Paul,
It's true that 'affordable' is subjective and situational. I was speaking from the point of view of my own situation, which is that current digital capture systems are not even close to being affordable.
As far as 'field capable' is concerned, I spend a good deal of time away from sources of electricity, so current systems aren't an option for me. I use a 4x5 Tachihara, which is light and works nicely for the shooting I do.
--P
Preston-Columbia CA
"If you want nice fresh oats, you have to pay a fair price. If you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse; that comes a little cheaper."
The Pentax 645D would certainly match 4x5 or be close enough for all but the very largest prints.
No, we don't. No digital camera, or digital back on a view camera, will ever be "large format" until the sensor itself is 4 inches by 5 inches. Or larger. And since pixels keep getting smaller, it's highly unlikely that anyone is ever going to make a 4x5 digital sensor. "Large Format" refers to the size of the film, not the size of the digital file you can make. I routinely create 300MB scans from my 4x5 films. If I like, I can make a scan that is over a gigabyte, but that won't make the film any bigger. I can also scan a sheet of 4x5 film and get a file of only a few kilobytes, but the film will still be large format. Digital file size has nothing to do with format size.Originally Posted by Don Dudenbostel
I'm one of those pariahs who honestly believe we are in the last age of film photography. The day will come, probably sooner than later, when film of any kind will be a rarity. There will come a time when 4x5 and larger films are simply not available at any price. On that day, there will be no more large format photography.
So stop beating this horse; it's dead. If you're a digital photographer, embrace it and get on with your photographic life. Stop trying to redefine technical terms to fit your version of reality.
Ditto what Paul said.
Don Bryant
Formats, their sizes and their names are relative and completely arbitrary, and they literally change with the times. There was a time when 4x5 was actually considered small format...
I agree that a digital sensor with physical dimensions to fit today's definition of large format will likely never be made. Not because it will be impossible, it will simply be unnecessary. Medium format digital backs are already there quality-wise for most practical purposes, and so are specialized view cameras capable of providing all the necessary precision and movements.
The age of film is already over and large format sheet film will probably be the last one to go. Not for any exotic nor romantic reason, but simply because smaller formats will run out of available users first. And when that happens, the largest sensor format available will become the new large format.
No sense hyperventilating about it, shoot what you like as long as you can, then either pick up something new or retire, just leave the rest of us alone to enjoy this wonderful activity without all the heartburn.
If photographers themselves don't start calling some bigger-than-today's sensor a "large format" sensor, you can bet the marketing people for the sensor makers will start it if they think it will help them sell the product.
But hopefully they will be more creative than that and come up with some stunning new term to use for it. At least in audio they didn't decide to call 24-bit/192kHz audio "2-inch digital audio"*... thankfully.
John
* High-end recording used to be done on 2-inch tape.
I would like a large, low resolution, inexpensive sensor. Couldn't someone put out a 4 megapixel sensor at near large format size for a thousand bucks or so?
Looking historically, it seems that most of the definitions associated with photography have been rethought with the major technical evolution of the medium. Whatever your definitions are, I'm guessing they're the one's in vogue when you learned the medium. But they would have seemed ridiculous to a practitioner from the mid-19th century. 4x5 would have been considered a small format. Film would have looked like a shortcut for amateurs. Color? God knows, but that couldn't even be called photography ...
I've had the same thought, but unfortunately, it would require an yet-uninvented technology. What costs money is the size of the silicon wafer. The geniuses of the semiconductor world have been able to continuously improve performance and decrease costs by packing smaller and smaller circuits onto a silicon wafer (and getting more and more parts out of the same surface area). But that silicon isn't getting any cheaper, as far as I can tell.
I don't know what a 4x5" slice of silicon would cost. Probably a number that we associate more with space shuttles than cameras.
Maybe there are other semiconductor technologies in the works. Would be nice if this stopped being a hurdle.
Same here, in fact I will probably never be able to own a MFD system unless the price drops to the current enthusiast dslr price range.Fortunately though as a serious fine art enthusiast with no time or volume constraints, I can easily match and exceed the image quality of these uber expensive MFD systems via stitching with my dslrs if need be, and still have the luxury of time and no deadlines to be able to use the view cameras when I'm in the mood
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