Still Developing at http://www.timparkin.co.uk and scanning at http://cheapdrumscanning.com
Thanks for taking on this project Tim. It looks like an exhaustive comparison. I'm still working my way through it.
Tim, quite excellent. These are results that I would have expected. I think you were successful in taming the focus capture beast and the vibration beastie and so got to the intrinsic properties of each of the systems quite nicely.
Good description of image quality differences too, giving us a sense of why both film and digital capture have their place.
Great thanks
Nate Potter, Austin TX.
Yes, I've just spent a couple hours with all this. Great work, Tim, on a very difficult testing scenario.
Of course everyone else's conclusions may differ, but for me this test really confirmed my hypotheses made in other threads... that it is probably with about a 120MP digital back (with subsequent up-rez) that 8x10 finally gets summarily blown out of the water for real world outside subjects/conditions. I am, of course, assuming dynamic range and highlight handling will improve as we get further up the digital chain. And for now, 8x10 wins by a (noisy) nose in terms of resolution. Would love to see large prints made from each.
There is the current Hasselblad with 200Mp "effective resolution." I posted about it in the Lounge (link). Since it uses a current generation sensor, the reflections of the overhead lights on the chrome banisters just goes into the toilet. I wonder what it would actually do with the "trumpet" pattern, but I suspect that it would break down here just like the IQ180 did. It would certaintly not be able to cope with the windy outdoor conditions like the other cameras did.
Tim, thanks for this excellent test! Too bad the weather wasn't nicer.
"It's the way to educate your eyes. Stare. Pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long." - Walker Evans
Thanks Brian - in many ways I think the fact that the test conditions were windy helped as it debunked a major myth about not getting sharp images in real world conditions. I think the Hassleblad may get over some of the issues with the trumpet pattern as in one of its modes it shifts a full pixel hence making sure it gets a red, green and blue pixel at every location in the grid. This would get rid of a lot of the colour fringing issues (as long as everything stayed in 5 micron alignment in between shots!)
Still Developing at http://www.timparkin.co.uk and scanning at http://cheapdrumscanning.com
Tim, this was an excellent test and article. Since I never enlarge to more than 16X20in seems that there are currently many options available to me. Until my finances greatly improve I will be sticking with 4X5 sheet film and 120 roll film on my 4X5 camera. If I won the lottery I would move to the IQ180 on a high end Medium Format system.
Hi Edward,
yes indeed, if you are printing at 16x20 then your roll film will probably be OK to get nice crisp prints if scanned on a half decent scanner (preferably not a desktop). I'm going to be running another comparison soon about smaller prints to see how 4x5 compares with lower end digital and medium format/small format (I've printed a few half decent 16x20's from 35mm velvia when drum scanned and critically sharpened - I wouldn't call them 'sharp' but acceptable, maybe so).
Tim
Still Developing at http://www.timparkin.co.uk and scanning at http://cheapdrumscanning.com
One other thing to consider is how you have to upgrade your hardware when you go to bigger digital camera. For example, my D7000 - raw images at 16 meg convert to 80 to 90 meg TIF files.
You know what kind of processing power, hard drive space and the minor fortune you have to invest in SD cards? Not to mention, I had to upgrade the cooling fan on my new computer, the procesor was over heating.
My "computer guy" bascially told me if I went to this new Nikon D800 with that is rated at 36 meg, a new computer with a powerful enough processor woudl need a water cooled system for the CPU.
In the meantime, my DeVere 504 is still going great, and doesn't need upgrades.
Don't get me wrong, if enough money fell into my hands, yeah, i would be silly enough to get a new D800, but the bottom line is, when you upgrade your camera to "match" what LF film can do, you have to "upgrade" everything else along the line, and strickly from a business point of view, in today's economy, can such outlays of cold hard cash be justified?
joe
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