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Thread: New Luminouse Landscape Article

  1. #1

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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    In the future an 80MP digital back may be able to match 4x5. But for me that will remain a moot point until they sell for less than about $5000.

  2. #2
    tim atherton's Avatar
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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    I'll repeat what I just posted in the Colour thread:

    Burtynsky was talking about the possibility of going digital with the new MF 39 mp backs coming out from Imacon/Hassleblad etc which he is busy testing. If they meet the quality and convenience he wants he will use them - if they don't he won't. (For one thing he finds LF with a Linhof MT a pain for aerial shots and believes these will be an improvement for that in particular). If he finds they do what he wants with less hassle than 4x5, then he will use them. If not, then no. (for example, he can still get a faster look at detail by shooting a test Pol type 55 shot and looking at the neg with his 10x loupe in a few seconds than he can waiting for a digital file to run through the system)
    You'd be amazed how small the demand is for pictures of trees... - Fred Astaire to Audrey Hepburn

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  3. #3
    matthew blais's Avatar
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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    http://www.largeformatphotography.info/lfforum/topic/502679.html
    "I invent nothing, I rediscover"
    August Rodin

    My Now old Photo Site

  4. #4

    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    Can someone tell me how you use front and back tilts or swings by looking at a 2" LCD screen? I can't even really do it worth a darn when using a roll film back.

  5. #5

    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    A few thoughts:

    I like the new P45, so I need to switch to an SLR. Why? Buy an adaptor for your 4x5. Digital is a medium, not a camera style.

    The test shots display the same detail as about 20 % larger for the P 45 file. Why? Reduce the P25 by 20% in photoshop, balance the color (Phase does not have the P45 dialed yet in C1, and this looks like a horrid conversion), and add noise at about 1%, and you have a decent comparison.

    This comparison is almost a film advertisement. The P 45 files as presented look rubber enough to bounce off a wall. With proper care, the files are significantly better.

  6. #6
    grumpy & miserable Joseph O'Neil's Avatar
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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    One extremely important issue, not addressed here, or on may of these digital reviews, is the point about power consumption.

    CCDs, and related hardware draw a hellva pile of juice, so you need either a connection to house current, or a heck of portable power supply.

    On a smei-related topic, I've used CCD based imagin cameras on a telescope inthe feild, and for a small chip, it's amazing the pwoer you need - something capable of supply power in amps, no milli-amps.

    I don't know how much pwoer some of these 4x5 backs will draw, but for use in teh feild, outside the studio, without a word of exaggeration, the size and weight of the generator or batter or power supply - ot whatever you are using - will rival hauling an 11x14 setup!

    Put it this way - this past summer, tromping around some Colorado mountians in the thin air at 12 to 14,000 feet, just with my 4x5, there were times I thought I was gonna die (Yes, I am a big wussy at heart

    Unless somebody develops a really small, very powerful fuel cell, I just don't see digital 4x5 (or larger) backs becomming very popular outside of a studio or too far away from a van loaded down with gear. Just ain't practical, IMO.

    joe
    eta gosha maaba, aaniish gaa zhiwebiziyin ?

  7. #7
    Abuser of God's Sunlight
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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    "CCDs, and related hardware draw a hellva pile of juice,"

    this is true ... it's also one of the things that's going to change over time. when the day comes that i can afford (0r am forced to afford) a digital back, it's likely they will be many times more efficient.

    one benefit of high efficiency ccds is that they could allow the same kind of constant-on viewing that people with digital point 'n shoots enjoy. you could have what's basically a digital ground glass ... either right on the back of the camera, or on a connected laptop. in the mean time, it's going to be an issue for a lot of people.

  8. #8

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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    Stephen Johnson has been using Better Light backs in the field for about ten years now. All it takes is money. At least in the case ofthe scanning backs, they really aren't that expensive anymore. Considering that some folks spend 30 minutes per shot fooling around under a dark cloth, so checking the image on a Powerbook isn't any worse a hardship.

    Every commercial shooter I know who has gotten a medium format back has spent a lot of time trying to justify it after they compare the results from a higher end DSLR that costs a fraction of the price. There are very few jobs left that require that many pixels, and I think Phase One and Hasselblad are selling expensive medium format cameras as much for the photographer's bragging rights as utility.

    I think the serious amateurs here - trying to make large prints from large format film or files - are the most demanding photographers these days. No pro needs to play with 500 mb files, but you guys do it all the time. But I'd be damned if I would take a $40K outfit out into the desert, seside or a snowstorm - while having no qualms about taking a LF film camera outdoors in the worst conditions.

  9. #9
    Kirk Gittings's Avatar
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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    Henceforth largeformat photographers will count the years as BP45 and AP45. We are in the first year of our Lord Pixel.
    Thanks,
    Kirk

    at age 73:
    "The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
    But I have promises to keep,
    And miles to go before I sleep,
    And miles to go before I sleep"

  10. #10

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    New Luminouse Landscape Article

    We compromise all the time. That 39mp back is a great compromise to 4x5 even though it's not exactly the same. You have to ask why anyone chooses 4x5 in the first place? The reason is that 4x5 is a good compromise to 8x10 and 8x10 is a good compromise to 11x14 and so forth.

    Is the difference between that 39mp digital system and a perfectly scanned sheet of 4x5 film greater that the difference between 4x5 film and 8x10 film? I bet that the digital and 4x5 are a lot closer to eachother than the 4x5 and 8x10 are to eachother. Compromise.

    As you 5x4 shooters might say; Different horses for different courses.

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