LF Camera, digital back for reproducing large paintings

[thomas_alanoly]

Hi friends,

I am into Fineart reprinting on Epson 9880.

File capture is my hard-nut to crack.

To capture 4x4 ft or even bigger paintings, I am advised very high end camera, say Filmback.

Problem is in my area nobody processing above 35mm, all discontinued. Means I cannot think of film based camera.

Digital backs are very expensive for my budget of $3000/ 4000.

 

Im not looking for a fancy thing, any makeshift but working mechanism(camera) is ok.

1. What is the option ?

2. Which is the cheapest (oldest??) Digital Back ?

3. What about ‘used’ ones, where can I buy reliably?

Thanks for the time and advice.

[nmcmahon]

A quick scan on ebay will tell you that for $3000-$4000 you may be lucky and get yourself an 11-12mp back but probably not a 16mp. I make a living form art repro, so have a bit of experience. Film is the way to go unless you can afford a modern digital back. Where are you based, can you use a film mailer? For example a mamiya rb with a 127mm or 180mm lens, fuji astia and a decent scan will do as good as you need probably. and will cost you around 400 euros. But if you have a hard time sourcing a place to develop you will have a much harder time finding a place to do a drum scan.

Do you have strobes, a decent tripod? if not then for your budget a very decent film camera and mid level strobes or a DLSR setup that will give poor results. If you already have the camera, lens, lights etc and capability to fit a digital back to it then maybe you can find something for your budget.

Problem with digital slr for art repro is tone. You just can't capture the high and low levels like film can on medium format. You will have poor blocky separation in the high and low tones that will make some paintings look like they were by numbers. Not sure about what a modern 5ds II and decent prime lens can do though, but would be surprised if it came close to the subtleties of tone that a medium format outfit could.

Where are you based?

[douglas_antonio]

hi thomas,

 

there are a few options i believe. one would be to look out for socalled refurbished digitalbacks from the various companies. without saying they are the only ones and without knowing for sure i think phase one does offer these backs directly at significantly lower prices. they are supposed to be absolutely brought back to top-working condition. the scan-backs-series could also be an option. since there is no motion involved in your shooting, the scanning mode would offer really high resolution files.

 

kelly flanigan will possibly drop in and be able to share an experience.

 

maybe you could get in touch with say phase one and ask for advice on refurbished backs?

 

and a last option could be renting a digital back for a day or two/weekend rates seem lower than workdays.

 

 

another possibility is to shoot film (mf or lf) and send it away for processing and scanning. since there is no hint where you are located you may google for labs that could do it for you.

 

hope this helps a bit!

[bruce_watson1]

Digital backs I can't help with much. But I can give you another option. That is process your own film. Buy a used Jobo CPP-2, a used 3010 tank for 5x4 film (3005 for 8x10) and do your own color film processing. Couple that with a decent scanner and you'll have perhaps a workable solution. I'd go with 8x10 if possible because that will let you use a lesser scanner, because you are using less enlargement to get to your final print size. Just a thought.

[michael_briggs2]

Since your application is stationary, a scanning back will work (e.g.,

http://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.html ). These are commonly used for reproducing art work and are cheaper

than one-shot digital backs of comparable resolution. But new ones are still out of your price range. Maybe an

older, used one?

 

Or you could mail 4x5 film for processing. Depending on your volume, this could be cheaper and certainly

requires less capital (upfront cost).

[mike_earussi1]

The simplest and least expensive way to photograph a static subject like a painting is to use a standard dslr and just take a lot of separate shots using a pano head and some stitching software. This way you can get as high a resolution as you want just by varying the amount of shots you take. As long as the lighting doesn't change you're fine.

[john_galuszka]

Stitching together multiple shots is never as easy as shooting one shot, so for the easiest-to-use solution for the least money, I suggest:

 

a) get a 6X9 film camera with a good lens.

b) find a mail-away film processor for 120 film -- you don't want prints, just the negatives

c) get a scanner of 3200DPI or better (I use an Epson Perfection 3200 Photo.)

 

I use the a similar system (actually a 6X9 modified to 6X10.6cm plus a variety of custom panorama cameras) to make three foot wide panorama prints.

 

BTW, Briggs is right: mailing out film is less expensive than processing your own.

[john_galuszka]

Forgot to add:

 

You should be able to do this for maybe $500 to $600, and you'll get something like 30 to 72 megapixel images (depending on several factors: resolution quality of your lens, lines-per-inch that your film might give you, etc.)

 

I have tried a variety of films and found Fuji Reala (Speed 100) to give the best results for film-to-digital conversions.

[joseph_wisniewski]

Yuk! Film for art repro?

