carstenw wrote:
I was using a Sinar e54LV (22MP)... I will have another one day, maybe a Phase One instead, since they supposedly play better with the Contax.....
How did you find the C645 lenses on a digital back, especially the 35 or 45 Distagon - if you used them with that combination. I know crop factor can also come into play, but what did you think?
A couple arch shooters I know went from LF film to canon with TS lenses. No one is using mfdb but they don't have to print 6' wide either. if you used to shoot MF or LF film you remember how much slower the workflow is but the quality was substantially better than 35. Not taking into account the different 'look' of larger formats the 'quality' is debatable, at normal print sizes.
kawasakiguy37 wrote:
Split the difference and a get a nicer digital and medium format film. MF sensors have a long way to come and you may as well get a better one later....
At the risk of adding to the fray, here's another way to look at it: I got into MF liking the bigger negative over 35 mm. Thought MFDB would be the same - its not. Its more like having a portable 4x5 camera. You can hand hold it at times, but its not the same as a 35 mm based camera. What you get is great - in part because of the better lenses, tighter tolerances, bigger and different sensor, RAW workflow, no AA filter. They also require more thoughtfulness in shooting (slower) and thus for some people (emphasize: some) they take better and more thoughtful shots.
Every point in this can be contested, and to some degree be matched or at least put into discussion with a good 35 DSLR. In sum however, the whole is quite different. We have a 7D kicking around here, have used an M8, and lots of film.... these days, the Leaf back is getting the use. Somewhat clumsy, slow, and a bit of a handful, but eye popping results. Its an odd comparison, but I feel like I'm shooting 4x5 film. Remember that stuff? And those contact prints that just popped out? Its like that experience.
For dim light or anything with a super long lens or action - don't even think about it. Run the other way. But for landscape....
Guys I dont know what kind of photography you do but personally when I change format I feel like I have to reinvent my photography. And frankly I'm astonished at the ease that you consider changing format basing your decision only on technical details.
AFAIC larger formats are there to solve the problem of magnification, perspective and composition, usually in landscape photography. The typical problem is that a mountain (for example) shot with a wide lense looks distant and small unless you go and stand really close in which case you cant see it all. This closeup/wideangle photo can work if there is some foreground interest really close to the lens but this is restrictive and although impressive it is also a little overdone. So you need telephoto, but then the mountain doesnt fit in the frame unless you go and stand 3 mountains away. So you need tele with a bigger image circle and a bigger recording medium to capture it all ie large format, or at least MF. And what you get is a photo with a massively different feel and impact because of the different perspective and magnification. I dont know how those stitching machines work, maybe the end result looks the same as LF but I know its not a substitute of a real camera because you're shooting blind with no preview of the final photo. That to me shows a great disrespect to composition! how can you compose if you cant see the magnification of your lens, cant see where your frame ends, if the points of interest balance in the frame, check for things that are overlapping, if the leading lines work... etc. It takes a much better photographer than me I guess.
Sorry I have nothing to contribute to the IQ discussion, IQ never bothered me much.
Perspective is only dependent on where you stand, never on anything like format or focal length.
Then you can get any FoV you like and any composition with any format by selecting the focal length that suits.
Provided you can get the required aperture on that focal length, you can also get the same DoF, except with tiny sensors like a P&S
The advantage with larger format is resolution, distortion, aberrations and tonality/noise.
Spyro P. wrote:
I dont know how those stitching machines work, maybe the end result looks the same as LF but I know its not a substitute of a real camera because you're shooting blind with no preview of the final photo. That to me shows a great disrespect to composition! how can you compose if you cant see the magnification of your lens, cant see where your frame ends, if the points of interest balance in the frame, check for things that are overlapping, if the leading lines work... etc. It takes a much better photographer than me I guess.
It works this way: First you define the angle of view of the lens you are using. Then you point it to the upper left corner and then to the lower right corner and it takes the sequence of images. You can see where your frame starts and ends but it can be difficult to visualize the end result if you are covering a large area.
You can however do your framing/composition after the fact in postprocessing by cropping the image. Here's a simple example - the first test panorama that I made:
wayne seltzer wrote:
yeah, but that flirtatious girl is going to drain your bank account fast! !
