How many usable megapixels will go on a full-frame sensor?

<p>David, one other thing that constrains me now is the question Kelly Flanigan raised about lenses, and about possible problems in the corners. My original 24 1.4 could not make the most of what the 5D II was capable of--and certainly not in the corners anywhere near wide open. </p>

<p>I will have to give some serious attention to other wide angle lenses for the 5D II before I do anything.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Landrum,</p>

<p>Rent the 17 and 24 MkII TS-E lenses. They are unmatched. Also it takes 2 seconds to do a true parallax error free stitch that effectively doubles your sensor size. These images easily best MF film when done with the best technique. The lenses out resolve MF lenses and the sensor area ends up similar.</p>

<p>Thanks, Scott. I will have to look into renting, something that I have never tried. I don't know if they have them in the Charlotte area or not. (I live about forty-five minutes out of town.)</p>

<p>Two seconds, eh? Well, that is not too much slower than what one would get out of the Pentax 645D. I'm not sure about the Hassy back where speed is concerned.</p>

<p>Advantages of staying with the 5D II and the entire EOS system are portability and speed for other applications, of course. One hates to give those up.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Landrum,</p>

<p>Don't try locally, <a href="http://www.lensrentals.com/rent/canon-ts-e-17mm-f4-l/for-canon">these are the guys</a>, I can personally recommend them too. If you tell them the dates you want it they ship early too so you normally get a extra day or two.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Thanks, Scott! That would definitely be the way to go before giving up on Canon, I think.</p>

<p>Buying those lenses could get expensive fast, on the other hand.</p>

<p>Both you and David Stephens recommended the 17mm TS-E lens. I will definitely have to give that a try.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Lannie, I understand about being deliberate.</p>

<p>As said before, the 17mm Canon TS-E has a good chance to match your needs with the 5D2. The Zeiss Distigons are also on my list to consider for similar usage. If you go MF, you'll still have these kinds of lens decisions.</p>

<p>Lannie; one of my customers who used a RD67 and C41 for eons sold it all after getting his Canon 5D dslr; thus what customer expect from digital must vary a lot.</p>

<p> Renting out a rig or getting a sample image from a target combo might have you finding a current 35mm high end dslr combo is OK right now. </p>

<p>Lannie,</p>

<p>If you go for the 17mm rent the 1.4TC too, if you don't have one. The 17 comes out very wide even before stitching. If you were used to the 24 f1.4, then obviously the 24 TS-E gives the same fov initially but goes way wider when stitched. The new 24 TS-E tests out sharper than the 17, especially in the corners when shifted.</p>

<p>All the TS-E lenses take the 1.4 and 2x TC, they both work very well with the 1.4, much better than you would expect, this effectively gives you two focal lengths for an extra $300, not bad for the quality.</p>

<p>To get true parallax free stitches you need to move the body on a rail in the opposite direction to the lens shift, easy to do with an Arca style clamp or a basic rail.</p>

<p>Thanks, guys. You've given me a lot to think about.</p>

<p>On a teacher's salary, one typically wants more than one can possibly afford, and so one is always trying to figure out either what is coming or how to get the best out of what one has. As for my dream of medium format digital, well, it might just have to stay a dream.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

I can also recommend the 24 mm T/S mk II. I have little use for stitching as most of my subjects contain moving elements.

I use the lens to control perspective and the focal plane. If you want to stitch, a shorter focal length like the 90 mm T/S

would be better. However, the 90 is an older design. Hopefully, Canon will update it soon.

 

The 24 is an outstanding piece of glass. It's good to know that it works with teleconverters.

<p>I think you could have asked this question a little differenly. To me the question is what would you gain using medium format digital instead DX or FX DSLRs. But I also feel you got alot of worthwhile answers by asking the question the way you did.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>To me the question is what would you gain using medium format digital instead DX or FX DSLRs.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>The reason that I did not ask that, Stuart, is that I would have gotten advice on what to do with my life or been interrogated as to what I planned to do with my equipment. The worst and least fruitful post one can make here is to ask which camera or system one should buy. Even the Point-and-Shooters with two weeks total photographic experience would have weighed in with an opinion.</p>

<p>I framed the question in such a way as to invite an open-ended response from a number of experienced and knowledgeable people--and it worked pretty well. The thread ran well without me, which is the way it should be.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>Another thread about to go self aware!</p>

<p>I guess people with certain names are really good and quick typists. However, not here, but elsewhere I am a pot myself, so ....</p>

<p>Can the day be far off when a 1GB flash card will hold only a single shot, if that (like a 256K card today)?</p>

<p>My brand-new 1 terabyte external hard drive is not going to be large enough for a very long time. My older 500GB drive is already nearly filled up, and the 150GB drive that came on my computer is simply archaic.</p>

<p>I DO see a trend here. :P</p>

<p>JDM; in some scan work last week with my 36" RGB scanner ; some big county maps were 36" wide and had tiny text that required a 600 dpi setting; with the longer maps some scans were 700 to 900 megs each. The dumb Phase One can back from 1997 here makes 145 meg files with each scan; and that is a 13 year old device!</p>

