Digicams With MF Film Quality

I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam. But, I'm
concerned about the quality of the images I'd get, since I'd like to
produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone recommend a digicam,
preferably under $1K, that can do that? Or, do I need to buy a digital
back for my current camera, which will be in excess of $1K? I'm also
thinking of using the camera hand-held in many situations. MF film
cameras with digital backs seem pretty bulky, necessitating a tripod
for best results.

"One4All" wrote in message
oups.com...

I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam. But, I'm
concerned about the quality of the images I'd get, since I'd like to
produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone recommend a digicam,
preferably under $1K, that can do that? Or, do I need to buy a digital
back for my current camera, which will be in excess of $1K? I'm also
thinking of using the camera hand-held in many situations. MF film
cameras with digital backs seem pretty bulky, necessitating a tripod
for best results.


Not gonna happen. Not for $1K.

I've made 16x24" prints from 10D images, but I
would not claim that they're up to MF quality.

Scans of 6x6 film @ 4000 dpi give files of
80 megapixels.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

One4All wrote:
|| I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam.
|| But, I'm concerned about the quality of the images I'd get,
|| since I'd like to produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone
|| recommend a digicam, preferably under $1K, that can do that?
|| Or, do I need to buy a digital back for my current camera,
|| which will be in excess of $1K? I'm also thinking of using
|| the camera hand-held in many situations. MF film cameras with
|| digital backs seem pretty bulky, necessitating a tripod for
|| best results.

I am looking for a new car less than $800

--
"If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments."

In article .com,
One4All wrote:
I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam. But, I'm
concerned about the quality of the images I'd get, since I'd like to
produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone recommend a digicam,
preferably under $1K, that can do that?

No, is the simple answer.

I paid a lot more than that for my 5D, and that won't compete with MF at
that print size.

One4All wrote:
I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam. But, I'm
concerned about the quality of the images I'd get, since I'd like to
produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone recommend a digicam,
preferably under $1K, that can do that? Or, do I need to buy a digital
back for my current camera, which will be in excess of $1K? I'm also
thinking of using the camera hand-held in many situations. MF film
cameras with digital backs seem pretty bulky, necessitating a tripod
for best results.
If you want hi-res digital photos on the cheap then one possible way to
go is stitching. This can take you past the resolution of a MF camera
and get you up to what a LF camera can do. The down side is that to do
this well it really does take a tripod and a panoramic head.

Here is a photo that is close to 100 MP, to see it full size hit
original at the bottom of the photo.
http://www.pbase.com/konascott/image/53085707/large

On the plus side you should see a notable improvement in the image
sharpness in a stitched image vs from your MF camera, when printed at
20"x 24"

Just something to think about.

Scott

Scott W wrote:
One4All wrote:

I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam. But, I'm
concerned about the quality of the images I'd get, since I'd like to
produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone recommend a digicam,
preferably under $1K, that can do that? Or, do I need to buy a digital
back for my current camera, which will be in excess of $1K? I'm also
thinking of using the camera hand-held in many situations. MF film
cameras with digital backs seem pretty bulky, necessitating a tripod
for best results.

If you want hi-res digital photos on the cheap then one possible way to
go is stitching. This can take you past the resolution of a MF camera
and get you up to what a LF camera can do. The down side is that to do
this well it really does take a tripod and a panoramic head.

No. While extremely useful, you need neither for excellent outdoor
panos. The downside is the processing time, which a pan head and tripod
will reduce somewhat, but hardly eliminate.


--
john mcwilliams

Two vultures board an airplane, each carrying two dead raccoons. The
flight attendant looks at them and says, "I'm sorry, gentlemen, only one
carrion allowed per passenger."

John McWilliams wrote:
No. While extremely useful, you need neither for excellent outdoor
panos. The downside is the processing time, which a pan head and tripod
will reduce somewhat, but hardly eliminate.

