Yeah, I say just use a cell phone camera. That way you can email the pictures directly to the print shop from the phone. It would really save a lot of hassle!
Yeah, I say just use a cell phone camera. That way you can email the pictures directly to the print shop from the phone. It would really save a lot of hassle!
Oh, I should run and get that! The latest stuff has gotta be better than my junk 4x5 stuff. I could even save space by using a cell phone to take photographs. No one will notice then because by then no one would want to look at them. Who needs resolution, color gamut and archival prints anyway!Originally Posted by jonathan_lipkin
Nothing beats a great piece of glass!
I leave the digital work for the urologists and proctologists.
Waitaminit. Let me see if something isn't glaringly nuts here. (and guys, stop it with the knucklehead comments, they aren't helping anything)
The project is for 50 to 100 images per day. This includes loading the film holders. I'm guessing that you aren't going to be doing this alone and you have enough holders, right? So that's a little under five minutes per shot, considering shooting for eight hours. That has to be really cruising for sheet film.
A $30,000 back is a reasonable expenditure. (Consider the new Pentax 645D?)
$450 per 100 sheets considering the price of the digital back leads me to guess that you'll be making over 6,500 exposures, taking between two and three months.
An archival page holds four sheets.
That means over 1,600 archival sheets and I don't know how many binders to hold them. Plus some time indexing, etc.
From a logistics view, this looks kind of massive.
Could you please let us in on what you are doing?
Last edited by Brian C. Miller; 31-Aug-2010 at 17:07. Reason: time per shot
50-100 images / day is just not a LF number. 5-10 is a LF number.
Honestly, the best workflow is to rent a Canon 5D Mark II and shoot your 50-100 images, with the 4x5 or 8x10 set up a couple feet away. When you see that you have an image you want to print large, pull the LF over, grab the shot, and move on. That way, you'll have a bunch of nice 21 MP images that you can print pretty big (say 16x20 or a little bigger). And you'll also have the LF, which you can print much larger. I still think 48x60 is pushing it for 4x5, but I'm picky.
Not only is it 50-100 a day, but it is 50-100 a day on the beach. And the light is not good all day on the beach. Nor is the weather. I just don't see that as being maintainable. Just dealing with the film holders is going to be a big issue, let alone handling your subject(s).
If you are going to burn $1000/day in film and developing (+ $$$$ and time scanning), why not rent MF digital and save loading, scanning, spotting time?
What is the point of all the images?
Renting MF digital does not solve this problem. You can't expect a MF digital image to survive at 48x60".
4x5 would be marginal too. If this guy is printing hundreds of images, then they are basically wallpaper and should hold up at distances of 4 or 5 feet from the print.
Sure 8x10 would be better.
large format is impractical at this volume, but 6x7 will get the job done.
medium format digital would give you the best of both worlds. it also doesn't hurt that it's digital.
the pentax 645d or something similar may be cost-effective.
Just got back from fotocare. The new systems drop too much in price for things to work for me - even if I buy a 30k system and finance it, which is affordable using a home equity loan, I'd have to sell it at the end of the project, and if the back loses even 25% of the value, I'm on the hook for a bunch of money. A used system runs about 20k, still workable, but I think in the end I'm just too chicken to have that much equipment with me to break, lose, or have stolen.
So, I'm either going to have to shoot less with 4x5 (and no, not 1600 images - I'd only shoot a few days out of the month, but believe me that even with only two hours of workable light I could shoot 50-100 images a day) or 6x7. Someone on the board has a sliding back I'm going to buy and run some tests with. Duggal in NY will make digital c-print tests for not very much money.
Sorry I can't let you in on the details of the project yet, but I promise once it's finished I'll let you all know.
Thanks everyone - I appreciate your very high standards and concern for the utmost in image quality. It's what I've come to expect from this board.
If you're considering using a scanning back and shooting on the beach, I guess that means this is landscape.
And by "two hours of workable light" I assume you mean golden hour / sunset.
Dude, I am telling you. You do not need to blow through 100 sheets to get one good 8x10 of a sunset.
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