Focal plane vs. leaf shutters in MF SLRs

Bob Monaghan wrote:

re investments from mf/semipro.html

The top of the profession sales figures of the Advertising Photographers
of America, with average sales of $378,223 (and median sales rather lower
at $243,000) reported for 1999:

Replacement Value:
$ 9,900 35mm gear (SLR, Rangefinders..)
$13,250 120 rollfilm gear (medium format SLR/RF..)
$16,150 4x5 large format
$ 8,800 digital cameras


Seems quite low for direct digital costs. Both the Kodak DCS models, and the
top Canon direct digital are too near that, and these users must have some
lenses other than Sigma. ;-)


end-quote

Given that most LF camera users have only a few lenses, I find the $16k
for LF gear fairly surprising. Perhaps they are charging off the studio
strobes and tripods against LF?

The few pros I have known that were (are) almost exclusively large format do
a bit of architecture work. The majority I have met have quite a bit of
lighting gear, though it seems that they also have many lenses, and much
duplication of gear. I don't think the number is too out of line.

But then, $13k for MF doesn't leave much
for buying new hasselblad lenses or a superwide 38mm?

The Biogon is highly specialized, and I would not think it is a "common" lens
choice, even with profession photographers.

And with $6k for a
pro fast 600mm f/4 on many 35mm, $10k is fairly modest for a high end pro
too?

Only if you think the majority of 35 mm using professionals are sport
photographers. Photojournalists could do well with much smaller, and lower
cost, lenses. However, if you consider back-up gear, it does seem to be
slightly low for some professionals.

And these guys are the top 1% of the profession in income (top 10% in
USA are just above $50k per labor dept stats). Presumably the median wage
$25k+/yr photographer has rather less invested?

The harsh reality of the Photojournalism industry, is that pay rates are
decreasing, rights grabs are the normal contracts, and the gear is not cheap.
It surprises me that anyone would even consider getting into that industry
now. If those guys are in the statistics, then the low figure is quite
believable.

Other areas of professional photography might be a little better in the pay
rates, or at least in potential pay. Magazines (not news related) often pay
$500 to $1500 a day for editorial assignments, and someone good at juggling
assignments might be able to get two or three working days a week . . .
though likely not that steady. Regardless, the gear is not cheap for this
type of work, which can often lead to advertising assignments . . . even
better pay rates, but even more expenses.

It is a strange industry, and I think the larger aspects of decline are due
to hostile contract conditions, too much abuse of interns, and an ageing
population of professionals. Not many people want to get into a career
without much future. What this means for the manufacturers is that they are
increasingly competing for a smaller slice, especially if they are marketing
their products to professionals. They would be better off going after the
enthusiasts market IMHO.


Yes, the $200-ish SLR was with a lens with leaf shutter too ;-)

Lucky you!

Should I
note that $300-ish hassy 500 C/ELM kits with WLF, 80mm, and back have
recently been advertised on certain related mailing lists? ;-)

Think I will need to look into some used gear again . . . . . . . . .

Then again,
I bought my hassy 500c kit with accessories for $400 back in early-1980s.

Quite a huge change in used prices.



What has really distorted the used gear price levels was the higher than
inflation period in 1980s when European and then Japanese made camera gear
prices rose (partly due to strengthening local currencies) year after year
at rates up to 15% annually, far higher than inflation. Used gear prices
also went up dramatically, e.g., for used hassy C lenses, which could
often be used on the same bodies with little loss in on-film performance.

I got heavily involved in photography around the 1991, 1992 time frame. Guess
I missed all the fun of the 1980s, though I have some 1980s, and older, gear.



A study of EBAY would be useful, but they block access to older listings,
so it would have to be an on-going analysis. It is also problematic in
that you would have to factor out the same folks listing the same camera
again and again at too high a price? ;-) Perhaps limiting to just cameras
sold would show the extent of EBAY's impact on used MF gear sales. But
then, you would have to factor out if this was a new MF user sale or not
(user survey by email?). It could be a few of us on this NG buying up all
these cameras at current low prices? ;-) ;-)

Shame there is not some college project somewhere to study EBAY. My guess is
that they greatly affect prices of used products.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com
http://www.agstudiopro.com Coming Soon!

Recently, Raphael Bustin posted:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2004 19:21:12 GMT, "Neil Gould" wrote:

Recently, Raphael Bustin posted:

Now, take one of these and compare it to your 6x6 image,
scanned on the 4870. You'll need to compare at the same
resolution, which means either upsampling the 1Ds
images or downsampling the film scans, or some
combination thereof.. and then viewing them side by
side at 100% in Photoshop.

