Large Format vs Medium Format Digital

[Jim collum]

from shooting over the years... 4x5 Ektar100, Aptus 75S, & Betterlight scanning back..my experience has been Ektar100 & Betterlight are about even. The Aptus was pretty much on par with scanned 6x7 Ektar.. with the Ektar getting slightly more detail, but with a little more background 'noise (grain)'. nothing scientific along the lines of comparing MTF curves of each of the lenses used. Regardless of the lenses used thought, the Aptus was never a competitor with the 4x5, and i'd wouldn't expect the Betterlight to surpass 8x10

[Mark Stahlke]

OK, I worked my way through the entire test. It's quite an interesting piece of work.
I have one minor quibble with the testing methodology. It appears lens hoods were not used for any of the test photos. My reading on this forum tells me proper lens shades can make a big difference.

[tgtaylor]

"My, my! A lot of oxen being gored around here."

Thomas

[timparkin]

OK, I worked my way through the entire test. It's quite an interesting piece of work.
I have one minor quibble with the testing methodology. It appears lens hoods were not used for any of the test photos. My reading on this forum tells me proper lens shades can make a big difference.

I can see your point but the brightest light sources were in the picture. the only areas outside the picture for the studio shot was the ceiling (where there were no lights) and the walls and floor (which were darker than the walls in the scene). I've only seen flare as a problem when substantial areas that form the image circle are brighter than the normal parts of the picture. If there were any flare, I would expect to see Dmax affected but there was no evidence of tonality difference outside the rebate of the film.

The scene outside should possibly have used a lens hood, I agree - however, again, no evidence can be seen in difference between dmax of hidden rebate and edge of frame. Funny you should say that because I nearly always use when shooting outside.

http://static.timparkin.co.uk/static...dmax-flare.jpg

Here's a sample showing the rebate and an area of darkness in the image. If there is any veiling flare it's beyond the scanners ability to differentiate. Well spotted though!

Tim

[clay harmon]

Thanks for taking the time to do this so carefully. Very interesting results. Think I'll keep by HR8000 scanner for a while longer.

[rdenney]

I don't understand what you mean when you say 18 mpx raw files convert to 80 and 90 meg tiff files.

An uncompressed TIFF file has 48 bits per pixel, or 6 bytes (two each for red, green, and blue). 6 x 18M = 108M.

But I agree with your conclusion. I make 90-megapixel files (>500MB 48-bit TIFFs) by scanning 6x7 at 4000 spi, or 4x5 at 2400 spi. No problem dealing with those on my cheapie quad-core, 8GB RAM Win7 box that you guys laughed at when I bought it at Costco.

Rick "noting that layered PSD files are even bigger" Denney

[timparkin]

Out of interest I have an old MacPro and a new MacBook Pro and they have both coped quite nicely with my 1Gb 5x4 scans. It was only when I started playing with 2Gb layered scans and a 7.6Gb 8x10 scan that I needed to upgrade my mac. I've not got dual raid 0 SSD scratch drive and 16Gb of ram. Still not particularly nippy but it handles layered 2Gb files OK now. When I open 500Mb scans on my Macbook pro they positively fly..

[mortensen]

Thanks for the comprehensive work, Tim - much appreciated!!!

[Patrick Raymore]

Tim,

Do I need to give you my email, name etc before viewing the results?

[timparkin]

Tim,

Do I need to give you my email, name etc before viewing the results?

No.. Would be good to have more subscribers though :-)