They now have an 80mp digital that claims to beat 8x10Of course I'd have to shoot at least 1,000 Chromes before it would be economical. One thing I question is why they scanned at such a low resolution. They claimed there was no more detail to be had at higher resolutions.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/re..._vs_8x10.shtml
You would think that a Ph.D. in Biology would have better training in research design!
Peter Y.
The 8x10 film images were all made at f32.
One man's Mede is another man's Persian.
Ah, the age-old question.
The answer I usually give is:
"No! I mean, yes! I mean, no! I mean, I don't really care!"
You are so right!Originally Posted by Ari
Consider the source.
One man's Mede is another man's Persian.
From what I've gathered from other threads, this package will likely have a limited, high end market, and that means it won't get a whole lot less expensive than the current $50K anytime soon. Consumer digitals have got a lot more powerful and cheaper in the last 10 years because of mass sales.
Unless this new gadget gets cheaper than about $10K, I don't think the market for LF film cameras is going to collapse. I suspect most of the people buying and using these high end digitals aren't doing LF anyway.
Am I the only one consistently annoyed at Michael Reichman and colleagues inability to set up a proper test. This time comparing a phase one with an 8x10.
Sounds a fair comparison and on luminosity grounds the phase should get close. However the phase trounced the 8x10 which I was quite surprised at - until I saw that they had only scanned the 8x10 at 900dpi !!!
Also, they had used some form of micro-sharpening (and by the look at the scans it wasn't enough to match the inherent sharpening that raw conversion adds).
AND they used f/32 for the LF and then used f/16 for the IQ180?? Well I may be wrong but I thought to match depth of fields you would have to use f/8 for the IQ180? (giving an advantage for the IQ180 in diffraction terms but not in depth of field terms). It would have helped if they had said where they focussed.
Anyone got an IQ180 for a proper test?
Tim
p.s. Here is a sample from a shot I took in Glen Nevis and scanned a central section at 4000dpi.. and next to it is what it looked like scanned at 900dpi with no sharpening..
The image above was upsized 200% to make things out more clearly.. Oh, and it was taken with the Nikkor T-ED 600/800/1200 which isn't the sharpest cookie in the 10x8 jar..
Still Developing at http://www.timparkin.co.uk and scanning at http://cheapdrumscanning.com
Not the only one annoyed by furtive comparisons. These are difficult to make in an apples to apples sense. In fact the technologies are so fundamentally different that apples to apples comparisons can't be made in any kind of a precise way.
Sharpening any image by digital means introduces a new edge artifact which then becomes an interpretation of the original image edge and not a replication of the original film and certainly not of the original scene.
There are legions of other variables between film and digital capture which conspire to blur the distinctions between the two and while the comparisons can be interesting and instructive I don't really know what it all means.
Nate Potter, Austin TX.
Sure. But it is reasonable to have a reasonable comparison, in which Technology A is compared to Technology B in the manner in which both are likely to be used to get the best out of them.
Of course, there are many problems, the main one being that they are comparing direct digital captures with scans of negatives. They should, instead compare high-resolution scans of portions of equal-sized prints. If the objective is web display, nobody is going to use either of these technologies--they are therefore not a reasonable solution to a web-page need. But they are a reasonable solution to the need for a large print. So, compare large prints.
And scanning at <900 spi? They should scan at the maximum capability likely to be used by a real photographer. I'd be satisfied with the best scan from a properly tuned Epson 750, at least for one scenario. But then they should also include a well-made optical enlargement to the same print magnification in their evaluation. That way, they'd be closer to comparing big prints made optically, which should bring out the best of the 8x10 within the reasonable capability of many 8x10 photographers. PMT drum scans ought to be in there, too, but including that doesn't mean they should not also include the Epson scan. Not everyone can afford drum scans, and one of the main advantages of 8x10 is that an Epson is good enough even for large prints. The point of a test is to provide readers an idea of what they can reasonably expect.
Each test scenario should reflect a reasonable application of the test technology. Not doing that is fundamentally flawed and unfair. No amount of subsequent rigor can make up for not setting up the test scenarios reasonably.
I would propose five scenarios, evaluated using a large print: Three using the state-of-the-art processes (which for film would include two scenarios--optical printing and drum scanning), and one each using state-of-the-practice processes, so that people can read the article and know what to expect with processes they can reasonable afford. The state of the art and the state of the practice may be the same with the digital back, so they may only need one test to cover both scenarios.
I've seen tests where film was the favored medium and they were skewed in that direction, too. They would do things with film few could afford to do in practice (which really does include drum scanning for most amateurs and many fine-art photographers). The first half of any such article should present and defend as valid the test scenarios.
I've stopped reading LuLa's tests after they denigrated a 30mm Arsat fisheye based on a comparison with a 30mm Zeiss Distagon fisheye (in Hasselblad mount), when the Arsat was not focused accurately on the same target as the Zeiss lens. When challenged, Reichmann defended the result on the basis that it didn't really matter. Indeed. The Distagon routinely sold at that time for 10-20 times what the Arsat sold for, so a successful outcome for the Arsat might still underperform the Zeiss. But by not focusing properly, he didn't give the reader the tools to make an evaluation of what they might expect.
Rick "validation is as important as verification in testing" Denney
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