should i go digital or m.format and a good scanner?

[lydia_c1]

hello everyone!

 

i want to purchase some new equipment strictly for my art work.i want good quality in detail and colour.

should i buy the new canon 1d mark III(22mpixels) or should i use my mamiya 645 and buy a good

medium format scanner NIKON super coolscan 9000 ed,4000dpi.?

ultimately i would like to be able to blow up my prints to 1.70 m. and have good guality.

open to other suggestions as well..

[lwg]

For that size I would go the scanner route and get a 4x5 camera. Or at least step up to a 6x7 - the Mamiya 7 is excellent if the range finder could work for you. From my experience scanning large film shot with good lenses give more detail than a 22MP camera. Color will likely be better on the digital.

 

Also, it would help if you told us what you shot.

[lydia_c1]

what i shoot varies..i mostly do art doc ..so people really mostly outside but also some studio

stuff as well..

[lydia_c1]

LG thanx.i dont understand though how i m.format can have better quality in detail and not

in colour.dont these two things go together?

[cd]

The canon will set you back almost 8K, you could buy a digital Mamiya 645 for just a bit more, and the differences are noticeable. While we are on the subject for only 20K more you could go up to 39 Mp. This is an interesting read: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d3/h3d-1.htm

[robert lee]

"... new equipment strictly for my art work.i want good quality in detail and colour. should i buy the new canon 1d mark III(22mpixels) ..."

 

Consider a scanning digital back mated to a large format camera. Low end Better Light backs can be had for about $7k. Technical image quality will be noticeably higher than the Canon.

 

The availability of movements is the prime advantage of the LF camera. With exception of a few Fuji MF studio models, this is one feature you won't find anywhere else.

[mauro_franic]

I think your will be best off Coolscan 9000 and 6x7 like the RZ67. Together they will cost you one forth of the 1DsIII and give you many many times more detail.

 

If you invest in the Coolscan 9000 ($1800), it wouldn't make sense not to buy an RZ67 in like new condition for $800 including the 110mmm prime.

[david_henderson]

Just picking up on one point above, the Nikon 9000 won't scan from 5x4, and flatbeds won't IMO support a quality print the size you want.

 

Depending on the volume you want to scan, do you need to buy a scanner at all? The quality of your big prints is going to be constrained by the scanner you use and if it were me, at that size I'd be wanting to drum scan or at very least scan with an Imacon. You might be better off all round (money and quality) by having a lab scan your work using one of these rather than spending quite a lot of money on a scanner which is good (I have one) but not the best. Of course a lot depends on how many originals you want to scan. Having drum scans opens up the possibility of large format- though as I'll cover below, I'm not fully convinced you need LF unless camera movements are an issue - which you haven't mentioned.

 

Digital backs are an interesting option, but one I've rejected for my own work because the affordable ones (to me at least) are cropped sensors which means no wide-angle photography. That's important to me- though it may not be to you.

 

I can't comment on the relative qualities of the 22mp Canon and the scanned MF route. Assuming best quality scanning, as above, I do have considerable confidence in the medium format route, after printing to 40" from drum scanned 6x6 with seemingly room to spare. The thing I would want to think about in your place though is that prints from a Canon digital camera and a medium format film camera have different character, and you might well prefer one to the other. I will say that I'd have a preference for a 67 MF camera than rely on a 645 given the extreme enlargement you need. Still a 67 oufit is peanuts by comparison to the Canon and may even be cheaper than the Nikon scanner and a glass holder.

[lwg]

>>LG thanx.i dont understand though how i m.format can have better quality in detail and not in colour.dont these two things go together?

 

Resolution is independent from accurate color. Resolution refers to how much detail you can capture. Lens quality and capture area affect this the most. Color is really how the capture medium records color information. Think about film: 35mm Velvia has the same color as 4x5 Velvia, but the 4x5 will have more resolution. In other words if you shoot the same scene in 35mm and 4x5 the colors will look the same but the amount of detail captured is different.

