Jack Dykinga: another one bites the d

[Sal Santamaura]

If your LF camera/lens system can actually produce even close to 60 lp/mm on film...But just out of curiosity, if 60lp/mm is the best that can be obtained in print, where did the 1524 number came from?

It is beneficial to read all relevant posts. I said the paper is capable of ~60 lp/mm. 1524 is the dpi equivalent of 30 lp/mm, "perfect sharpness."

I had a conversation with ctein about this; he and I aren't in disagreement. He did experiments where people perceived prints that resolved detail at frequencies up to 30 lp/mm as sharper than ones that resolved detail only up to 20. However, these prints were not prepared in a way that guaranteed identical MTF performance at the lower, critical frequencies. So what was most likely being noticed is higher contrast in the 1 lp/mm to 5 lp/mm range.

Ctein agrees that no one actually sees print detail above 10 lp/mm or so; he's familiar with the scientific literature.

In an analog image chain, you would expect a print that resolves 30 lp/mm to have better MTF performance than one that resolves 20 or 10. But this assumption doesn't hold true with a digital signal chain, where the printing medium is hard-limiting, and MTF can be controled with sharpening filters...

So, given image processing to tweak MTF "appropriately," has anyone come up with a rule-of-thumb for digital printing systems as useful as Ctein's 30 lp/mm for analog? Those without scientific labs are essentially backed into using simple resolution figures rather than MTF testing equipment. Has the latest edition of Ctein's "Post Exposure" been updated or does it still describe 30 lp/mm as "perfect sharpness?"

...When I said that digital has ruined the fun, I meant that digital has taken away the element of risk that only professional expertise could cover...

I think deletion of the word "professional" would be fine in this sentence. Regardless of whether one is paid for the work, satisfaction derives from being able to apply hard-won skill. When iterative application of "skills" built into the electronics/software can achieve a similar -- to the extent most are capable of seeing -- result, fun flies out the window.

...I think 8x10 will live and 4x5 will die...

I agree -- for now. However, given the apparent compulsion of most people to abandon film for digital, I suspect 8x10 will die too in time. Unlike buggy whips, there's a worldwide volume floor below which it's not practical to produce film at all. I just hope that point isn't reached before I die. If fortunate enough to get advance warning and fill some freezers with film, I might be able to scrape by for the rest of my actuarially probable life on that plus the 6,000 sheets of Azo I purchased when Kodak announced its discontinuance. I'm 56 and there are roughly 16 years left on Harman's Mobberley site lease, so it's at least possible.


If Tuan heeds all the plaintive cries for opening this site to digital capture in categories other than the Lounge, I hope he at least does so with full disclosure. In other words, the site name and url should change to something that doesn't include "Large Format Photography." I'd accept that, be thankful for an enjoyable decade of participation and move on. As an engineer who has spent 35 years working in the aerospace industry, the last thing I'm interested in is more talk about electonics or software!

[paulr]

When I said that digital has ruined the fun, I meant that digital has taken away the element of risk that only professional expertise could cover. Given a monitor and and a $30k digiMF, and a professional assistant to tweak the 100 odd menu items, any art director, architect, butcher, baker and candlestick maker can do your thing.

I think this is really just one more step on a continuum. Since the beginning, photo technology has been slowly moving from mysterious/unaproachable/unafordable/difficult to routine/simple/cheap/accesible/easy.

Some transitions: wet plate to dry plate; dry plate to film; big film to small; do-it-yourself to the brownie; 35mm; color; polaroid; digital ...

Each step along the way has brought benefits and bummers. Yes, we're increasingly up to our eyeballs in crappy images made by undedicated practitioners. But we're also seeing the possibilities of the medium opened up to whole populations that never would have had a chance.

Everybody gets to be a photographer now, just as everybody gets to be a recording artist, graphic designer, web developer, film maker, etc etc...

What's changed is that you can no longer distinguish yourself simply through mastery of the tools. You have to do it through the quality of your work. That's a tougher proposition, and a tougher thing to sell.

[r.e.]

Given a monitor and and a $30k digiMF, and a professional assistant to tweak the 100 odd menu items, any art director, architect, butcher, baker and candlestick maker can do your thing.

Not being a practitioner of any of the above occupations, I continue to find composition and lighting a challenge

[Eric Biggerstaff]

As they say - art is in the eye of the beholder. It is OK if someone doesn't consider Dykinga (or Burkett, or anyone else) as an artist, it is just their feelings and those feelings are as valid as any others.

In my opinion, digital came help push photography in areas and ways not considered earlier, it can open doors to new methods of expression and creativity. Yes, it also makes it easier to produce crap, but crap has always been produced we just didn't see it as much because it was harder to get to market (thanks internet).

As an LF photographer, I like to try to learn lessons from the digital artist (all artists really) and see if and how I could apply the techniques to my own way of seeing and using photography. For example, alot of people on this forum are against the "spray and pray" or "machine gun" approach to photography. But what is wrong with it? One of the things I find odd is that most LF photographers I see or know don't put nearly enough film through their cameras (my opinion)! This is very true as you move up in format and the film expense becomes greater (something to think about before going into ULF). They don't or won't experiment and play with different compostions of the same image, they don't try different angles or work in different light. Digital photographers don't have this problem. I don't think you can push yourself as a photographer by always doing the same thing, I know because I find myself falling into this trap all the time. So, perhaps one lesson we can learn from the digital crowd is that we need to use more film and be more experimental and open to new ways of seeing.