 

The metamerism characteristics are too off the wall. Even a single shot with a decent modern DSLR will give you about half the color errors of a film workflow. (Berns, Roy "The Science of Digitizing Two-Dimensional Works of Art for Color-Accurate Image Archives - Concepts Through Practice", 2000, Munsell Color Science Lab Journal).

 

Seriously. The average delta E of 24 test patches was 4.9 for film, 2.8 for digital. Problem colors like reds saw digital with 1/3 the error of film. Great paper.

 

My own art repro workflow uses two shots with a single swapped in filter ala Taplin ("Modifications of a Sinarback 54 Digital Camera for Spectral and High-Accuracy Colorimetric Imaging: Simulations and Experiments", 2004 Art-Si).

 

He got his Sinar down from average 4.7 to 1.8. I got my Nikon D2X down from 3.1 to 1.5.

 

I don't use a pan head. Although Mike's suggestion is excellent, it does place limits on depth of field. I built this horrible contraption that has two columns about 7 feet apart stretching from floor to ceiling, and a track that runs between the columns and can be raised in 6 inch or 12 inch increments. A "sled" carrying the camera and four lights slides back and fourth on the track. The lens is a Nikon 55mm micro-Nikkor with the aperture coupling disconnected (for obvious reasons). The camera can be racked back and forth to cover either a 360 dpi 7.5x11.5 chunk of image (of which I keep 6x9, and let the rest help align the stitch) or a 180 dpi 15x23 (keeping 12x18). I can give a client 360dpi on a 6 foot square, for 670mp, 16 bit TIFF, one file per DVD. ;)

 

There are even more serious art repro folk who use monochrome cameras with 6, 7, or 12 filters in a wheel.

[john_cooper9]

My wife is a water color artist and 30X40 is the largest board she uses. For years I have been shooting 4X5 Fuji 64T

Quickloads in a Linhof 4X5 Kardan Super Color using a Schneider Componon-S in a Compur shutter. The transparencies

are scanned by my lab and full size giclee's are made when requested by my wife and/or client. My lab has a Better Light

scanning back for 4X5 but I think 64T is the equal of it, for our purposes.

[leicaglow]

There is a back that attaches to a 4x5 and you put your DSLR on it. Then it takes a series of images over the 4x5 area. I forgot to bookmark it, but it looked very interesting. I think about $1,500 as I recall. Does anyone remember the thread that had this info?

[indrek_r_nkla]

I believe the product Michael Axel was referring to could be found at www.camerafusion.com. This could be a most suitable application for the system indeed.

[drew bedo]

What about a 10-12Mp D-SLR;n Nikon, Canon or other?

[steve m smith]

<i>Yuk! Film for art repro?<BR><BR>

 

The metamerism characteristics are too off the wall. </I><BR><BR>

That's right, nobody has ever done a good artwork reproduction on film in the last 100 years!!

[kelly_flanigan1]

In some contracts a film transparency was required as part of the deliverables; ie what the client wanted, Thus if one didnt deliver say a 4x5 Ektachrome one didnt finish the contact; thus one didn't get a dime. Many client had requirements for references; a steel scale at the edges; greyscale wedges; a set of color patches as colors references. Requirements like this have been around along time; often longer than the age of many folks on this board.<BR><BR>Digital has been used since the early 1990's and has often displaced film.<BR><BR>One should question what your end goal is before getting wrapped up in equipment selection. One person may want a digital file; another might want a trany AND a digital file; another might have you printing life size prints; another 1/2 size.

[brian berry]

Just a short note, based on five years turning out 4x5's and 8x10's for a color separation house. #1, metamerism is the major problem on

film whether you use Kodak Tungsten or Fujichrome. Strobes, for me, were worse than hotlights. Much depends on the pigments the

artists use -- when you leave the commercial art field, it is rare to find artists using pigments that reproduce faithfully on film. I suppose I

have more than 200 CC filters, and I still often resorted to retouching the chrome, area by area, for many exacting jobs.

Second note, may or not be a factor for you. Delivery time was a major issue. Certainly there was not time to send film out to another

town.

I have done lots of digital since. It costs a lot of money to use digital to beat the quality of a good 4x5 chrome. I would not know how to

do it for the budget you mention.

[kelly_flanigan1]

There are wild color pigments that do not record well with film or digital; this is nothing new with films; its in copying books 50 years ago. Here our first 4x5 digital scanner cost more than a decked out full bore pickup truck; and that was about 10 years ago. Even a 10 grand 36" 600 dpi scanner of ours scans colors well; but its not going reproduce neon day glow stuff with the same punch; nor will our Dslr; or LF scan back.-

[ed_te_pas]

<p>Just buy a Canon 5D II or similar from Nikon and you get the best results at that price available. Buy a good camera Raw software like Capture 1 Pro and you can tweak the files to you liking. I reproduce canvasses from artist al the time. Reproducing on canvasses requires only a 100dpi file in order to get a good reproduction.</p>