there none-the-less. In may respects this could be an argument for any photographer not interested in learning how to process out a raw file for an ultimate result, to stick to 24MP cameras, Fx or Dx, and adopt the old "f8 and be there" mantra for their photography.
However, if OTOH you do want to glean the ultimate from your files, in this case the OP's question of landscape files, the 100MP MF digital sensor is going to give you the absolute best results you can get *assuming careful and proper raw processing*. Here I will add that proper processing includes proper color management practices, and frankly few people here, especially in the Fx and Dx circles are facile with it. So, if you're competent with or willing to learn this, then by all means, MF digital is going to be worth every penny you put into it. But there is a likely let-down to all of this: in most cases while *you* will see the gains, many of your viewers, especially non-photographers, wont. It's actually rewarding when some do notice though, and makes it all worthwhile for me  ...Show more →
I don’t think we’re all that far apart on the bottom line. However, I’m want to make a point about determining the “absolute best results” on the basis of using the largest and higher MP sensor available.
It is true — as I’ve written many times — that the IQ potential of a larger sensor exceeds that of a smaller sensor if all else is equal. The problem is that all else is rarely, if ever, equal.
The alternative to, say, using a miniMF system with great skill is not exactly the “f/8 and be there” option that you portray. In fact, the f/8 and be there people are a pretty darned good example of why the best photography is sometimes made with equipment that isn’t that which produces the best specs on various test benches. That terms was not meant to denigrate image quality, but rather to put it in its place relative to certain kinds of photography. What and how you see, and how you realize this as a photograph is ultimately of far greater importance than the difference in resolution between a 60MP FF system and a 100MP miniMF system in most cases, especially if the smaller system is otherwise more appropriate for the kinds of photography you are doing.
Sometimes when considering whether miniMF is the right choice I see a couple of flawed perspectives from those who (often with very good reasons, including a few in this thread) choose to use that format. One is the implication (and sometimes outright claim) that those using a smaller format aren’t in some way as serious about their photography. The real world of photographers belies any such assumption. While many excellent photographers do use things like the Fujifilm GFX gear, far more do not. If I do a little mental count of the landscape (loosely defined) photographers that I know (including folks who are widely exhibited, published, run very highly regarded workshops, in quite a few cases literally worked with or studied with A Adams, etc.) I can think of two who use GFX or similar systems. (A third one might be included.) But two of those also use full frame gear at times. And almost all the others use full-frame digital systems — a quick mental count is about a dozen photographers. One other still almost exclusively shoots black and white film, and another primarily uses a cropped sensor system.
These are most certainly not “f/8 and be there” people, dashing around, casually firing of shots in auto mode. These are very serious, thoughtful photographers.
So, what could explain their choice to use an “inferior” format for their work? Surely it is not that they don’t care about the quality of their prints, books, or the images they licenses. It isn’t that they don’t make and sell rather large prints. It goes back to that balance thing. While the miniMF gear can produce image quality that is technically better by measurable standards, it would not make their photograph or their photographs better — for reasons I’ve written about ad nauseam.
Let’s loop this back to the start of this thread — the particular poster who asked the question and what we can understand about this person’s approach to photography. Way back at the start of the thread, I and quite a few other people wrote that the objective “better-ness” of the files from the GFX system would be quite unlikely to improve the results for this particular photographer. I still think that is true, too.
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