Image quality from digital vs analog lens both shot on film

[D. Bryant]

Well, the thread is drifting a little toward format wars per se. You're only as good as
your weakest link, regardless. I don't use Tri-X for anything. I enlarge optically with better gear than you can buy anywhere, unless it too is custom-made. So no intervening issues of scanning and the inherent limitations of digital output (not a knock at that option, just a more direct and acuurate standard of measure). I use precision film holders that hold the film flat. I use the best modern apo lenses. I often use high-resolution print media like Cibachrome, and I defy anyone on the planet to print a significant enlargement from MF by any means that comes up to the detail standard which I routinely get from 4x5, let alone from 8x10 - and this is just one factor to overall print quality!

But you haven't tested the M7 II have you. With all of that perfect darkroom gear you will realize what the Mamiya can produce - if you test it.

[Drew Wiley]

So Don, what do you do if you don't want a wide-angle perspective? How far do you
have to stop down a 150 or 210 M7 lens to get acceptable depth of field? I have 30x40 Ciba prints made via interpositive from old-school 4x5 chrome films where you'd need a loupe to see the detail reflected in a tiny water droplet. With the newest and finest 120 color films on the market that water droplet wouldn't even show up at that degree of enlargment. These kinds of remarks are utter ballyhoo. And mind you, my
personal standard is 8x10 anyway, not 4x5. A well-calibrated darkroom is just as important as a good lens. MTF is just the tip of the iceberg, and at this point, you're
skewing the whole debate as if a 4x5 had none of the advantages of either movements or film size!! As far as Sandy's ACROS statements go - they might well be
true in certain scanning scenarios, but absolutely not in the case of direct enlargements, Efke 25 having a dramatic edge in that case.

[Drew Wiley]

Don - you can get extremely high MTF 35mm lenses too, but that doesn't let you enlarge more than what the film itself can record, that is, if you hold to the same
standard of crispness in each case (which I don't, because even with extremely sharp
35mm lenses I tend to deliberately shoot fast grainy films and print them small). This is
reminiscent of that old Kodak add that stated, "4x5 quality in 35mm", referring to Tech Pan versus some film made in the 1920's perhaps, with equally obsolete lenses. That was certainly nonsense. Send me a nice really crisp neg from your M7 and I'll be happy
to test it under equivalent conditions (assuming you don't want to give me your camera itself - well, doesn't hurt to ask???). Damn nice camera that M7, but like everything else, you have to choose what set of limitations to work with. And as I get
older the more the weight of big cameras will be a limitation - hence my experiments
with roll-film backs while they can still be had in good condition.

[Frank Petronio]

A couple of years ago Don Hutton (I think) put some work that was very carefully done with one of the best Leica lenses (35 Summilux ASPH) with a tripod-mounted M and Tech Pan that did indeed seem to rival most duffer's 4x5 Tri-X or HP-5.

[Zaitz]

A couple of years ago Don Hutton (I think) put some work that was very carefully done with one of the best Leica lenses (35 Summilux ASPH) with a tripod-mounted M and Tech Pan that did indeed seem to rival most duffer's 4x5 Tri-X or HP-5.

At what size though?

[sanking]

A couple of years ago Don Hutton (I think) put some work that was very carefully done with one of the best Leica lenses (35 Summilux ASPH) with a tripod-mounted M and Tech Pan that did indeed seem to rival most duffer's 4x5 Tri-X or HP-5.

Yes, it was Don Hutton. And I saw several other comparisons of Don's 35mm work versus Mamiya 7II and 4X5. Pretty amazing stuff.


Sandy

[D. Bryant]

A couple of years ago Don Hutton (I think) put some work that was very carefully done with one of the best Leica lenses (35 Summilux ASPH) with a tripod-mounted M and Tech Pan that did indeed seem to rival most duffer's 4x5 Tri-X or HP-5.

It wasn't Tech Pan it was the high resolution Adox film. Some of those prints looked pretty astounding.

Don

[D. Bryant]

Don - you can get extremely high MTF 35mm lenses too, but that doesn't let you enlarge more than what the film itself can record, that is, if you hold to the same
standard of crispness in each case (which I don't, because even with extremely sharp
35mm lenses I tend to deliberately shoot fast grainy films and print them small). This is
reminiscent of that old Kodak add that stated, "4x5 quality in 35mm", referring to Tech Pan versus some film made in the 1920's perhaps, with equally obsolete lenses. That was certainly nonsense. Send me a nice really crisp neg from your M7 and I'll be happy
to test it under equivalent conditions (assuming you don't want to give me your camera itself - well, doesn't hurt to ask???). Damn nice camera that M7, but like everything else, you have to choose what set of limitations to work with. And as I get
older the more the weight of big cameras will be a limitation - hence my experiments
with roll-film backs while they can still be had in good condition.

Get a copy of the M7 yourself and make your own tests.

[Sirius Glass]

You're only as good as your weakest link, regardless.

At Kodak, in the Kodak Image Chain: Only put effort into the weakest link to improve the photograph/image. Any effort put into the rest of the image chain will make little or no difference.

Steve

[Zaitz]

Why not use a slower 4x5 film too? Why the need to use two different films? If you need to change a variable that could be kept the same to give one format an advantage then that just sounds like a poor comparison. The point, I guess, is to say that a smaller format with a much finer grain film can compete at moderate enlargements with a high speed 4x5 film?