So... your rationale is to compare scanners to digital cameras;
cripple the output of the 6x6 so that it doesn't look as good as it
can; and then add sample conversion artifacts to the mix?

What Dave L says, and what David Muench says.

I'd be honored to trade prints with you, Neil.

I would, too, if it weren't so expensive and pointless.

But so far -- nobody's taken my "challenge"
so it looks like so much hot air from the film
and wet-print Luddites.

To be clear, I own and shoot both film and digital. I'm just not as
enamored with digital as you seem to be.

I think you'll see that the 1Ds provides a whole lot more
information per pixel. It's startling. 11 million pixels from
the 1Ds produce an image nearly as sharp and detailed
as a 55 million-pixel scan of 645 made on my LS-8000.

So, get a drum scan, and see how that compares to your LS-8000. The
fact is that the LS-8000, as good as it is, isn't pulling all one
can get off the film, though it might be pulling all *you* can get
off *your* film. ;-)

I'm not convinced that drum scans would pull a
whole lot more out of my films than the 8000 does.
I have quite a few scan samples and real A:B
comparisons on which I base that statement.

All I can tell you is that when I'm dealing with a critical image, I get a
drum scan and it's easy to see the difference betwen that and any CCD
scan. I'm not saying that the CCD scan is bad by any means, but to say
that you can't see much of a difference?

I would enjoy scanning my 4x5 at the same
resolution but that would require a significant
boost in computing resources. (Even now, I'm
dealing with 330 Mbyte files.)

I take it those seem large to you? Not to me.

It's a Good Thing that one has far more square mm to work with in MF.

Right, which is why I use film... or digital, based
on about a hundred different factors, among
which are whim, mood, and fancy.

I fully agree with you, and would add that there are other technical
reasons for choosing one or the other. As I said, they're different media
with their own peculiarities and limitations.

Why do things have to be so black and
white? So binary? I swing both ways, and
enjoy multiple shades of gray.

The main issue that I took with your post was that your comparison tests
which involve scanning and resampling introduces artifacts and lowers
image quality, which negates the validity of the comparison. The rest of
it is pretty much moot after that.

Neil

On 15 Jun 2004 20:43:34 -0500, (Bob Monaghan)
wrote:


quoting a photo lab report:
"As we've reported in the past and have deduced from our own tests, a
tripod mounted, high end SLR with a superb lens and ISO 100 color print
film can capture the equivalent of a 40 megapixel sensor. That's an order
of magnitude more than a 3.3 or even 4MP sensor..." - Popular Photography,
March 2001, page 55. end-quote:


Good lord, bob, do you shoot film at all or is
100% of your knowledge from books and
reports? And of course, why *wouldn't* I
trust Kodak's data on the resolving power
of film?

My comments are based on 35 or 40 years
work with film. No microscopes, no MTF
charts, no xenon strobes or high contrast
targets to boost the numbers -- but real
photographic images taken with real
cameras and real light.

Excuse me, but your 40 mpixel claim for
35 mm bears no relevance to real world
photography.

Why not praise film for what it's good for --
it's physical, tangible, quite scalable, and
has some nice archival properties. It is,
at least for now, widely available and
quite cost effective. It has a lot of history
behind it.

And why not accept digital for what it is --
a technology which, in a few short years,
has had a massive, tectonic effect on the
film & camera industry, notwithstanding
all that history behind it?


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

"Neil Gould" wrote:

I don't see any dots in the R800. Even with my nose 4" from the paper.

So. You also believe that your R800 is producing a finer screen than, say,
a ~3600 lpi imagesetter? Or, a 15,000 lpi film recorder? Curious, indeed.

My eyes don't resolve 3600 dpi. They just don't. And neither do anyone
elses.

I can take my scans to a lab, or I can take my film to a lab, or I can R800.
For enlargements of 10X or so, I really don't see a big difference. (Other
than all I get is a crop from the R800.)

What I hear from you and Gordon is a denial of the reality that amateurs
have access to imaging technology that is, for all practical purposes,
indistinguishable from what you all as pros have.

I think that this is the reason that what you are saying sounds like film
Ludditeism.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

I disagree (what, again? ;-)? I also think you are confusing subjective
with objective reality.

I suspect the reason the digital shots look "better" to you at greater
enlargements is that various software algorithms have interpolated the
modest number of real data points into some very large number of smoothed
values. That's what you see on prints or on-screen, right? In some cases
90% or more of the dots on the print are interpolated. The fact that you
like this smoothed 90% interpolated print is your subjective reality. You
also don't like grain, while I find it rather less objectionable even in
blue sky patches, perhaps after years of looking at prints? ;-) Again, I
cite this as evidence of your preference for "smoothed" digital imagery.