I would probably rent/lease a 80MP back, rather than get on their fast depreciation track, where you have to keep paying them a chunk of money to upgrade to avoid the bit hit of the old back depreciating substantially.
There is a lot of space between the very new 80MP and the older backs out there. A 22MP 48x36mm back, legendary for its fat pixels and awesome low-ISO performance, can be had for 3-5000 Euro.
sirimiri wrote:
How did you find the C645 lenses on a digital back, especially the 35 or 45 Distagon - if you used them with that combination. I know crop factor can also come into play, but what did you think?
I loved them! The Contax 645 lenses, or at least some of them, are fully capable of delivering with backs up to the P65+. I don't know if they still keep up with the new 80MP backs, but I expect so. I was using primarily the 35/3.5 and 120/4 Makro, with a little 80/2 thrown in. The latter was a tad softer. The 55 is also meant to be great, but the 45 has a mixed reputation, as does the 210. I am not sure about the rest.
geoffreyg wrote:
[...]these days, the Leaf back is getting the use. Somewhat clumsy, slow, and a bit of a handful, but eye popping results. Its an odd comparison, but I feel like I'm shooting 4x5 film. Remember that stuff? And those contact prints that just popped out? Its like that experience.
I still shoot 4x5 (albeit rarely) and agree! There are some tolerance issues with some cameras, backs and lenses, so it pays to test before buying, but that is also the case with 35mm DLSRs.
alundeb wrote:
Perspective is only dependent on where you stand, never on anything like format or focal length.
Then you can get any FoV you like and any composition with any format by selecting the focal length that suits.
Provided you can get the required aperture on that focal length, you can also get the same DoF, except with tiny sensors like a P&S
All correct.
But in practice all these things are related. By changing lenses you can get the FOV you want, what you cant get is the FOV and magnification you want, which is the start of all problems. Wideangle makes distant things look really small, tele brings them closer but things dont fit in the frame anymore, which forces me to change where I stand which affects perspective. Thats the problem I'm describing, which is solved only by larger format.
Anyway all these things are extremeley important to me because they affect the feel of my photos, I understand and respect the fact that others might have different priorities.
Spyro P. wrote:
All correct.
But in practice all these things are related. By changing lenses you can get the FOV you want, what you cant get is the FOV and magnification you want, which is the start of all problems. Wideangle makes distant things look really small, tele brings them closer but things dont fit in the frame anymore, which forces me to change where I stand which affects perspective. Thats the problem I'm describing, which is solved only by larger format.
Anyway all these things are extremeley important to me because they affect the feel of my photos, I understand and respect the fact that others might have different priorities. ...Show more →
Since you stated your not referring to enlargement capability of the final image, I don't follow what your talking about. Perhaps you could give an example with specific formats and lenses. For instance, if I shoot both 4x5 and 35mm and stand at the exact same place, I can roughly get the same fov using a 90mm on the 4x5 and a 28mm on 35. I say roughly because there will be a slight composition difference due to the different aspect ratios of both formats, but that's about it. Is this what your referring to?
I agree with Spyro. It is not easy to recreate a landscape image take with a MFDB back and say a 35mm focal length lens in portrait orientation that has detailed objects like flowers in the foreground and say mountains in the background, which has the same distance between foreground and background and same size magnification of the mountains in the background. If you use a wider angle lens you can get the same AOV but the mountains will be farther away and smaller. If you use a longer focal length lens and stitch you can get the same magnification/size of the background mtns. But you will not have enough DOF without having to resort to some focus bracketing/merging (heliconfocus software) to get the foreground in focus too with the longer focal length lens as well as stitching on top of that. Right?
I have seen 24 x 36 print comparisons between shots taken with a P45 and a 1ds3 two years ago and it was easy to see the difference between the two.
wayne seltzer wrote:
If you use a longer focal length lens and stitch you can get the same magnification/size of the background mtns. But you will not have enough DOF without having to resort to some focus bracketing/merging (heliconfocus software) to get the foreground in focus too with the longer focal length lens as well as stitching on top of that. Right?
