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Film v Digital

Charlie,

It's good to know that you have found lenses and cameras that work for you. I have found similar success with Canon, and Cliff seems to have had good results with Nikon and Leica. The actual camera you end up with is less relevant than whether it works for you. I've yet to have much luck with rangefinders, finding the focus difficult to get right, and the lack of feedback when a shot is taken somewhat disconcerting.

My canon lenses are relatively cheap, but they perform astoundingly well. Coupled with a body with a modern lightmeter and reliable auto-focus, I can reliably catch portraits which previously i'd never have been able to get with a manual focus camera. For example, the shot below was taken with a £300 lens, a Tamron 28-75 zoom. It was shot at 75/5.6, so a couple of stops down from wide open. The detail on the jacket is quite amazing - the camera has nailed the focus (I was probably working with a focus point on the face in servo mode). This was one of three shots, all in focus as she was messing in the snow. I probably had the camera to my eye for less than 10 seconds in total. Camera was a canon 1Ds Mark II.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4027/4663966593_18e37d13b9_o.jpg

As for silver prints, i've got a bit of a backlog to get through here. It is certainly fun and the feedback from the process makes it very enjoyable (except when I get cat hair in my developing tray since the cat seems to be fascinated with the process).
 
I've never owned a Leica M-series camera or the matching Cherman glass, but on B&W a good Leica snap is amazing. I think that's where the camera shines.

Pix from my FM3a and Nikkor glass seem just as sharp, but they just don't have the Leica glow and range of tones (an example of this deficiency is below). The same shot with a Leica would simply look more impressive.

9s6ohh.jpg


(Just a snap from a family wedding. It's not supposed to be high art.)

Joe
 
why is it assumed that a typical digital user wants to print?

I thought the thread was about Mr Mick's situation and he still hasn't commented on what he shoots, how good he is at is or whether he prints for that matter. Are you going to say something Mick or perhaps post some examples?
 
I don't know about "glow" Joe, but here are a few snaps of Alain. The first with Leica M7 and Summicron 50mm and the second with fm3a and 50mm 1.2 AIS, see notes below each ...

3835061292_7bc7d8345b_o.jpg


m7/neopan 1600/cron 50 (outisde around dusk)

3313270181_cf7d359c68_o.jpg


fm3a/50/1.2ais/delta3200 (in a dark pub)

2834119308_89bfda0c64_o.jpg


voigtlander r2a/50mmcron/Ilford HP5 (daylight)

3883864842_c0267507cb_o.jpg


Leica M8 / noctilux 1.0 (digital, and it was pretty dark)

(for Dan - 4 snaps for one comment eh?)
 
oh no, its the sharpness patrol ;-)

It's an example of a superb lens on a sub-Leica body. The leading edge of the jacket is in focus but the face is rather soft. I don't think the Voigtlander body works so well at keeping the film plane flat.

anyway, some of the best evah leica shots have been less than 100% sharp :)

same lens in one and three btw
 
Yeah, I have a lot of those sharp leading edge of jackets shots too - damn this getting old (my eyesight used to be perfect) ;-)
 
Well, here are some Leica film shots - all on HP5 (some pushed to 1600) and scanned on my Minolta 5400 (post processing in LR2.6).

http://topoxforddoc.zenfolio.com/f757718867

Lenses are 35/1.4 pre-asph summilux and Voigtlander 15/4.5 CV Heliar (london Street). All handheld, including the night time shots at 1/15th sec. Some of the London Street shots would have been difficult with a SLR (too obtrusive).

Best wishes,

Charlie
www.charlie-chan.co.uk
 
Dan and Joe,

Thank you for looking. The 15CV Heliar sat in my drawer for quite a while before I took it for a serious spin. As a street lens, it's great. I don't do much in the way of landscapes, but it would be great for that too.

