Medium Format Film

[Don Hoey]

Jonathan,

I see from your gallery you have Nikon & Canon, and top glass so I post this link to a run off between The D2X and 1DS MkII. http://www.naturfotograf.com/index2.html
Scroll down and the link is in the centre section.

This is where you enter new territory for web posting. If the image is full frame, and contains lots of fine detail, then you have to apply nearly maximum compression in ps to get a reasonable file size. That level of compression destroys the fine detail making some images unpostable as they just look rubbish. SeanKP's has found the same thing from his comment on the shot ' Cairo Cityscape ' taken with the 1DS MkII. Without compression the detail in that shot would be amazing.

Don

[Jon Sharp]

It's something I've been toying with, I used to have a Bronica many years ago and in some of the studio work I do it would be nice to have improved quality occasionally.

Having said that for 99% of occasions digital is more than the client wants.

Part of the reason I have re-kindled interest in MF is down to the prices being offered in the high street, one draw back was always not wishing to re-invest in darkrooms and rely on labs again. I was fortunate to recently purchase a MF and LF 5x4" scanner and it's on my to do list to scan all my older MF work.

This might inspire me to make the plunge again!

[Jonathan Farmer]

The last submission by Don really is an eye opener, especially to Canon users. Yes the Canon full frame is better for megapixle size but the density of the Nikon makes the 1.5 crop factor better because telephoto lenses now have 50% more power. (If you crop the Canon FF down to the Nikon DX format, you loose detail due to less pixel density). The Nikon DX format is also better for 35mm designed lenses as well especially for wide angles as the report shows light fall off in the corners using Canon's FF.

As it stands, at present the Nikon DX format has its fair share of advantages over Canon's FF; but is pixel density going to be the down fall of Nikon's DX format for the future? Because Canon has a bigger format, they will be able to cram in more pixels in the future, and if Nikon don't have a solution to this, Canon will continue to get bigger and bigger as far as megapixles are concerned.

It will be very interesting to see what Nikon is going to do next, if they do go FF, there will be a lot of good DX glass that can't be used.

I will be holding onto my Nikon D200 AND MY MEDIUM FORMAT GEAR until the fog clears from the path of formats, I hope I don't have to hold onto them for to long a time. Nikon's next moove will probably be the deciding factor.

Regards

Jonathan

[Don Hoey]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Farmer

As it stands, at present the Nikon DX format has its fair share of advantages over Canon's FF; but is pixel density going to be the down fall of Nikon's DX format for the future? Because Canon has a bigger format, they will be able to cram in more pixels in the future, and if Nikon don't have a solution to this, Canon will continue to get bigger and bigger as far as megapixles are concerned.

It will be very interesting to see what Nikon is going to do next, if they do go FF, there will be a lot of good DX glass that can't be used.

I will be holding onto my Nikon D200 AND MY MEDIUM FORMAT GEAR until the fog clears from the path of formats, I hope I don't have to hold onto them for to long a time. Nikon's next moove will probably be the deciding factor.

Regards

Jonathan

Jonathan

I have just tried my DX12-24 on the F3 as it has 100% viewfinder and shows no obvious vignetting from about 19mm on.That suggests even if Nikon did introduce a FF DSLR then most DX lens owners would not loose out by much. A couple of mm at the wide end.

A never ending debate on Nikon and a full frame DSLR. To keep this thread clean I will start another one as quite a few members here use FF DSLR's and it would be interesting to see the various motivations for going that route as we know for pure resolution of fine detail that is not a primary requirement unless you want 20MP in a 35mm body and have the cash to fund it.

I firmly believe film at 120 and larger formats will be around for a good while yet. Plenty of time for Phase One digital backs to fall in price. It will be interesting to see how many current MF users switch to the Pentax 645 ( if thats what they end up naming it ) once it finally hits the market. Origionally announced in 2005 to be 18mp it was displayed at PMA earlier, and at this weeks Tokyo Show with a spec at 31mp Kodak sensor. No doubt final price pitching will be well below Hasselblad H3D-31.

Don

[Don Hoey]

Jonathan

Here is a link to a Luminous Landscape shootout. Full frame Canons, various MF digital backs, 645 and 5x4 drum scanned film.

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/es...-testing.shtml

Don

[Don Hoey]

I have now found a comparison between the D2x and Provia 100F in 35mm and 6x6 size.

http://www.michaelclarkphoto.com/d2xreview.html

Don

[Leif]

At the risk of stating the bleeping obvious, that is not quite a fair comparison, since there is a scanner in the way. One way to get an accurate comparison is to shoot slide film, and 'scan' the image using a macro lens and extension tubes to zoom in on the slide. The scan can then be compared to a digital image of the same scene. I am tempted to do that as I have the equipment and an old slide film lying around.

[Don Hoey]

Leif,

I am not at all up on scanners, but as the mention was of the Nikon unit used, being the next best to drum scanning ( which I assume is the best ) I am a bit puzzled as it is not obvious to me that this is an unfair comparison.

You mention scanning using a macro lens and tubes, so assume you mean taking a pic of it a la slide copying. If so is a camera sensor superior to a scanner. Sorry I am a bit lost here.

Don

[Jonathan Farmer]

Copying a slide using a macro on a digital camera or any camera will not render results as good as a scanner for a few reasons; 1)…. Image quality will be lost due to creating a second generation using optics while the scanned image would be a direct copy from the slide. 2)… The camera can’t create a file big enough.

[Don Hoey]

I have to page up for the Nikon 8000ED and to quote from its spec ' Tri-linear CCD with a total of 30,000 pixels, High-quality 48-bit images at file sizes up to 790 MB, and one of many sizes Effective Scanning Area: (6 x 6) 56.9 x 56.9mm (8,964 x 8,964 pixels)'

Don