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Digital v Film again

Three Cheers for Melissa for cutting through all the BS and getting to the heart of matters... I repost her quote because it's so apt for this string... "QUIT FILLING MY EMAIL UNLESS YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY. DONT YOU PEOPLE HAVE JOBS THAT YOU KEEP BRAGGING ABOUT?"

Now, time to go take some pictures and learn more about this hobby that I love so much...

Kerry
 
> D.J.

Sounds like a good comparison ... cept'n for the 16x20 size. The ND was never really built to generate 16 x 20 images. I think a full frame 11 x 17 print would be a better test.

Michael.
 
Michael, I print 12x18" and 13x19" all the time, and it is only because my printer cannot handle paper wider than 13". I can assure you that pulling a decent 16x20" print from Contax ND will not be a problem.
I am going to participate in a show next month where we decided to have blow-ups of at least 3x5'. I'll print something from ND just to see what is it capable of.
 
Hi Irakly,

> Michael, I print 12x18" and 13x19" all the time, and it is only > because my printer cannot handle paper wider than 13". I can assure > you that pulling a decent 16x20" print from Contax ND will not be a > problem.

It's pretty easy to see what sizes (unrezzed-up) you can get from the ND or any digicam... Typically, for the best output, on inkjet printers, 240PPI to the printer is preferable. Let's say the sensor is 2k x 3k (6M). That would give a max size of 2000/240 x 3000/240 or 8.3" x 12.5". Which will give very good prints.

Of course, this is without rezzing up the image...and though rezzing up the image does a good job simetimes, it doesn't add more detail, so I really believe to claim a particular size with rezzed data really needs to be qualified as such.

Regards,

Austin
 
If you want to see something interesting ... go to the test photo gallery area. At Clive's insistance, I have posted an ND created image, then cropped the image to show 10 perecent of the image, and then cropped the image to show 1 (one) perecent of the image. Clive did a similar posting in the scanned images section of the Test Gallery, and Clive insists that his images would blow away the ND images. Take a look and let us know! My image is of the Cat: Ms. Kitty. Check out Clive's lovely image of the angler.

Thanks,

Michael.
 
Interesting post Michael. Your photo of Ms Kitty seems to have an overall softness to it, even around the eyes. (I assume you focussed on the eyes?) There is a flatness to the colors as well. In all honesty, I think that the image you produced here looks similar in sharpness to the image that is shown of the angler scanned from a photograph taken by a pocket camera. Notice when you get into the cutaway sections of the negative that there are unusual looking *grainy-ness* for lack of a better word, and that the colors in these pixels are not smoothing into one another. Sorry, but that's the results I see in this image you posted. It's no worse than the pocket camera though. Take a look at the scanned images of the worker bee and of the wash day in venice. That too me looks sharp and saturated. I don't see that in the ND image you posted. Sorry to burst your bubble. But maybe the new digital from Contax will offer you a better quality image? I'll cross my fingers for you. Best, Lynn
 
Hi Lynn, your post piqued my interest so I downloaded all 6 images full sized and laid them next to each other, (each magnification directly next to one another).

Contray to "bursting anyone's bubble" it clearly shows the ND image to be better in every way.

In the extreme crop, while the grain structure and tonal gradations are similar (to be expected at that magnification), the ND edge definition (contrast) is easily seen as superior... (probably as much the lens as anything, and also to be expected). Edge definition at that magnification translates into an overall impression of sharpness at printing size. The only fault I see in the ND image is a slight indication of camera motion, which the ND/Ziess contrast serves to mask somewhat.

This becomes even more evident with the medium cropped images. The Cat's eyebrows compared to the weeds; the definition in the man's hair compared to the cat's hair.

In practical printing applications (rather than web uploads, theoretical words and mathematical equations), I have found the ND with a prime lens challenging 4000 dpi scans of Leica M work using ASPH glass...as opposed to a P&S. Just the differences in the P&S lens quality could account for that alone.

Austin, we can quote all kinds of equations, but I have seen Irakly's prints. He had stuff made from his ND AND Rollie MFin a show I visited along with another highly accomplished photographer. We could not tell the difference even with our noses an inch away from the prints. Believe me, Irakly knows exactly what to do with the ND and post processing to get large prints out of it. His work is meticulous, stunning and inspirational to many who see it in the real world.
 
Marc,
I have never heard so much BS spouted with so much self - proclaimed authority!

The images speak for themselves. Compared with the ND images (and if the cat’s eye is subject of camera shake then that is the second time it has happened in just two attempts that Michael has provided cropped images, but I very much doubt that anyone can really tell that at these resolutions), the scanned slide images provide so much more detail. And, your own much less ambitious 10% flower crops exhibit just as much of a blurred effect where fine detail should be – are these subject of camera shake too?

When is someone going to provide a sharp, detailed image from a 35mm format digital camera that matches the third generation ‘Angler’ photograph from a compact camera let alone the scanned slides that I have posted?

Clive
 
Hi Marc, This is very intersting isn't it? I had always hoped to be able to see two images produces side by side of the same scene under the same lighting, one from the ND and one from any other decent film camera. Barring that, this still shows a lot though. Look very carefully underneath the cats eyes. Do you see the individual hairs? You should. But I don't. Do you? They're sort of all mushed up together, but not separate. Since the eyes are the perceived focal point, those little hairs should be sharp. The actual iris of the eye creates a false sense of sharpness through it's natural contrast in my opinion. I wasn't even bothering to look at edge sharpness, since I couldn't find sharpness in the eyes. Are you thinking this is a poor indication of the quality an ND should produce, since you mention Irakly's success with it? -Lynn
 
... I think it would be grart if we could have the tif-files of these testpictures. As far as I can see it all the cat-pictures are jpeg images.

So if Michael could upload the same pictures as TIF-files, not modified in PS, everybody coudl download it and print it at home.

To be able to see thumbnails with tif files, you have to upload the thumbnail as a jpeg images separately at the same time. This is a second field below the normal file-search field. You see instructions for this in the upload screen.

You can upload up to 8MB file-size. So that should leave enough space to get a very decent crop as a TIF file.

But bear in mind that you need a fast internet connection for 8MB files, so that your provider is not turning off the connection while you are uploading/downloading

Give us 30 minutes, we are doing some maintainance stuff currently on the testimages gallery...
 
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