How does Better Light calculate MP count?

[tgtaylor]

You may have to start coating your own emulsions sometime here in the next decade after all silver halide based photography is relegated to the historical processes. At least we will still have Bostick & Sullivan and Photographers Formulary to fall back on for the foreseeable future.

You could shop eBay where you can often get a good value on high end digital for under $6K (typically BL but others as well). As Jim so kindly alludes to it doesn't matter where you buy a system, new or used, you will receive the same excellent support and service that every customer does. BL produces a very high end premium product that's built like a tank and it is the most upstanding and moral company I have ever worked for (and I'm 62).

Originally Posted by Kirk Gittings
Just curious Jim, how would you rank your BL back compared to a first class drum scanned 4x5 and your Leaf back (it is leaf right?)

the 4x5 film and the back is pretty close to a wash in my experience. You get a little more 'area' captured with the film, but you get a 'cleaner' image with the Betterlight. You can drum scan the film to a greater degree.. but in most cases, you're not capturing any more real data than with the Betterlight. Most lenses don't resolve more than the Betterlight captures using 'field' apertures. I'll still shoot film, but it's more for the look of a specific emulsion, rather than for added detail. I do like the immediate feedback of a finished image from the Betterlight. I can leave a site knowing that everything is 'right'


"...pretty close to a wash in my experience" sounds to me like Jim finds film still superior. That must be a poignant admission considering Jim has thousands invested in digital.

Glad to hear that you guys are doing alright. I'll probably be a BL customer one day.

Thomas

[Jim collum]

"...pretty close to a wash in my experience" sounds to me like Jim finds film still superior. That must be a poignant admission considering Jim has thousands invested in digital.

Glad to hear that you guys are doing alright. I'll probably be a BL customer one day.

Thomas

I didn't say that film was superior. Frankly.. they're all tools. I've always found just examining resolution a waste of time. Both film and the Betterlight will give me outstanding 40x50" prints .. and really.. how many 40x50" prints are needed

I shoot with an end result in mind.. and have a variety of tools to get me to what I want. Lately, my favorites have been the HBH Petzval lens (which I use mostly with the Betterlight.. since I can see exactly what i'm going to end up with before I leave .. and the look of that image can vary greatly with very minor tweaks of focus), and the Zeiss Planar 110/2, which I alternate using with the Leaf back, or trix film. Neither of those result in very detailed images

The Betterlight back at 6000x8000 will give an excellent 40x50" image with no visible signs of digital artifacts in the final print (and that's at 'nose-to-print' distance'). The back has performed flawlessly since 2001.. and Mike and company have been at the other end of email or the phone whenever i've had questions. There are compromises that are made if used in the field... but they're not as bad as one would think. Weight isn't a problem at all.. I can put camera (Ebony sv45Ti), 4 lenses, Betterlight, cables, battery and laptop in a f64 backpack (not their large one). It all fits easily in overhead storage on a plane.

[AFSmithphoto]

No, Seitz could not claim a higher MP count because they don't have the MP to start with... the Dalsa chip that Seitz uses has only ONE row of sensors on it, not three like the Kodak chip. The sensors alternate Red, Green, Blue along the entire length of that single strip. This means that of the 7500 sensors along that strip there are 2500 EACH of R, G & B (note that there are NOT 2 green sensors for each pair of red and blue sensors), so Seitz's MP count is correct, 7500 x 21250 = 160 MP (1 sensor = 1 pixel). This also means that all Seitz images must be interpolated up 300% as well. Seitz is FAST and EXPENSIVE but it still does not compare to a BL capture: any way it's always a case of the right tool for the right job.

All true, but to claim that the 160 megapixels on the Seitz produces an equivelent resolution to a betterlight's would be to claim that NO useful information can be gained from interpolating the three seperate channels into one single file. Is that your contention?

[AFSmithphoto]

hmmm... the stating of technical specifications and industry standards are not simply "claims" nor do they constitute "marketing" (this forum does not permit ADVERTISING).

I would suggest that the prints you saw were not enlarged to equal degrees because there simply is no comparison. Seitz sacrifices dynamic range for speed AND, once again, is only recording 1/3rd of the color data in a rasterized pattern. I certainly don't see a "noticeable improvement" between these two images:
one from Seitz's site;
http://www.roundshot.ch/xml_1/intern...d925/f1002.cfm
and one from a BL users site (NOT BL's site) at only 62% rez;
http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/panorama/watson_uva.html
Pay attention to the roof, brick and and other fine architectural detail and clock face found on the central dome here in the middle of campus. Also note the size of the little highlighted navigation indicator when zoomed all the way in. I do not see ANY comparison what so ever. I'd welcome links to other examples for a better example of a Seitz image but presume that Seitz would only post respectable examples showing their best capabilities.

BL has relentlessly been subjected to numerous shootouts, comparisons, analysis, discussions and articles for over a decade now and has always set the standard by which all other digital imaging is judged against. The only remaining competition in the market place that comes close are Cruse and Anagram, both of which effectively use identical technology and both of which, like Seitz, are remarkably more expensive.