If Dykinga can use his new found love of digital to help push his art in new directions, wouldn't that be great for him and it potentially could be a source of new ideas and lessons that we can apply to our LF work.

These arguments are the exact same that went throught the rock climbing community 15 or 20 years ago when "traditional" rockclimbers (such as myself, placing and removing protection as we climbed) were confronted with the new "sport" climbers who drilled permanent bolts into the cliffs for protection. Traditonal climbers felt the sport climbers were cheating while the sport climbers were pushing the limits of difficulty that could not be imagined by us old timers. The "war" was waged for many years but eventually traditional climber adopted some of the techniques of the sport climbers and used them to push the limits of traditional styles, while many sport climbers tired of the small, low risk but highly difficult routes and pushed into traditonal climbing where they employed lessons learned on the sport routes to establish new levels of difficulty. In the end, both styles of climbing survived and thrived.

The fact that Dykinga and others are moving into digital is great, it might help open doors to new ideas and new methods that we can use in our own, traditional, LF based approach. The key is, we have to be open to the lessons that could be learned.

[Drew Wiley]

I would be fun to get into a time machine and look back at this discussion fifteen
years from now. No doubt the film supplies will have changed some, at least for those without freezers, but even more likely, a lot of digital as we now know it will be unrecognizable - most all these scanners, digital backs, printers will probably be
unservicable and commercially irrelevant. If the tech industy ever stops to catch its
breath, a lot of people will be out of jobs. That's just the way it works. So enjoy what you own now, because all your "cutting-edge" gear is only one step away from
extinction too - maybe faster than sheet film! I'm not worried. Artists will always
find a way, even with a restricted budget.

[Gordon Moat]

Now and then I hire a professional photographers assistant. He knows the business like no single photographer will ever know it.
He maintains that today anybody and their brother-in-law can be a photographer as long has they have some organisational skill.

In the 'old days' when the film came back from the lab it was too late adjust. The only crutch was polaroid. Nowadays it is not so much spray shooting as shoot and adjust, shoot and adjust, right off the monitor, until the composition, the lighting and the action fits with what the client or the gallery has in mind.

When I said that digital has ruined the fun, I meant that digital has taken away the element of risk that only professional expertise could cover. Given a monitor and and a $30k digiMF, and a professional assistant to tweak the 100 odd menu items, any art director, architect, butcher, baker and candlestick maker can do your thing.

It takes more than having an index finger to make someone a photographer.

[cjbroadbent]

Paul and Eric are putting us back on the right track. It's what's in front of the camera and the end product that count. My lighting teacher at the IDHEC used to say we were paid only because film had such a narrow latitude.

[Gordon Moat]

Too many people see photography as a set of technical challenges. The simple thinking is that once they figure out the "skills", then the path to great images is there. This is why soooo many workshops get sooooo many attendees.

Value as a photographer is not as a master of skills. One must bring creativity to their images. Creativity is what makes one unique as a photographer. No amount of money nor technology will substitute for a lack of creativity.

[paulr]

So, given image processing to tweak MTF "appropriately," has anyone come up with a rule-of-thumb for digital printing systems as useful as Ctein's 30 lp/mm for analog? Those without scientific labs are essentially backed into using simple resolution figures rather than MTF testing equipment. Has the latest edition of Ctein's "Post Exposure" been updated or does it still describe 30 lp/mm as "perfect sharpness?"

I haven't read Ctein's update. I think his old conclusion about 30 lp/mm equating "perfect sharpness" is a kind of shorthand based on casual, empirical tests ... it may be useful when dealing with traditional materials that behave in a more or less linear way (no edge effects, etc.). However, it's very possible to produce a high resolution print that looks soft and a lower resolution print that looks sharp, even with analog materials. Just not likely under most circumstances.

In digital printing, I find there are three keys to getting the best results possible. The first is to do all the things you've always done to get a good quality image. The second is to use a workflow that's as non-destructive as possible. The Blatner and Frasier Photoshop books are a brilliant resource for this. The third is to do your final sharpening, concentrated on the midtones, with a radius of 0.1mm at final print size. You have to do a bit of math to figure out what this is relative to your pixel-per-inch resolution. I print at my driver's native resolution of 720ppi, this means a 2.8 pixel radius.

YMMV ... you have to make a lot of prints and judge with your own eyes. You might get better results with a different workflow from mine, or with a larger or smaller sharpening radius. I based my numbers on the research I found, and this pretty much nailed it for me. I didn't have to do much tweaking. It's a pleasant surprise when theory matches practice.

[Marko]

It is beneficial to read all relevant posts.

It is even more beneficial, not to mention honest, to avoid taking stuff out of quotes or, worse, adding parts that do not exist to support your position. Your posts tend to exhibit certain circularity of logic that makes me think you don't really want to discuss things, you just want to get them your way.

If so, reading all of them produces very little benefit while wasting a lot of time.

As an example:

As an engineer who has spent 35 years working in the aerospace industry, the last thing I'm interested in is more talk about electonics or software!

Did it ever occur to you that there just may be other people who might actually be very interested in how electronics and software - increasingly - applies to all forms of photography including LF?

Because like it or not, it does. Otherwise Jack Dykinga and others like him wouldn't be switching and we wouldn't be having this and many other threads here whining about the fact.