P
paul_drouillard
Posted by Bobby Tong (Cyberstudio) on Friday, December 12, 2003 - 7:00 pm:
>>I just got a wonderful 12" x 18" enlargement from the Planar, with that kind of medium-format-like tonality and microcontrast. I start wondering if it is the magic of the lens, or the magic of the digital printer like David said ?
That's a scary thing to think about. 12x18" is almost certain to have come from a digital minilab or possibly a Sienna. Either way, it's doubtful that such a print would give you much of an indication of the true quality of any camera lens. A Sienna printer has a maximum true optical resolution of 300lpi and is a CRT / fibre optic exposure engine. Though it can be pleasant, it isn't considered to be the sharpest digital printer. We've had one for a few years. Current minilabs have a few different technologies, with laser being the most common. The AGFA D-lab is probably the highest resolution printer of the bunch, printing interpolated files at 400dpi, BUT almost all of these labs scan a maximum of 2000x3000 line file. Bottom line is, you're getting a 12x18" print that is really 166 dpi max without any cropping, and lower if cropped. The machines are programmed to certain sharpness levels and colour responses, usually not accurate but "entertaining" to the human eye. They are edging away from being real and are interpretations for the most part. Consider another factor. If the machine is giving us programmed profiles for colours etc. what are the chances of realizing the true "character" of any film? Will we truly be able to realize the difference and true character of XPS, or NPS, or Portra film if the printer is programmed to respond to certain criteria etc., in other words, putting it's own "spin" to the image?
I shot a roll of Agfa Ultra in Vegas and had it processed at PMA in March. I had the same negatives run on the Agfa D-Lab and a Noritsu printer to 12x18's. If you studied the prints there were disturbing differences in the colour palette and the sharpness had a different look from both labs. I then took the negs and printed 8x12's on my Agfa MSC 101 upon my return. Surprise!! They looked totally different and frankly considerably more pleasing, deeper looking and better detail. The digital prints are puzzling because they appear sharp, but lack detail which pretty much sounds like a contradiction. There just seems to be information missing from the print.
A similar scenario played itself out this week. I got a visit for a minilab service tech who was in town on a service call. He showed me 12x18's done on the minilab that were scanned from 6x7 negs. This is where the real crying shame comes in. Again, the maximum scan is 2000x 3000 lines because of the CCD design. This means you'll get the same resolution from 35mm or 6x7. It's obvious that a lot of info isn't being captured especially in the larger format negative. He was quite taken back when I showed him a true optical print done on our Devere enlarger with Rodagon lenses. The print was 24x30 from Optima 400 on 6x4.5 format. The optical print exhibited a considerably higher fidelity in sharpness, detail, shadow detail, accuracy and most importantly depth. Smoothly descending shadow detail is still quite a challenge in the digital arena. That's probably the largest obstacle to matching a good optical print.
So it all gets pretty messy in the new arena and chances are what you see in print isn't really what's on the negative. If that's the case, then a great camera lens vs. a good one really won't matter a whole hell of a lot. If however, you really want to put lenses to the test, you're going to see a whole lot more by shooting chromes and / or real B&W film and processed at good labs. You might even enjoy the experience. I won't be decommissioning my enlargers any time soon. I'm too stupid. I realized a long time ago that I'm in it for the love more than the money.
Don't know if I'm right or wrong. It's just my view of things.
Paul
>>I just got a wonderful 12" x 18" enlargement from the Planar, with that kind of medium-format-like tonality and microcontrast. I start wondering if it is the magic of the lens, or the magic of the digital printer like David said ?
That's a scary thing to think about. 12x18" is almost certain to have come from a digital minilab or possibly a Sienna. Either way, it's doubtful that such a print would give you much of an indication of the true quality of any camera lens. A Sienna printer has a maximum true optical resolution of 300lpi and is a CRT / fibre optic exposure engine. Though it can be pleasant, it isn't considered to be the sharpest digital printer. We've had one for a few years. Current minilabs have a few different technologies, with laser being the most common. The AGFA D-lab is probably the highest resolution printer of the bunch, printing interpolated files at 400dpi, BUT almost all of these labs scan a maximum of 2000x3000 line file. Bottom line is, you're getting a 12x18" print that is really 166 dpi max without any cropping, and lower if cropped. The machines are programmed to certain sharpness levels and colour responses, usually not accurate but "entertaining" to the human eye. They are edging away from being real and are interpretations for the most part. Consider another factor. If the machine is giving us programmed profiles for colours etc. what are the chances of realizing the true "character" of any film? Will we truly be able to realize the difference and true character of XPS, or NPS, or Portra film if the printer is programmed to respond to certain criteria etc., in other words, putting it's own "spin" to the image?
I shot a roll of Agfa Ultra in Vegas and had it processed at PMA in March. I had the same negatives run on the Agfa D-Lab and a Noritsu printer to 12x18's. If you studied the prints there were disturbing differences in the colour palette and the sharpness had a different look from both labs. I then took the negs and printed 8x12's on my Agfa MSC 101 upon my return. Surprise!! They looked totally different and frankly considerably more pleasing, deeper looking and better detail. The digital prints are puzzling because they appear sharp, but lack detail which pretty much sounds like a contradiction. There just seems to be information missing from the print.
A similar scenario played itself out this week. I got a visit for a minilab service tech who was in town on a service call. He showed me 12x18's done on the minilab that were scanned from 6x7 negs. This is where the real crying shame comes in. Again, the maximum scan is 2000x 3000 lines because of the CCD design. This means you'll get the same resolution from 35mm or 6x7. It's obvious that a lot of info isn't being captured especially in the larger format negative. He was quite taken back when I showed him a true optical print done on our Devere enlarger with Rodagon lenses. The print was 24x30 from Optima 400 on 6x4.5 format. The optical print exhibited a considerably higher fidelity in sharpness, detail, shadow detail, accuracy and most importantly depth. Smoothly descending shadow detail is still quite a challenge in the digital arena. That's probably the largest obstacle to matching a good optical print.
So it all gets pretty messy in the new arena and chances are what you see in print isn't really what's on the negative. If that's the case, then a great camera lens vs. a good one really won't matter a whole hell of a lot. If however, you really want to put lenses to the test, you're going to see a whole lot more by shooting chromes and / or real B&W film and processed at good labs. You might even enjoy the experience. I won't be decommissioning my enlargers any time soon. I'm too stupid. I realized a long time ago that I'm in it for the love more than the money.
Don't know if I'm right or wrong. It's just my view of things.
Paul