Owners of Contax 645 or Hasselblad H1, Would Any Rather Get a Digital Back Than a Canon/Nikon DSLR?

I would rather to believe that the more you pay, the more you get. But
practically speaking, if you are considering to go digital, would it
make more sense to get a digital back or simply go for a 35mm style
DSLR?

On 24 Mar 2004 21:47:21 -0800, (Einton
Newstein) wrote:

I would rather to believe that the more you pay, the more you get. But
practically speaking, if you are considering to go digital, would it
make more sense to get a digital back or simply go for a 35mm style
DSLR?


There are two types of digital backs -- scanning
backs and area arrays. dSLRs and "digicams"
are the latter.

Problem with area arrays is that they are very
expensive to make. The largest of them are
around 40 mm x 40 mm, so they don't even
cover the 645 surface area, and only cover
maybe 30-50% more area than the full-frame
sensor in the Canon 1Ds.

So... consider the cost of an MF "area array"
back against the $7K or so for a Canon 1Ds,
and the relative merits of each... to me, the
extra cost and weight of the MF back doesn't
buy all that much.. In terms of pixel counts, you'll
get 16-20 Mpixels from the MF back, vs. 11
Mpixels from the 1Ds.

The Kodak DCS Pro is one of the newer and
more cost-effective area array backs for MF,
though recently discontinued. I'm guessing
the remaining units will sell for around $10K.
(There's one on eBay as we speak, with a
starting bid of $5K.)

Now if you're talking about scanning backs
it's a different story. These are capable of
covering large imaging areas (roughly 3" x 4")
and considerably higher pixel counts. The
huge disadvantage here is that they are for
still subjects only, and require many tens of
seconds for a single exposure. Mostly these
are used in the studio for repro work, but
daring souls have used them for landscape
photography.

See http://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.asp
for Better Light's lineup of scanning backs.
See http://www.sjphoto.com for some nice
landscape work done with these.


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

Einton Newstein wrote:

I would rather to believe that the more you pay, the more you get. But
practically speaking, if you are considering to go digital, would it
make more sense to get a digital back or simply go for a 35mm style
DSLR?

There are some lease plans for medium format digital backs, which makes
them immediately better choices than any 35 mm sized digital body. I
would think only large studios, or wealthy individuals, would actually
purchase a digital back outright.

While the sensors are getting larger, like the newest Sinar, they still
crop the image greatly compared to a 645 film back. The newer 22MP are
better than the devices of a couple years ago, but it may be another year
or two before true 645 dimension digital backs are available. Considering
the added costs of wider angle optics for medium format, it may be wise
to wait a little longer.

The medium format digital backs are larger, but allow for better cooling
of the imaging chip. That cooling helps reduce noise, and improve colour
accuracy and saturation. Though we are still stuck with a Bayer pattern,
the added circuitry in medium format digital backs can provide more
pleasing results than 35 mm sized digital bodies.

I have rented medium format digital backs a few times, but I have no
interest in buying, nor leasing one. I suspect they may continue to
improve and we will see more price reductions in the near future. If a
development gets away from the limitations of Bayer patterning, and the
price is right, I might go the digital back route. The other thing that
would convince me would be a discontinuation of scanner improvements, but
I don't see that happening.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
Alliance Graphique Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com

On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 17:56:30 +0100, Lourens Smak
wrote:

In article ,
Raphael Bustin wrote:

There are two types of digital backs -- scanning
backs and area arrays. dSLRs and "digicams"
are the latter.

Scanning backs are impractical and only a few are still made, usually
for 4x5". I don't know of any MF one that has survived.

Better Light has adapters to several MF cameras.
(A link was provided on my post.)

Impractical... maybe. But since when was that
a gating issue for MF and LF shooters?


Problem with area arrays is that they are very
expensive to make. The largest of them are
around 40 mm x 40 mm, so they don't even
cover the 645 surface area, and only cover
maybe 30-50% more area than the full-frame
sensor in the Canon 1Ds.

There's a new back from Imacon and from Sinar, which both are
significantly larger than that. (over twice the 1Ds sensor)

So... consider the cost of an MF "area array"
back against the $7K or so for a Canon 1Ds,
and the relative merits of each... to me, the
extra cost and weight of the MF back doesn't
buy all that much.. In terms of pixel counts, you'll
get 16-20 Mpixels from the MF back, vs. 11
Mpixels from the 1Ds.

You're a bit behind the times I'm affraid; there are backs that use
multi-stepping and 16-shot exposures to increase practical resolution to
over 150MP. Depending on what you are shooting, this may well be more
interesting than 35mm form-factor and faster speed. Each has it's strong
points.

You start by saying that scanning backs impractical.
So how are multi-stepping and 16-shot exposures
any more practical?


The Kodak DCS Pro is one of the newer and
more cost-effective area array backs for MF,
though recently discontinued.

In fact it's not so new, that's probably why it's discontinued.

The DCS Pro 645H back was announced by
Kodak on September 24, 2002. That would be
18 months ago, almost exactly.


I suggest the Imacon Ixpress:
http://www.imacon.dk/sw1417.asp
37x49mm sensor, up to 528Mb files, 100% portable solution.


But not handheld for those 528 Mb files.
Those 264/528 Mb files are created by multiple
exposures - studio setting only.

In my book, a 22 Mpixel sensor gives 66 Mbyte or
132 Mbyte files, for 24 bit/48 bit color.

The "4x" res mode magically delivers a factor of four
more pixels. Forgive me if I'm just a tiny bit skeptical.

This after all is the same company that sells a CCD
scanner but calls it a "drum" scanner in all their ads.


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

Raphael Bustin wrote:

In fact it's not so new, that's probably why it's discontinued.

The DCS Pro 645H back was announced by
Kodak on September 24, 2002. That would be
18 months ago, almost exactly.

Nevertheless, it has been discontinued.
Goes to show that things get old really fast in the digital world. ;-)

what sort of back does the mamiya 645afd use?