<p>

<p>Lannie, before you spend money chasing more resolution you might want to do some tests to see if that added resolution is really going to have an impact on your photos. I have made 20x30 inch prints using 54 MP image that were very sharp at the pixels level and I am not at all sure they have any real advantage or a print the same size done with a good 8 MP camera.<br>

Some of the film people like to talk up big pixels counts as a way to justify using film, but resolution is only one aspect of what is going to make a good print and once you get past a certain point more pixels just does not make that much difference. I have to thing that a good sharp photo from the 5D II is going to make a great looking print at any size and that doubling the number of pixels would have only a slight effect on even a large print.</p>

<br>

You can test this by shooting a scene you like with a good sharp lens at say 50mm FL and then re-shoot the scene with a 70mm lens. Print the photo taken with the 50mm lens at full size and scale down the print size from the 70 mm lens to 71%. The print from the 70mm lens should look like a crop from the photo taken with the 50mm lens, but at higher resolution. Stand at the distance you normally would to view the print that was make from the 50mm lens and see if the one make from the 70mm really looks any sharper, at that viewing distance. As an example if you printed the 50mm photo at 20x30 you would make a print that was around 14 x 21 for the 70mm version.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I have made 20x30 inch prints using 54 MP image that were very sharp at the pixels level and I am not at all sure they have any real advantage or a print the same size done with a good 8 MP camera.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I follow you, Scott. I am always sobered by the fact that my 5D II with 21 MP has barely more than twice the resolution of my first digital camera, the Olympus E-20, with 5 MP--and I got a few pretty good prints on 13" x 19" paper in my own early digital days.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Can the day be far off when a 1GB flash card will hold only a single shot.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>How do we archive them, JDM? Well, I just formatted and copied data to a 2-TB external monster, to back up a 1-TB monster (and some new files), which in turn had been bought to back up a 500 GB monster (and some recently created files), which in turn had been installed to back up two 250 GB internal drives. The good news is that the storage is getting cheaper. So, let's see. . . . That's three externals and two internals. . . . Well, yes, actually it is getting a bit crowded over there in the corner.</p>

<p>A 1 GB file? Let's see, JDM, that would be about 39,000 pixels by 26,000<em> </em>pixels, I think. Yeah, sure, we could pack <em>that </em>onto a 36mm x 24m sensor and market it. Somebody would surely buy it, quantum effects and all.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<blockquote>

<p>in some scan work last week with my 36" RGB scanner ; some big county maps were 36" wide and had tiny text that required a 600 dpi setting; with the longer maps some scans were 700 to 900 megs each.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Last week! Wow, Kelly, what you said just hit home: those scanned files were knocking on the 1 GB door.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>I can't wait for MF to come down some in price, well OK, a LOT in price. IMO they are pretty far behind FF 35mm right now in using all of the image circle they have to work with. I think it will be a while before they really take advantage of that real estate, mostly because of production issues. Not nearly as much of a market for very large imaging chips, so no investment to solve those issues. IMO the MF systems you have listed will be better than the 5D II in IQ as long as you can make due with ISO100 and a little higher. Just not having the anti-alias filter will be a big help. And hopefully they will start having real large sensors. But, they will suffer the same fate as the any digital camera, they will be replaced with better models soon. Hence why I would not invest in MF right now, too much money to become obsolete and I would want a sensor that is able to take advantage of all that image circle.</p>

<p>Until then I think we are "stuck" with the 5D II and the next gen or two of FF 35mm sensors. Not that they are not good for what they are, 35mm format. Maybe look at the robotic solutions for making stitched images. That could get you a LOT of resolution, just have to have time to take the photos.</p>

<p>Matt, that large image circle of MF lenses is one of the great advantages of medium format, I would think. It allows the sensor to capture the sweet spot, for one thing, and I would think that it also reduces the angle of incidence of the light falling on the sensor--an important consideration for digital imaging.</p>

<p>All of this is just my opinion, of course.</p>

<p>As for coming down in price, the Pentax 645D is supposed to be selling below ten thousand dollars, which is not much higher than the Canon and Nikon flagship DSLRs.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?</p>

<p>Eight if they're skinny, four if they're fat.</p>

<p>It's been over a week now since this thread started.</p>

<p>I want to thank everyone who tried to answer my question(s). There is a lot of information on this thread from a lot of informed and experienced photographers, pros and amateurs alike, and I appreciate your helpful information and suggestions.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<p>You can call it <em>prescience, </em>or just <em>dumb luck</em>, but I take credit for calling this thread at the first response.</p>

<p>Have we learned anything definitive? No, of course not. But what a ride it's been. Many thanks, Lannie. </p>

<p>Mark, I noticed your comment again this morning and started to respond.</p>

<p>Thanks for anticipating what was likely to come. . . . </p>

<p>It's been fun, and I learned a lot.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

<blockquote>

<p>You can call it <em>prescience, </em>or just <em>dumb luck</em>, but I take credit for calling this thread at the first response.<br>

Have we learned anything definitive?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Yes, you win a gold star for determining that it's not possible to define the limits of an emerging technology. Thankfully other participants gave us more thought-provoking ideas.</p>