Advantages of MF over 35mm

With that out of the way, that once again brings us back to medium format. In terms of absolute resolving power, I doubt you'd find any MF lens that can beat the 35mm or APS-C wonder lenses. Still, when you're dealing with a larger image area, resolving fewer lp/mm becomes less significant(once again, over 4x the area in 6x7, 3x in 645). There are still details I can see a 6x7 transparency that aren't visible on a D800 image taken right next to it.

All this depends on how you are using a 6x7. In landscape work where DOF is important and smaller stops are used, you are using the lenses deep into the diffraction zone. For my Pentax 67 as an example, f/11 seems to be sharpest for most lenses (meaning that stopping down to that point is where it is no longer aberration limited but diffraction is just starting to be the dominant factor for unsharpness). Shooting a landscape at f/32 or f/45, diffraction dominates to the point that using a full frame digital makes more sense shot at a wider aperture. One of the diffraction formulas in the film days was 1380/ f number to give the maximum LP/mm possible. When using this formula, one can see the limitations of 6x7 ( and 4x5). If however you are using the 6x7 in an applications where the lens is not stopped down to this degree, a 6x7 will do great when comparing to 35mm film or digital. Also, you said there was a 45mm for the Pentax, as the widest MF lens: they also made a 35mm but it was not rectilinear.

Sorry, I stopped receiving notifications for this post and I figured it was dead!

 

I was wrong apparently!

 

I contacted a friend at the base here in Japan, he was and still is an old PA guy on base. I think he's had stuff in Nat Geo and I asked him if he knew someone with a MF camera... well turned out he had a Mamiya Pro with two lenses and a polaroid back sitting in his closet... A small trade later I have the Mamiya and a Pelican case!

 

I've shot a couple of rolls through it, but I haven't done much portrait work since I got it, but I do plan in the coming months to get plenty of use out of it.

But continuing the question, is Panatomic-X grain good enough for the large prints

that one might make from 120 Tri-X?.

 

Don't know about Panatomic X, but I'm sure Adox CMS20 in 35mm would out resolve Tri-x in 6x7.

(snip)

Despite the lack of an AA filter, I have not experienced Moire with the A7Rii. If it were to occur, it would be where detail is on the same order as the pixel spacing, which is very fine indeed.

 

I don't have an AAless camera, but as I understand it, it is the interaction of moire with the Bayer array, that gives color fringes.

 

It likely would not be a problem in monochrome for most natural images.

Moire is surprisingly easy to produce on the 14n, but the 36mp+ sensors without AA filters seem surprisingly immune to it. I suspect that the pixel density is such that it takes fairly fine repeating patterns to produce it.

I still like TLRs. A Mamiya with the black lenses is sharp as anything. IMO, the chrome lenses are best used for soft focus portraits. Another interesting path might be a small Graphic with a roll back so you can get some tilts.

 

The advantage of MF over 35mm?.... more stuff to buy!

I have a Mamiya 645e and an Epson V600 scanner and I cannot obtain a file large enough for a 20x30 print. Actually at that size it would be a print using 170dpi as that is all I can get out of my gear.. Also a 20x30 print would require some cropping as the 645 is a 4/3rds aspect ratio. As far as your work goes I could not say what you actually need. However a new camera system always cost more then you might think. Tri-X is about $6.00 a roll in 120 and it will give you 15 frames in the camera you are talking about. Given all that my MF camera does outperform my 35mm camera in print size and quality. I like Tri-X better then all other films but if you want a contrasty grainless look then Fuji Acros is awesome. Others have a taste that varies from mine.

Shutterfly:

 

Photo Resolution Tips

 

has minimum recommended resolutions for larger prints. It seems to say 2000 x 1600 for 11x14 through 20x30.

 

Those are minimums, and more is presumably better. As far as I know, the usual optical photoprinters

run at 300 dpi, so that is probably a good goal. (Then again, the results depend on how they do

the resampling to the printer resolution.)

 

I suspect that larger prints are usually viewed from farther away, such that lower resolution is fine.

I suspect that larger prints are usually viewed from farther away, such that lower resolution is fine.

 

The stereotypical example is a billboard. It's hard to say how many have been taken on 35mm film or 15 years ago on first generation DSLRs like the 2.6mp D1/D1H. In general they look fine because you look at them for a few seconds from several hundred feet away.

 

I know that speaking for myself, I have optically printed 6x6 Tri-X to 16x20 and I was satisfied with the results. Yes, the grain was visible but the image was still perfectly sharp.

 

A few months back, I had a posed family photo that I'd taken with my SQ-A. It was on a tripod, but from my position and given how it unfolded I should have used a longer lens(I used an 80mm-it would have been better on a 150) but didn't have time. I parked it at F/8, which close to a sweet spot for the lens through a good Y2 filter. It was on Tri-X(if it hadn't involved corralling a dozen kids, I'd have used FP4+, but instead I opted for a more familiar film) and in D76 1:1. In any case, my mom wanted about a dozen 8x10s. To get the crop I needed, the negative projected to about 25" square. There again, the grain was visible but not invasive and the prints more than plenty sharp/well resolved.

I pulled out a 645 negative from one of my binders to scan it as large as I know how. I was able to increase the size of the scan a little from what I usually do and then scanned it set at the maximum optical scanning resolution. . Sized to 20x30 with cropping it came out to a 225dpi scan for that size. It's more then I thought and probably you could up-rez it a bit and it would provide a nice print. However I have never tried to do that so I cannot say for sure.

 

SilverFast did send me an email yesterday and they said I could move up to their best software for $29.00. It has a multi scanning function for dynamic range. However it made no mention of an increased file size and in fact the sales pitch was downplaying file size saying dynamic range is everything. Anyway multi scanning might increase the file size or maybe not. I am not buying it however. Of course there are other scanners in the world and the V600 is probably popular mostly because of the $200.00 price tag.

It has a multi scanning function for dynamic range. However it made no mention of an increased file size and in fact the sales pitch was downplaying file size saying dynamic range is everything.

 

I've experimented some with multi-pass scanning(Vuescan can do it) and in all honesty I find it does more harm than good unless I'm just trying to salvage SOMETHING from a really bad negative.

 

The big problem I see with consumer scanners(and I'm including both my Coolscan V and my V700 in that category) is that their ability to locate the scan head in the exact same position for each pass is poor. Multi-pass does improve the signal/noise ratio so can salvage a "thin" negative or a "thick" slide, but chances are good you're going to lose detail in doing that.

 

BTW, I've also noticed that ICE can do the same thing on the Epson scanners, although I consider the advantages to outweigh the disadvantages.

 

Also, my experience with the Nikon is irrelevant to MF scanning, but I will mention that I LOVE the fact that it collects the ICE data at the same time as the first scanning pass. I've also noticed that it fares better in multi-pass, but I suspect that's related to the fact that the scan head only has to move 36mm and not 14".

Thanks for the input Ben. I am going to pass on the SilverFast offer. The setup I have now is working good and I am just going to stay with that.

The big problem I see with consumer scanners(and I'm including both my Coolscan V and my V700 in that category) is that their ability to locate the scan head in the exact same position for each pass is poor. Multi-pass does improve the signal/noise ratio so can salvage a "thin" negative or a "thick" slide, but chances are good you're going to lose detail in doing that.

 

This was my finding with Vuescan multi-pass as well. However, Vuescan multi-sampling has no such drawbacks and I always use it on dark slides.

"645 is the minimum film format that can challenge the image quality of digital. 35mm can't. It's just not big enough."

 

Unless you are talking Kodak Technical Pan film in B&W.