The fact that you prefer a print from a betterlight is not a technical specification or industry standard. That was the "third" point he was refering to.

What do you mean by "enlarged to equal degrees?" If you mean it as it sounds, I think you're being deliberately mis-leading.

"Enlarged to equal degrees" means an equal degree of enlargment. A 300 dpi print of a 6000 x 8000 betterlight file (48mp) would be a 20 x 27 inch print.

A 300 dpi print of a 7500 x 21250(160 mp) Seitz file would be a 25x70 inch print.

This is an equal degree of enlargment from each file, but the final print sizes are vastly different.

I'm sure the Non-interpolated Betterlight looks better inch for inch, but thats hardly a useful comparison. I'll make a a 1x1 inch print from the original Canon Digital Rebel, and it will look FANTASTIC inch for inch.

Print the Betterlight at a comperable size, not a comperable degree of enlargement. Then you can compare.

I'm not sure pointing people to a Seitz file of one subject and asking them to compare to a file of several stiched betterlight exposures of a different subject is any less mis-leading.

[percepts]

Choose your camera (or sensor size) then stop down and see what happens, as the airy disk begins to spill over your loosing detail.

but each sensor does not have one airy disc to itself. There are countless airy discs spread all over each sensor and all overlapping each other and overlapping sensors. They are not all centred on a sensor unless you have some magical powers over the lens optics which you don't.

[sanking]

the 4x5 film and the back is pretty close to a wash in my experience. You get a little more 'area' captured with the film, but you get a 'cleaner' image with the Betterlight. You can drum scan the film to a greater degree.. but in most cases, you're not capturing any more real data than with the Betterlight.

That is what I would have thought also, but the comparison posted at http://www.artisan-digital-services....capture-3.html suggests quite a different story.

Is that a good comparison, or just marketing hype?

Sandy King

[Jim collum]

That is what I would have thought also, but the comparison posted at http://www.artisan-digital-services....capture-3.html suggests quite a different story.

Is that a good comparison, or just marketing hype?

Sandy King

I suspect it's the real thing. Most of the Super 8K backs are sold into the art reproduction market, where you can control the environment, depth of field, and choose a specific high resolution lens for copy work. I suspect that back is an 8K. My comments were mainly used for my work.. I usually don't choose a lens for it's resolution as much as it's 'character'. If anyone would like to try a comparison with their own lens/camera, and are in the Santa Cruz, Ca. area.. let me know.. I'd be happy to supply the back for it.

Jerry will need to confirm the back type used in that example.

[tgtaylor]

I would suggest that what's being "compared" is the resolution capabilities of the two digital systems - the BL back and the "drum Scanner" - and not the film itself. I would further suggest that if the drum scanner took the picture itself without the aid of the negative, it would appear pretty much as in the comparison. In other words, the scanner is a crappy capture medium compare with the negative.

Earlier today I did a quick search for film grain size on this site and came up with a thread (11x14 is how many pixels) that stated that grain size in a negative can vary from sub micron to the typical 4 micron and larger. If that is true, then grain size seems to depend on what's being photographed and the associated exposure conditions. Pixel size, on the other hand, is fixed and non variable. Now ask yourself "What capture system is capable of the highest resolution: One whose sensors are variable in size depending on the conditions such as a sheet of film, or one whose sensors are fixed such as the digital/scanning back? Migrating grains of variable dimensions or static buckets? I would think that the system with the most variability would be superior to the fixed and static one.

But I admit that I am not educated in this. So I looked at a 11x14 print hanging in the hallway of San Francisco. This is a sharp print taken on a very clear afternoon (a Sunday) after a major winter storm blew thru that Saturday from the top of Twin Peaks with a clean normal (150mm) lens on a 4x5 camera. There was a tad, a hint, of blue haze in the far background so I used a clean B+W UV filter and shot the image on Fuji Acros, developed in Xtol, and printed on Oriental Seagull VC using a rented Beseler 45MX and glassless holder. The print is tack sharp edge to edge. You can see people walking on the street far below, drivers and passengers in their automobiles, and in the distance, say 3 miles, the hands of the clock on the Ferry Building at the foot of Market street. The clocks hands are distinct but looking hard you reckon the time is 2:30. A magnifying glass shows clearly 2:28. I think that this print is sharper than the BL school link shot and certainly sharper than the drum scan.

But then again, I'm no expert in this.

[Jim collum]

grain size isn't a consideration... at least in most cases. You'll find that most lenses in the field, at 'field' apertures, won't resolve down to the single grain level. In fact, you'll find that the camera/lens/aperture combination gives out well before the capability of a good drum scanner.

[Jim collum]

I think a nice post of a Martha Casanave pinhole image ( http://marthacasanave.com/coastal.htm ) should bring back a reminder of what's really important....

Given the choice between a $30,000 digital capture setup, or her eye.... i know which i'd choose