My subjective reality is digital prints lack crisp detail, the colors are
too simplified ("clean" because the same color values are spread over
larger spaces while the real scene had more complex color steps etc.), and
they never seem to have a plane of really sharp focus in the larger
enlargements. I understand this is the result of those smoothing
algorithms now, and the anti-aliasing low pass filter in most DSLRs
eliminating the high frequency, high contrast, high resolution details in
the scene. But the reason I am in MF is to get more of this high
resolution and high contrast stuff onto film and prints, not less. And
that's probably why I don't prefer digital photos. Similarly, I don't some
films which juice up the color saturation too much, they look "wrong" and
garish to me.

Now the objective reality is that defined by the mfgers like kodak ("at
least 24 MP equivalent") and pro lab tests like PopPhoto's tests (at 40 MP
for 35mm film). Arguing with their measurements based on your subjective
response to sundry prints is not convincing, just because it _is_
subjective and personal response and opinions vs lab tests, right? ;-)

So we have to agree to disagree on our subjective responses to projected
slide film or large prints from film vs. digital projection or prints. The
objective reality is that film still remains technically capable of
recording fine contrast and high resolution data that DSLR sensors can't.

my $.02 ;-)

bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************

"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...
Now the objective reality is that defined by the mfgers like kodak ("at
least 24 MP equivalent") and pro lab tests like PopPhoto's tests (at 40 MP
for 35mm film). Arguing with their measurements based on your subjective
response to sundry prints is not convincing, just because it _is_
subjective and personal response and opinions vs lab tests, right? ;-)

So we have to agree to disagree on our subjective responses to projected
slide film or large prints from film vs. digital projection or prints. The
objective reality is that film still remains technically capable of
recording fine contrast and high resolution data that DSLR sensors can't.

my $.02 ;-)

What do you think, Bob? Do you expect a 6 MP 8x10 would be about the same as
35mm printed to 20x24? Or even Kodak's more conservative 16x20? I quite
honestly can't imagine what they're objectively measuring. My subjective
opinion is that both are blowing hot air out their arses.

"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...

My subjective reality is digital prints lack crisp detail, the colors are
too simplified ("clean" because the same color values are spread over
larger spaces while the real scene had more complex color steps etc.), and
they never seem to have a plane of really sharp focus in the larger
enlargements.

Your subjective reality isn't being compared to anything real.

Compare competently made A4 prints from 6MP dSLRs with A4 prints made from a
15 x 22mm area of film.

That's a 14 x enlargement from both.

Then tell me how terrible digital is.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

On 15 Jun 2004 23:01:26 -0500, (Bob Monaghan)
wrote:


So we have to agree to disagree on our subjective responses to projected
slide film or large prints from film vs. digital projection or prints. The
objective reality is that film still remains technically capable of
recording fine contrast and high resolution data that DSLR sensors can't.


Your objective reality needs qualification. At the
very least, it should be qualified as describing the
conditions existing today, since it will surely change
over time. And I don't see time on the side of film
technology.

As to the rest of it -- I agree that there's a lot of
subjectivity involved. Part of that subjectivity
derives from history, what we grew up with and
what was the norm until recently -- film.

Eg., just as Stacey enjoys the tactile nature
of a wooden field camera or a 1920 Tessar,
there are those of us who similarly grok and
enjoy not only the benefits but the *process*
of fiddling with images in the digital domain.
(Bill Atkinson comes to mind here...)

My wife (aka editor) is quick to remind me,
at every opportunity, that photography is about
much more than contrast and resolution.

It rather annoys me that a few of her favorite
images are from the 10D. I'd have much
preferred if she'd shown more favor to my
MF or LF pix.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

hi again rafe; to quote RWR, "there you go again" ;-)

What's wrong with 40 MP for film? Do the math. 24x36mm is 864mm^2, into 40
MP yields 46,300 pixels per sq. mm, take sqrt to get 215 pixels per mm,
which equates to about 108 lines per mm ( 2 pixels per line, one black,
one white). This is pretty much what we would expect with a superb APO
lens, tripod, and today's best fine grained ISO 100 film speed films,
right?

What's wrong with rafe saying 6MP digital is better than film? Do the
math. 6MP/864= 6,944 pixels per sq. mm, take sqrt to get 83 pixels per mm,
and that equates to about 42 lines per mm.

So for film to be worse than a 6MP digicam, it has to be performing at
less than 42 lpmm.

rafe, most of us with decades of experience with film, and with testing
lenses, probably have enough experience to decide this either-or question.

Are modern lenses with 100 ISO films able to reach 100+ lpmm (bob is
right), or are modern high quality lenses with 100 ISO films unable to
reach even 42 lpmm (6 MP equiv., and rafe is right)?