 

Film is only balanced for one color temperature. You can use filters and a color meter to balance the light to match the film. Digital, especially when shot in RAW, has the ability to finely adjust the color temperature after the fact. Also each film has a slightly different "look" to the same light.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Colour and tonality also is improved by using a larger capture area. That is because neither film nor digital media are truly continuos.<br>Think of it this way: if you draw a line across a colour/tone gradient, in how many steps will it be possible to record that gradient when the line spans, say, 10 pixels/grains/dye clouds, compared to a line crossing the same gradient that spans 50 pixels/grains/dye clouds?<br>Size matters, for colour reproduction too.

[calebcondit]

Honestly, most work shown in the major galleries is all shot on film, scanned and then printed on an epson large format printer. The mamiya 645 might get you up to about 30 inches, but only if shot critically sharp. I?d really recomend looking at at least 6x7 if not 6x9 for prints that large. If you?ve never worked on a rangefinder, the mamiya 7 might not be the right route to take, but the lenses are second to none and you can get a body and a lens for about the price of a 40d. I guess also you?ll have to remember that shooting a mamiya 645 for documentary might be a bit strange as the motor drive is a bit loud at times.

 

if you can find this

http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/plaubel67.html

you might possibly have one of the highest quality 6x7 cameras in a really compact package. Hard to track down, but really great.

 

Also, a pentax 6x7 is handholdable, although heavy, and has pretty fanstic glass. Does have a bit of mirror slap though.

 

If you?re really set on a 645 system, I?d take contax over mamiya any day. f2.0 glass in most focal lengths and all zeiss. Its an amazing system, for sure and runs similar in price to the mamiya 645 afdII or III.

[rodeo_joe1]

There's a big difference between grains/dye clouds and pixels which isn't obvious at first sight.

 

If you compare a small area of film or of a digital sensor, say 10 microns square, that area could contain maybe 20 or 30 overlapped dye clouds, or only one digital RGB sensor cluster. BUT, the big difference is that the digital "pixel" can represent one of 16.8 million colour levels; whereas film dye clouds are either present or absent. Therefore the number of colours per unit area that film can represent is far more limited, to (at a guess) far less than a hundred colour levels. I'm guessing because the random combination of dye clouds isn't predictable or easily computed, but it's easy to see that the number of colour combinations you can get with just a handful of Cyan, Yellow and Magenta dye clouds must be severely restricted.

 

Of course, the film can resolve slightly better detail (just), but that detail is "dithered" in a random way, and contaminated with micro dirt, dust and small emulsion defects. This makes the overall impression of image quality, especially colour clarity and tonality, fall firmly in favour of the digital sensor.

 

OK, so scrupulously clean and meticulous handling and processing of film could eliminate the micro dirt and dust problem, but we live in the real world, where sub-micron control of our processing solutions and air quality just isn't practical. In other words, digital is a more robust medium which can render high quality for a less painstaking workflow than film. And if you thought the download times for large digital camera files were lengthy, wait 'til you experience the scan times for MF or LF negatives - don't even think about using digital ICE.

[jim1169]

here are 2 links that should help resolve your concerns. similar to the ken Rockwell link

above

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout.shtml

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/shootout-followup.shtml

[rustys pics]

I'll play the Luddite here and go for medium format film. Most flatbed scanners will do a good enough job for scanning prints up to 30X30.

Looking at crummy jpeg web scans by Ken Rockwell and Bill Johnston don't tell you Jack about the quality of a photograph...let alone a creative idea. Even a simple medium format camera has a quality and tonal scale not easily quantified by pixels and raw data counts. The simple Zeiss Nettar can make an image unlike anything digital.... and that's what most galleries are looking for, not how fancy your camera is, which is only as good as your ideas anyway.

If you do go the film route, you owe it to yourself to at least make a black and white silver print at least once. The best digital prints can only approximate what silver photo paper can give you.

For the record I shoot and teach digital also. And I have plenty of high end digital prints made, usually on fuji crystal archive photo paper. But when I make good medium format prints on Fiber based paper and split tone in selenium that's simply magic.