No, that's not correct. DOF is a function of focal length, distance and aperture and independent of image format. A full frame camera is to a medium format camera what a crop camera is to a full format camera. If you take a medium format frame and crop it to 24x36 you'll get an identical image to what you have gotten if you had used a full format camera (with a lens of the same FL, aperture etc). Conversely if you stitch together a couple of FF frames that cover the same area as a medium format frame you'll end up with the same thing as if it was captured by a medium format camera.
Crop is just crop - no different from when you do it in photoshop. The cropped part of the image is not changed by it being cropped.
So why bother with large sensors if you can just take a small sensor camera and stitch together the images?
1) You are limited to static subjects
2) You can't visualize the results when taking the image
3) You need bulky equipment (if you do automated capture anyway)
4) You need to be very precise with nodal point alignment to get a flat field
5) You end up with a large amount of partial files that are a hassle to manage
6) You end up (after stitching) with a TIFF or a JPEG - i.e not a RAW file.
The benefit is that you can get an incredible resolution and quality. I have not used my Gigapan a lot, but I've done stitched images that consisted of up to 160 images (16*10). That's the equivalent of a 560 mm x 240mm sensor. That's larger than the largest ultra large format cameras. That's a 25 times larger area than the standard 4x5 large format and 3.3 gigapixels total. It's unbeatable for quality and not by a small margin.
wayne seltzer wrote:
I agree with Spyro. It is not easy to recreate a landscape image take with a MFDB back and say a 35mm focal length lens in portrait orientation that has detailed objects like flowers in the foreground and say mountains in the background, which has the same distance between foreground and background and same size magnification of the mountains in the background. If you use a wider angle lens you can get the same AOV but the mountains will be farther away and smaller. If you use a longer focal length lens and stitch you can get the same magnification/size of the background mtns. ...Show more →
Actually, this is not the case. To quote Phil Davis from my twenty five year old Photo 1 textbook:
"Contrary to a fairly common belief, lenses themselves don't affect perspective. The camera to subject distance does. From any given viewpoint, you'll get identical perspective with any lens your camera can accept."
This idea of "magnification" that both you and Spyro are suggesting (if I understand both of you correctly) is not possible because it would require that perspective change simply by changing lenses and film/digital formats WHILE STANDING AT THE SAME VIEWPOINT (PLACE). The lens used nor the format has the ability to alter the relative size of objects to one another in front of you. The only way that relationship changes is if you physically change your position.
Tariq Gibran wrote:
if I shoot both 4x5 and 35mm and stand at the exact same place, I can roughly get the same fov using a 90mm on the 4x5 and a 28mm on 35.
In this scenario, if there is a mountain faraway, in the photo produced by the small film/wide lens combo it will appear much smaller than with the large film/tele lens combo.
Spyro P. wrote:
In this scenario, if there is a mountain faraway, in the photo produced by the small film/wide lens combo it will appear much smaller than with the large film/tele lens combo.
I have shot this combo back to back and the magnification and fov are nearly identical. The only thing that differs is the aspect ratio between the formats. If the lenses have a similar angle of view on their respective formats - which is the case with the 90mm on 4x5 as compared to the 28 on 35mm - objects in the frame of view will appear approximately the same size.
Spyro P. wrote:
I have no reason not to believe you Tariq, I'm probably not explaining this properly.
I have no doubt that there is something I'm not quite understanding about what you mean as well. Just trying to figure out what it is. I think it must be the aspect ratio difference coming into play between 4x5 and say 35mm. That difference would favor 4x5 and allow you to get more vertical subject matter in the frame with the 4x5 as compared to the 35mm. In order to get the same amount of vertical subject matter that the 4x5 gives, one would have to resort to an even wider angle lens on the 35mm, say something like a 24mm...and that would indeed result in the 90mm on 4x5 giving more apparent magnification (the mountain being larger with the 4x5 vs the 35 though actually if you cropped the 24mm image from the 35 to match the exact same composition as the 4x5, the magnification would be the exact same for all objects in the frame). Then you might end up with the same as the 4x5 vertically but get a lot more in the frame horizontally. The above assumes both cameras are horizontal. There is always the above dilemma when comparing equivalent focal lengths on formats that have different aspect ratios. Do you go by the equivalent horizontal, vertical or diagonal AOV.
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