I have done a fair number of panoramic photos without a tripod, but it
starts to get tricky if you are stitching more then 10 to 12 photos.
The panoramic head makes it easy to take as many photos as you might
wish, depending on the needed resolution and FOV. With the angle
indexing of a panoramic head the time to take the photos is greatly
reduced.

The other aspect is that with a panoramic head it is pretty easy to
rotate the camera around the nodal point of the lens, this is not
critical if the scene is all pretty far away but if there are elements
of the scene that are close you can suffer from parallax if you don't
rotate around the lens nodal point.

Scott

Your best option is a high quality flat bed scanner with transparency
adapter. Even loaded with Silverfast or the software of your choice this
will cost less than $1000. You will also get images that can be technically
superior to even the finest digital imaging equipment. The downside: you
need to know a lot more about digital image processing than you appear to
know and you need a computer with a very, very fast processor (preferably
dual core) and at least 2gbs of RAM.

aemd wrote:
Your best option is a high quality flat bed scanner with transparency
adapter. Even loaded with Silverfast or the software of your choice this
will cost less than $1000. You will also get images that can be technically
superior to even the finest digital imaging equipment. The downside: you
need to know a lot more about digital image processing than you appear to
know and you need a computer with a very, very fast processor (preferably
dual core) and at least 2gbs of RAM.

I don't think he would need all that fast of a computer if he is
dealing with scans from a flat bed. From what I have seen there is
little to be gained by going past 2000ppi when using a flat bed
scanner, perhaps the new Epson scanner will change this but I have not
seen scans from it yet. At 2000 ppi a 6 x 7 frame will give you
something like a 23MP image. Even if you did scan at 4000ppi you would
only have an image a bit larger then 90MP. I edit photos that size
with 1 GB of ram and a non-dual core processor without problems.

The problem with scanning MF is that there is no good scanner for this
that is less then $1000. If you are dealing with 4 x 5 film then there
is so much area that a flat bed works fine. If you are dealing with
35mm that are a lot of scanners that will work fairly well. MF is just
a hard size to scan.

Scott


Scott

"rafe b" wrote in message
...
:
: "One4All" wrote in message
: oups.com...
:
: I'm thinking of replacing my MF film camera with a digicam. But, I'm
: concerned about the quality of the images I'd get, since I'd like to
: produce up to 20" x 24" prints. Can anyone recommend a digicam,
: preferably under $1K, that can do that? Or, do I need to buy a digital
: back for my current camera, which will be in excess of $1K? I'm also
: thinking of using the camera hand-held in many situations. MF film
: cameras with digital backs seem pretty bulky, necessitating a tripod
: for best results.
:
:
: Not gonna happen. Not for $1K.
:
: I've made 16x24" prints from 10D images, but I
: would not claim that they're up to MF quality.
:
: Scans of 6x6 film @ 4000 dpi give files of
: 80 megapixels.
:
:
: rafe b

I have to disagree with Rafe's opinion here. 6 megapixel images are well and
truly printable at very high quality in the area of 24"x36", all things
being equal. You have to use dedicated enlargement software but it is well
within the capability of a digicam. The thing which hinders film (grain)
does not exist in a pure digital image.

Images from "digicams" with high quality lenses like the FZ20 and FZ30
Panasonics which use Leica lenses, can be enlarged to this size with quality
as good as the best 645 cameras and films. Obviously, the image size will
need to be in the region of 12 megapixel or more to compare with larger film
sizes but the mere fact that RB67 and RZ67 MF gear is being dumped on EBay
for a song, should be an indication of where the industry is heading.

You can probably still pick up a FZ20 at the run out price or a FZ30 will go
for about $1K. Another good buy is the Olympus E300 at run out prices. These
cameras need careful understanding of the somewhat restricted dynamic range
but they're not much worse than some transparency films. Even the higher
priced Kodaks with German lenses are up to the task. Provided you can get a
correctly exposed picture from one!

MM