I dont agree that the higher resolution that medium and large format photography provides is moot or unnecessary in typical photography unless you never print anything bigger than 4x6" or never make a web image display larger than 1200x800 (both being rough numbers). jco
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Mark Cassino Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2007 5:48 PM To: Pentax-Discuss Mail List Subject: Re: Film vs. Digital - not a religion I spent a lot of time trying to sort out the whole film vs digital thing. A lot of the things I worked through are on my blog, but this link sums up where I finally wound up: http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/index.php?title=stuff_per_pixel&m ore=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 Medium format and certainly large format still excel at capturing scenes that require very high resolution, and still do a better job than digital. But, most folks never shoot stuff that really calls for high resolution, so this is a moot point to them. I don't think a group portrait is a particularly high resolution challenge, unless you need to see individual eyelashes. As a practical example - I'm working today on an entry for an art show, hosted by the local at museum. I've been struggling all day to get a decent 12x18 print of this shot: http://www.markcassino.com/galleries/stream/061201/_IGP0058.htm It was taken with the K10D. There is just gobs of data in that image - branches upon branches upon branches. I've tried various raw interpreters but at the end of the day - the data just was not captured on the sensor, so I get jaggies and a loss of detail in the most intricate parts of the image. On the flip side, the other image that I plan on submitting is a 28 x 23 inch print of this framed out generously and sitting in my dining room: http://www.markcassino.com/galleries/asga/asga00.htm That was taken with a 6x7, 55mm f4, and scanned on a lowly Epson 3200. It was shot on Classic Pan 200. But the detail in the enlargement is outstanding. Here's an actual pixels sample: http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/media/67_504_detail.jpg The detail in the enlargement far exceeds the detail in the shot taken with the K10D. I mean - comparing a 12x18 to a 28x23, the latter has more detail. There is no way I could print the K10D shot at that size and get anything but an artifaced mess. On the flip side - I would never try to take snow crystal shots with the 6x7 - trying to enlarge a 5mm snow crystal up to 6 cm would be almost impossible - just enlarging them to fit an APS sensor will capture all of the availble detail. And I have some excellent 28x28 inch enlargements of snow crystals shot with the *ist-D. So - it all boils down to what tool is right for the job. The folks at luminous landscape defined "the job" a certain way, and came up with their results. It's useful as a benchmark of where digital is in relation to film - I've been surprised at how much more detail the K0D can capture vs the *ist-D. But it's also a bit of a tautology in that if you know the state of current photographic tools, what is right for the job is obvious. - MCC Jens Bladt wrote: > To me this question is not a religion - just at matter of choosing the > right gear for the job. Well, I know Luminous Landscape says a Canon > 1Ds does better than a scan from a Pentax 6x7. > http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout.shtml > > But paper is patient. So are HTML-files. > But what can we do, really? > > Have any of you guys done group-portraits with a digital camera - APS > or Full Frame? If you have such group portraits, showing 20-30 people, > I'd love to see one face croped out of it. > A crop showing 5-10% of the total frame area. > Just to see if you can do this better than me. > > So, for staters I made a small comparison here: > http://www.flickr.com/photos/bladt/sets/72157594491741789/ > > Comments are most welcome > Regards > Jens Bladt > > > -- > No virus found in this outgoing message. > Checked by AVG Free Edition. > Version: 7.5.432 / Virus Database: 268.17.3/642 - Release Date: > 01/20/2007 22:31 > > -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Photography Kalamazoo, Michigan www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net