Ooops! Do your decades of experience with film and lenses tell you they
are limited to less than 42 lpmm in actual photo-taking? Sounds to me more
like your scanning and other techniques are losing at least 60% of the
potential of film, as suggested by PopPhoto's pro lab tests. And yes, lots
of us probably believe Kodak film specs more than we believe posters on
NGs ;-) As a matter of fact, many scanners have nyquist limits close to 40
lpmm, as I have noted in past postings etc. ;-) And lots of digicams have
anti-aliasing or low pass filters which limit them to 40 to 50+ lpmm max.
So it is no surprise that 6MP clocks in at 40+ lpmm either, right?

I should note that zeiss has demonstrated over 200 lpmm with slow ISO 25
films in real world photos with their lenses at public photo convention
tests (in late 1990s; see Zeiss CLN #19 IIRC?). So I am being quite
conservative in my claims here for film's potential and MP equivalence ;-)
==========

rafe, your claim of film not being as good as 6 MP digicam images means
that film is limited to delivering less than 42 lpmm. Using the 8 lpmm
leica standard, that would be a maximum 5X enlargement size, or 5x7"
print. But as any leica-phile on this NG will tell you, Leica lenses (and
others) are perfectly capable of producing 8x10" or 8X enlargements to the
leica standard. So if we believe your position about 6MP beating film,
rafe, then we have to dis-believe decades of enlarging experience. Right?
;-)

I suggest that the answer is that Kodak and PopPhoto are correct, and that
film easily equals "at least 24 MP" (per Kodak for 35mm midspeed films) to
40 MP (per popphoto lab tests). This shouldn't be the least bit mysterious
if you do the math as I have above.

A similar argument goes to David's claims about film luddites (ahem, I
hope and assume that includes me? ;-). What we film luddites are
complaining about are impossibly silly claims about how BAD film is
supposed to be, if what digital film scanners tell us is all true. But it
can't be, as I've shown with the math above. Film is not limited to 42
lpmm. It can and does resolve much higher resolutions and finer contrast.

What this obviously means is that the methods used to compare film and
digicams (6 MP etc.) are necessarily badly flawed if you conclude that
film can't equal 42 lpmm as provided by a 6 MP digicam. It can, and does,
by a large margin.

I also reject David's contention that there isn't any fine image detail in
photos. I suspect most of us who have paid major $$ for better lenses
can attest to the fact that better lenses produce more contrast and fine
detail (high resolution) images than cheapy zoom lenses (which might be in
the 40 lpmm range on a bad day?). And that there is a noticeable
progression in image quality as you go from cheapy zoom to cheapy third
party to prosumer to pro lenses costing kilobucks.

Those noticeable changes in image details and contrast correspond to the
fine contrast details that David's argument suggests don't matter. They do
matter. Shoot the same lens with a #2 softening filter, and compare. Are
the images different? Of course the softened image will have less contrast
and less fine details. Can you tell? You should see these differences;
that's a 40+ lpmm low pass filter a.k.a. softening filter versus a good
lens at 60-70+ lpmm (tripod, good technique, slow ISO 100 film assumed).

so why are film luddites incensed when digital types tell us film shooting
delivers worse than 6MP? Because it is just silly when you do the math
and discover film would have to be doing worse than 42 lpmm. It is silly
to claim, as David effectively does, that fine contrast and high
resolution details in a photo don't matter, when many of us are shooting
expensive lenses precisely because they can deliver high contrast and fine
detail.

But the good news is we do find something out in these discussions. In
this case, we can see that circa 60% of film's potential has been lost or
missed (i.e., 107 lpmm+ per pop photo with 100 iso films) by digital
scanning and other manipulations in making these 6MP vs film comparisons
(and concluding we are at 42 lpmm or worse for film, i.e., 65 lpmm/107 or
60% lost quality from film in these comparisons).

it's simple. Do the math. That's why pro digital types have to use
subjective tests, the objective ones and analyses like the above all favor
film ;-)

grins bobm
--
************************************************** *********************
* Robert Monaghan POB 752182 Southern Methodist Univ. Dallas Tx 75275 *
********************Standard Disclaimers Apply*************************

"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...
hi again rafe; to quote RWR, "there you go again" ;-)

What's wrong with 40 MP for film?

It doesn't pass a simple reality check. So it seems incredibly stupid.

The problem with 40 MP for 24x36 is that it implies that if you enlarge
1/6.666 of the 35mm frame to A4, the result will have a similar quality to
what 6MP dSLR users see when they make A4 prints.

Can you imagine what a 10mm x 14mm area of film would look like printed at
A4?

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan