"Digital" View Camera

[Bruce E. Rathbun]

"Digital image quality is superior to that of film. And when you factor in ease of use, speed and assuredness of results, and flexibility of image processing, there isn't that much of a contest any more."

Since when did digital vs. film become a "contest"? One item that never seems to be mentioned is the quality of a contact print when compared to digital. A few years back I ran a simple test. A portrait that I had taken on 8"x10" was contact printed on Azo. The same portrait was captured on a digital back (Mamiya 654) and printed as a 4 color black and white print. Although the digital image was nice the Azo blew the digital away. I find that every digital image that I see has the same sterile type of look. Very hollow shadows and highlights tend to blow out. And what about the constant need to upgrade the digital gear? The average life span of a digital back is at maximum 10 years. Funny how the longevity of a view camera and lenses never get any mention in articles like this. I have three wooden cameras that will last my lifetime when taken care of.

Digital will always be the choice for commercial, advertising, fashion, product and architecture work. For fine art work (landscapes, black and white portraits, abstracts) the use of film is at the present time the best option. Speaking of landscapes I also find the reference to Clyde Butcher very odd if not offensive. What Clyde does is fine art at a very high level. Not the same for Michael Reichman.

With articles like this there is no wonder why fine art photographers are having problems setting the record straight. There is even on rather famous photographer that is selling what he claims to be “digital platinum palladium”. Will the nonsense ever stop? I say let those who enjoy the simplicity of using film alone.

-Bruce

[John Brownlow]

What Walter said re file sizes.

I had one of the original 1Ds cameras and, up to about 11x14, it was the equal of 6x9 in terms of sharpness and tonality. That was an 11 MP capture.

As soon as you got bigger than that, the image fell apart.

I personally can't bear to look at a digital image blown up much past 300 ppi, because the softness drives me nuts. With scanned neg I find that a 10x enlargement looks OK, partly *because* it has grain... even if the image isn't critically sharp, if the scanner is resolving grain, the image looks OK. (This is why 35mm blown up big looks fine whereas a 5MP capture blown up to the same size looks horrible).

The Phase One P45 is 7216 x 5412 pixels. So that gets you to 24" x 18" more or less. If you were less sniffy than me about blowing up digital images you might go to 24o ppi, which gets you 30" x 22.5".

Now, my 6x9 Fuji gives me a 24" x 36" print which is satisfyingly sharp. So there's a rough equivalent here in terms of enlargeability. I don't know about tonality. I bet the P45 image is cleaner, which may make quite a difference. I've seen prints from the Phase One of about this size which blew me away. They looked like 4x5.

Anyway, the real point I wanted to make here about film cameras is that, compared to digital, they are *cheap*. That means you can own more of them. I have a bunch... a Rollei 6x6, a Fuji 6x9, a Fuji 6x17, a Noblex, a 4x5... and you know what? They all do different things. Shooting something with the SL66 is *completely different* to shooting it with the Fuji 6x17, or the Noblex. Radically, totally different. It's like playing different guitars, or shooting different guns, or driving different cars. Then you can throw in different emulsions, and you get another degree of freedom. Shooting something on Pan F is radically different to shooting it on Portra NC 400, just like playing a Jazzmaster through a Fender Twin is different from playing it through a Marshall.

Now, of course, you can mimic these qualities in digital, just as you can fire up Guitar Rig on your computer and get some amazing tones from the virtual amps. But it ain't the real thing.

That's not the whole story, of course, as there are digital 'looks' which film cannot approximate (eg mixed lighting during twilight).

The point I am bumbling towards is that it isn't film vs. digital, it's film AND digital. I'd certainly be interested in a cost-effective digital solution to working in LF. I just haven't seen it yet.

[Ralph Barker]

The Linhof M679 is certainly a nicely-engineered medium-format view camera. And, the PhaseOne P45 is also an interesting digital back that can be adapted to the Linhof and other cameras. But, at $33K for the back (with a 3-yr warranty), and over $8K for the M679 (if you want shifts), the combo is far too rich for my blood.

Bruce said, "Since when did digital vs. film become a "contest"?"