[q.g._de_bakker]

Joe,<br><br>You really paint a much too bleak picture of what dye clouds in emulsions are able to do.<br><br>Digital images lack grain: noise, that however mostly represents the information that we want to record. Other than that, digital colour isn't better really.<br>And electronics create their own noise that is not part of the information we want to record.<br><br>Anyhow, the point was that capture medium size produces better colour/tonality. It does that in digital and film photography alike.<br>Now if digital sensors only were bigger... ;-)

[kelly_flanigan1]

Re <i>Now if digital sensors only were bigger... ;-)</i><BR><BR>Here the 35 and 50 megapixel tethered scan backs for 4x5 make a decent image; in prints most folks think that its film. There is so much info and enlargements are not large thus there is what we call in engineering a design margin. The scan area is 7x10cm; sub 4x5". This makes the tonality great; the effective pixel site for the 35 Mpixel is 14 microns. The hassle is an ancient slow as dirt scan backs; but they are paid for.:) The effective pixel sites are large; noise is low; the requirements for the lenses are just modest.<BR><BR>The failure mode for many hybid scheme "shoot film and then scan it later" is the user thinks scanning will be quick; easy; that some time warp exists that allows one to scan stuff 100 times quicker than the rest of us. Its like folks see a shovel at home depot and then think they can dig out a basement for a new house in an hour; since the shovel is a tool. Often used scanners are available after the honeymoon phase of the hybrid users dream dies off; available at a low cost. <BR><BR>Flatbed scanners work for modest enlargements; its like your nice Hasslblad lens is dumbed down to a Kodak duoflex at 24 to 28 line pairs of resolution; instead of maybe 40 to 55 on film drum scan. For modest enlargemnts it doesnt matter; for stuff thats enlarged more a drum scan shows better quality. a brute force way is to just shoot with a 4x5" speed graphic and then flatbed scan so you gain quality by shear area.

[Ed_Ingold]

With medium format film and a scanner (Imacon or Nikon), you can get at least as good an image quality as any small-format digital camera, possibly at a far lower cost. If you need accuracy (certainly for artwork), then you also need a calibration system for your monitor, scanner and film. The cost for an effective system ranges from about $200 to over $1500 (with printer calibration). You can do an end-to-end calibration by shooting a Color Checker chart in one frame for a particular lighting setup.

 

Lighting is important, and you should budget accordingly regardless of the medium. Copying flatwork is easiest, but not always straighforward. Photographing 3-D objects is vastly more complicated. The book "Light - Science and Magic" by Hunter, Biver and Fuqua would be a good read for you.

 

In general, the best flatbed scanner will have an image quality about one size less than a dedicated film scanner. In other words, a 4x5 scan will be no better (and probably worse) than a 645 negative scanned on a Nikon LS-9000. You have the option of buying an Imacon scanner ($13K to nearly $20K) or having selected images done on a drum scanner ($50-$100 a pop). Drum scans work best on reversal film, which limits your dynamic range to between 3.5 to 5 stops.

[david_henderson]

The price of high-end scans continues to fall, to the point that even for large quantities, sending material out is very often a sensible alternative to owning a scanner. Here in the UK I can get 150MB Imacon scans from 120 rollfilm for GBP4 or about $8. Scancafe in India, though US controlled, provide Nikon 9000 scans at 4000 dppi for less than a dollar. And at the top of the market it's no longer necessary to pay $100-or anything like it- for a drum scan when an organisation like WCI will sell you a 100MB 16 bit scan from a Tango for $24.95 ($39.95 for 200MB). When you add in that scanning is a repetitive, time-consuming and essentially joyless task, its an increasingly attractive strategy for film/hybrid photographers to own a decent flatbed for web/Cd etc use and to put out that small proportion of work that is going to be printed at serious sizes.

[thomas_barnes1]

Here's another route. Ask the place where you get your film developed to do it for you. A lot of these places might have special discounts. Consider that these places have already made the investment of industrial-grade equipment already. i've been in the hardware/software selling business for a long time. There is always a new toy that comes out three weeks after you bought the 'latest and greatest'. I read a lot of these posts where it sounds like some have pretty deep pockets. If you do, God bless. I don't and have to operate within a 'hobby budget'. I'm also in the graphics business. With all the film developers getting out of the business(like Wal-Mart just recently) I would suggest that you try to help those folks that still are in the business...STAY IN THE BUSINESS AND USE THEM! Okay, you can hop all over me now like on the BUG yahoo site for daring to add another perspective....!!!!!!!!