New BetterLight back

[Marko]

Better Light has annoucned a new back coming by the end of March:

http://www.betterlight.com/super10K_PR.html

In short:

72 x 96mm capture area
10,200 x 13,600 pixels
416 Megapixels
794 MB 48-bit true RGB (no interpolation)
70 lines/mm with 60% contrast (per manufacturer specs, no tests yet)
1/8th - 1/20th of a second capture times
64 - 1000 ISO
11 resolution settings
ICC-aware
$22,995

[Jack Flesher]

Hehehe, pretty sweet, eh? Only problem is finding lenses that will as good as that sensor!

[Jim collum]

this would be an excellent solution for art repro... especially very large images that need to be repro'd at the same size.

i'd say it has limited, if any, use in field capture (the Super6K actually gives more than you really need for the field). There are very few lenses than will be usable with the back, since it out resolves almost every commercially available lens for LF.

[Marko]

this would be an excellent solution for art repro... especially very large images that need to be repro'd at the same size.

i'd say it has limited, if any, use in field capture (the Super6K actually gives more than you really need for the field). There are very few lenses than will be usable with the back, since it out resolves almost every commercially available lens for LF.

That's what they singled out in their release as the primary field of application.

But I find it very interesting for all of us as it is indicative of the way and pace of progress in LF digital capture.

[Jim collum]

That's what they singled out in their release as the primary field of application.

But I find it very interesting for all of us as it is indicative of the way and pace of progress in LF digital capture.

capture of raw image data (4x5 LF) has been at it's maximum for quite a while (i got my back in 2001). With the Super 6k that i use (9000x12000), i often exceed the capabilities of the lens before i do the sensor. I've had to pick and choose very carefully to get lenses that will capture at that resolution. The area that needs to be addressed is speed of capture and 'size' of the capture package (and there have been upgrades that have addressed both of these areas.. but there can still be more done).

[Ted Harris]

this would be an excellent solution for art repro... especially very large images that need to be repro'd at the same size.

In fact, Better Light and Academic Imaging are working together to design a turnkey art reproduction system using a modified version of the Fotoman 45PS camera on which to mount the Better Light back. I spoke in some detail with Jerry Skapoff at Academic Imaging and Mike Collette at Better Light about the system last week. They should have a prototype ready to go in the not too distant future. Target market will be museums and universities.

[DrPablo]

There are very few lenses than will be usable with the back, since it out resolves almost every commercially available lens for LF.

Why would that make them unusable?

This back can resolve 70.8 lpm, which is lower than virtually any film available for large format. How do I calculate this? Well, to distinguish a line pair, a digital sensor would require two pixels (i.e. to distinguish two different details). And this sensor has 70.8 pixel pairs per mm. Tmax has twice the resolution of this sensor.

If you look at these LF lens tests you'll realize that they're almost uniformly going to be outresolved by black and white films, and frequently outresolved by color films as well. In fact, in the case of ULF, where people use some antique lenses, the lenses can be grossly outresolved by the film. If being outresolved by film was that much of a problem, then Kodak would have never been able to sell Tech Pan for pictorial photography.

The thing is, this idea is commonly voiced by people with the Canon 5D or 1Ds Mark II, who often complain that their high res sensors are brutal on poorly performing lenses. (This is despite the 1DsII resolves 78 lpm and the 5D resolves 61 lpm). But the problem is that they assume that pixels are everything and enlarge these postage stamp-sized images far beyond the resolving capacity of the lens, just because they have enough pixels to do so.

I think in the case of this this big scanning back, it's barely an issue at all. If you have a 50 lpm lens on this 2.8 x 3.7 inch sensor, you could enlarge an image to at least 20x26 inches and it would still be sharp from a 10 inch viewing distance (because that enlargement would retain 7 lpm detail density). And if you made a wall-sized print at 60x78 it would be sharp at a 30 inch viewing distance.

That's not much different that we expect from 4x5 film at those enlargements.

[Jim collum]

ok. not unuseable. .but if you don't find a lens that can match the performance of the back , then the Betterlight Super6K or 8K is more than enough to capture the actual detail the lens will resolve. To get your money out of getting a 10K, you need a very special lens.. not just any will do it justice.

Why would that make them unusable?

This back can resolve 70.8 lpm, which is lower than virtually any film available for large format. How do I calculate this? Well, to distinguish a line pair, a digital sensor would require two pixels (i.e. to distinguish two different details). And this sensor has 70.8 pixel pairs per mm. Tmax has twice the resolution of this sensor.

If you look at these LF lens tests you'll realize that they're almost uniformly going to be outresolved by black and white films, and frequently outresolved by color films as well. In fact, in the case of ULF, where people use some antique lenses, the lenses can be grossly outresolved by the film. If being outresolved by film was that much of a problem, then Kodak would have never been able to sell Tech Pan for pictorial photography.

The thing is, this idea is commonly voiced by people with the Canon 5D or 1Ds Mark II, who often complain that their high res sensors are brutal on poorly performing lenses. (This is despite the 1DsII resolves 78 lpm and the 5D resolves 61 lpm). But the problem is that they assume that pixels are everything and enlarge these postage stamp-sized images far beyond the resolving capacity of the lens, just because they have enough pixels to do so.

I think in the case of this this big scanning back, it's barely an issue at all. If you have a 50 lpm lens on this 2.8 x 3.7 inch sensor, you could enlarge an image to at least 20x26 inches and it would still be sharp from a 10 inch viewing distance (because that enlargement would retain 7 lpm detail density). And if you made a wall-sized print at 60x78 it would be sharp at a 30 inch viewing distance.

That's not much different that we expect from 4x5 film at those enlargements.

[QT Luong]

It is a common mistake to assume that the resolution of a system is strictly limited by the resolution of the weakest element. For instance that if you have a 50lpm lens, then nothing is gained by having a medium (film or digital sensor) that captures more than 50lpm. The system resolution is a convolution of both components, and not the lesser value of both, which is quite well approximated by 1/R_total = 1/R1 + 1/R2.

[DrPablo]

ok. not unuseable. .but if you don't find a lens that can match the performance of the back , then the Betterlight Super6K or 8K is more than enough to capture the actual detail the lens will resolve. To get your money out of getting a 10K, you need a very special lens.. not just any will do it justice.

But why can't you make the same argument for film? I mean Tmax 100 has better resolution than HP5, but they've both got better resolution than any large format lens they'll ever see. And grain isn't the answer, because it would take one heck of an enlargement for grain to be a problem. So why suffer the slower speed film for fine resolution when an ISO 400 film will also outresolve the lens?

I think it's enlargements that place requirements on lens resolution, not sensor or film resolution. The resolution of this back is still half that of routinely used films. Lenses don't transmit pixels, of course, they transmit continuous light that will resolve real world details down to a certain point. If you use a higher resolution sensor you will have more precise recording of the detail transmitted by the lens, even if you're capturing a scene that doesn't have important high frequency detail near the resolving limit of the system.