Best wishes,

Charlie
www.charlie-chan.co.uk
 
cliffpatte said:
Mick,

- zero grain, no matter what the speed (although 18 megapixels does limit you to around A3+ prints without some kind of post processing to scale the image)
Click to expand...

/coughs/ BULLSHIT!

I know of professionals who've had posters covering the side of a building out of the 6MP files from a Nikon D70.

I've also been shown A0 professionally printed images on art paper without any kind of scaling software used, again, out of a nikon d70(s).

the number of megapixels is not a limiting factor to enlargement in the real world. it does appear to be, though, on the interweb.

cheers
 
Rico said:
the number of megapixels is not a limiting factor to enlargement in the real world.
Click to expand...

Yes it is, it's just plain daft to argue otherwise.

It's certainly true that you can print at relatively low PPI and get a reasonable result, but this depends on the content of the image. It's also true that upres software can do a good job at allowing you to print even larger. But it's just wrong to argue that either of these things mean that the base image resolution is unimportant.

I agree that for most people, printing most things, 6MP is indeed fine, it will print pretty well up to most reasonable sizes. It's not sufficient for most pros working in magazine and advertising work though.
 
6mp digital is great up to about A4, or a full magazine page. After that, you're starting to simply not have enough information, and things get a weirdly blank hyper-real cartoon look, especially when you get any kind of sharpening in the mix.

With 35mm film, there's equally often not enough real information after ~A4, but analogue grain covers this gracefully. I've seen 35mm B&W shots at bill-board size that look great.

You can always see some ~6mp digital images blown up very big, but either they're a particular image where detail isn't needed (like some heavily stylised portraits for instance), or they simply look very weird indeed close-up.
 
It's not just the size of the enlargement that matters, it's the distance you view at. So you can blow stuff up on the side of buildings if you are viewing it from across the street.

For everything else you need LF ;-)
 
Ian/Guy thanks for clarifying. If I recall correctly the 35mm format chosen by Leica for their early cameras was really targetted at prodcuing 10" prints. Yes of course you can upscale images from 6mp to gazillions but you get the same sort of effect as upscaling DVD to 1080p compared to bluray.

Rico said:
/coughs/ BULLSHIT!
Click to expand...

eh?

Also, a lot of the images you see on hoardings are produced from scanning backs on LF cameras (combined to give hundreds of mpx's) - especially when it comes to blowing up images of products which need to look nice :)
 
sideshowbob said:
Yes it is, it's just plain daft to argue otherwise.

It's certainly true that you can print at relatively low PPI and get a reasonable result, but this depends on the content of the image. It's also true that upres software can do a good job at allowing you to print even larger. But it's just wrong to argue that either of these things mean that the base image resolution is unimportant.

I agree that for most people, printing most things, 6MP is indeed fine, it will print pretty well up to most reasonable sizes. It's not sufficient for most pros working in magazine and advertising work though.
Click to expand...

You're twisting my argument. I'm not saying that if you work in the specialised area of magazine and hoarding advertising you must use super-MP backs. I'm arguing that the notion of 18MP limiting you to A3 is commplete rubblish (sorry Cliff if I've overlooked what was tongue-in-cheek humour, and I've suffered a sensayuma failure), and that 6MP is sufficient for most people; not limiting to A3 output, but well beyond.

I'm saying that 6MP is ENOUGH for most *work*. Yes, work. as I mentioned before, I've seen exceptional work produced at merely six MP, enlarged to A0 size. When I say exceptional, I mean better than anything in my portfolio, or anything I've seen on here.

I also know a number of pros still using d200's (10MP) - and selling fine art, commercial portraiture, advertising, and sports images.... in a variety of sizes/formats. They use this camera by choice. Earning their livings with it. They're clearly not constrained by not enough pixels. To argue that a high MP camera is necessary to produce a great (or commercially valuable, or artistically acceptable) result, or qualify as a professional, is yet another example of the hifi forum message of overlooking the art in the detail.


cheers
 
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