I believe the "contest" is a result of the marketing of digital products and the need to make them competitive with, and as a replacement for film-based photography. Otherwise, it would be difficult to justify the investment (and re-investment every 18 months to two years) in the digital equipment simply based on the quick turn-around for digital-appropriate assignments.

Walter said, "When one scans film, you scan the grain and resolution limits of that film. Digital can match or exceed scanned film with smaller files because of the lack of grain."

That may be true, but it may be more accurate to add "as affected by the resolution of the scanner and the effects of the scanning methods". That is, the scanning process introduces another step that affects image quality prior to the final print. Thus, the quality of the scan depends first on the quality of the film image, and then on the quality of the scanner as well as the methods used in scanning.

To me, it seems that one of the elements that attracts some photographers to LF is the added detail that is available with larger film formats. That added detail, even if our eyes aren't supposed to be able to actually "resolve" it, adds a richness (for lack of a technically more accurate term) to the LF images that is lacking in smaller formats.

So, when I think about digital capture compared to film-based capture, I think in terms of real detail present in the image. The PhaseOne P45, for example, produces an image that is 7,216x5,412 pixels (39 megapixels) in size, each pixel being a single color from the available digital palette, as affected by the bit-depth of the digital file. Based on the comments from drum-scanner operators (here and elsewhere), fine-grained film seems to run out of additional detail somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 PPI. If we assume the lower end of that scale, 4,000 PPI, and a scan made with a high-quality drum scanner, a good 4x5 negative will produce something close to a 16,000x20,000 pixel scan, or about 320 megapixels (ignoring the film margin for ease of calculation). Thus, I have a hard time understanding how 39 megapixels of detail can be "better" than 320 megapixels of detail.

[darr]

"just like playing a Jazzmaster through a Fender Twin is
different from playing it through a Marshall"

A little off-topic, but fun: I remember when Ovations were not considered the real thing either.

[Frank Petronio]

I dunno, I'm looking at a 24 x 30 color print from a 6mp D70 file. It ain't the same as a 35mm scan or trad print, but I think it enlarges beautifully, even when it does go "soft" it does it smoothly. Different cameras, software, and techniques have the same variety of "looks" as different types of film, and I tend to introduce some noise for a "tooth" rather than going for absolute resolution anyway. The point is not to make my 6mp RAW files look like 8x10 TMX -- I'm just trying to get the most out of the inherant quality of the medium, just like Ansel and Weston ;-)

I think a lot of people hate digital because they try to play with an in-camera jpg in sRGB and they get crappy results. But they'd get crappy results from home processing a C41 disposable and sloppy darkroom technique too - while they should be comparing "best practices" techniques consistently with both digital and film photography.

Getting super resolution isn't that important. The reason I'm loving 8x10 film isn't because of the resolution. I like the way the film, lens, and subject relate to each other. There is a relationship between a big camera and the people/things that you photograph that you can't get from a 44mm chip. I love the reaction that portrait subjects give me when I focus the 8x10 on them, compared to rapid fire shooting with the D2x or whatever.

If I won the lottery I'd run out and get a Leaf Aptus 75 set-up next week, no question. But I'd still shoot film too.

[Jim collum]

Thus, I have a hard time understanding how 39 megapixels of detail can be "better" than 320 megapixels of detail.

it can't. i shoot both film and digital, and picked up a used Howtek d4500 on ebay a bit ago. My digital work is divided between using a 1dsmk2 with adjacent images stitched (giving about 39 Mp), and the Betterlight (giving 9,000x12,000). The 1dsmk2 image are on par with 6x7/6x9, enlarged up to about 24x30. after that they start falling apart (in my opinion).

i agree.. with most bayer sensor's 300ppi is about a low as i go to print. The 'true color' sensors (foveon, betterlight), will handle a much larger amount, and i can get prints with no digital artifacts at 200ppi easily.

as far as image size vs file size. everyone always says they can get tons of Mb's from their scanned images. not a problem. i can scan a 35mm slide into close to a 1Gb file. in the same manner, i can take a digital camera phone (1Mp) file and create a 1Gb file. Both are full of garbage. from observation (and i'm a 'detail' fanatic with images), the 9,000x12,000 betterlight capture will give me better, more useable detail then provia/velvia drum scanned on my Howtek. Also a *much* wider Dynamic range (closer to color negative film).

would i use it on a rainy day? nope.. too much hassle. i'd either use the film i carry along with me (if i needed the movements and enlargeability), or the 1dsmk2.

The real limiting factor that i've found is lens resolution. I have to go thru different lenses and test to find ones that don't limit the betterlight (and limit film i'd imagine).. i've seen the quote of velvia being able to capture 150 lppm. that's a pretty irrelevent statistic when some of the best lenses i've tested are limited to 80lppm (and those are *very* rare).. most sit somewhere between 30 (really bad) and 60, at f11

[tim atherton]

"The real limiting factor that i've found is lens resolution. I have to go thru different lenses and test to find ones that don't limit the betterlight (and limit film i'd imagine).. i've seen the quote of velvia being able to capture 150 lppm. that's a pretty irrelevent statistic when some of the best lenses i've tested are limited to 80lppm (and those are *very* rare).. most sit somewhere between 30 (really bad) and 60, at f11"

You could always use 35mm and get 400 lp/mm ... :-)

[John Brownlow]

Based on the comments from drum-scanner operators (here and elsewhere), fine-grained film seems to run out of additional detail somewhere between 4,000 and 8,000 PPI. If we assume the lower end of that scale, 4,000 PPI, and a scan made with a high-quality drum scanner, a good 4x5 negative will produce something close to a 16,000x20,000 pixel scan, or about 320 megapixels (ignoring the film margin for ease of calculation). Thus, I have a hard time understanding how 39 megapixels of detail can be "better" than 320 megapixels of detail.

Mainly because when you hit the resolution limit of film, you are beginning to resolve grain, so the signal to noise ratio gets rather high. Whereas with a digital capture at low ISO the image remains very clean all the way down to the pixels.

You see this when you blow a 4x5 and a digital image up big. The 4x5 remains crispy, but you start to see a little bit of the grain. The digital image remains smooth, but the sharpness seems to fall away. They degrade differently, in other words. It's much easier to see than to describe.

My own rule of thumb based on personal experience is that 8x magnification of film is roughly equivalent to 240 ppi output of a digital capture at the same ISO. Equivalently, measure the area of film in square cm and multiply by about 0.6 to get the equivalent in Mega pixels. (You can do the math if you think the film/digital equivalence is different -- my numbers are pretty conservative and err slightly on the side of digital I think).

This gives you the following rough equivalences:

35mm = 5 MP <-- feels about right

6x6 = 21 MP

6x9 = 32 MP

4x5 = 77 MP

8x10 = 309 MP

6x12 = 43 MP

6x17 = 61 MP

So I would expect the 45 back to chime in somewhere between 6x9 and 4x5, in terms of resolution on the print.

[CXC]

The best portrait I ever took was with an APS camera. It is sufficiently interesting, that the modest resolution, and inability to enlarge to 50"x60", seem completely irrelevant. So very little of the art of photography is a function of the equipment.

Like most of LumLan stuff, this article was filled with interesting technical info, mixed with some strong opinions. Makes for good reading.

[Jack Flesher]

As an aside, I have been asking MR a few questions about his outfit in a thread on his forums and an interesting "shortcoming" of the P45 came up -- at least from my perspective. It seems it the P45 is NOT capable of "real-time" focus when tethered! Anybody who has shot high-resolution digital using real-time focus can tell you that even the *slightest* touch on the focus knob imparts a direct and visible change to the image focus.

If I wanted single-capture digital MF, this factor alone would have me looking at one of the multi-shot backs like the Sinar or Leaf since their software does allow real-time focus when tethered. And as Frank indicated, they also would allow for multi-shot capability when desired which adds resolution and color-depth. In my case, I don't have $30,000 in loose change sitting around for either option, so the issue is moot. But I am looking into a BetterLight scanning back as a viable solution