Old dreams

[john_cooper9]

Many many years ago after setting up the 4x5 and creating the shot that was exactly what I wanted seeing it on the ground glass. Then having to put in a film holder with E6 film and waiting for the end result to be available I thought about an alternative: why can't the image on the ground glass be turned into a digital image directly. I had a scanner that had a bar that travelled across the image, so why can't this technology be improved upon. Something built into the camera back that creates a digital image directly from what is seen on the ground glass. Now this is for color where the image is a "record" of the view. Not B/W where the photographer has complete license to produce an image to his/her liking of a representation of the scene, either thru exposure and/or print manipulation. In the ideal world the color image could also be used for the "creative" B/W image desired by the photographer. I think this was my thinking in the last century. Today I have an old Sony A99II that sort of does what I want, but I miss the big ground glass image and the ability to control the plane of focus and the part of the image circle that represents the image I am seeking.

[rodeo_joe1]

On 11/4/2022 at 2:09 PM, john_cooper9 said:

Today I have an old Sony A99II that sort of does what I want, but I miss the big ground glass image and the ability to control the plane of focus and the part of the image circle that represents the image I am seeking.

Do you also miss stooping under a dark-cloth? Fumbling with a focus-magnifier in one hand and the other stretched out to a focussing knob - and still not being sure if you've nailed critical focus because of the coarse GG screen texture and/or Fresnel lines? Then occasionally forgetting to close the preview lever and realising you've ruined a sheet of film just after you've pulled the dark-slide? Unreliable flash-synch cables? Not to mention tripods that need two people to comfortably lift? 

What you really miss, I suspect, could be remedied by a decent standard focal-length tilt-shift lens that allowed free movement in all 3 (or 4) axes, and that didn't cost a small fortune for a mediocre optical performance. 

Is any optical company listening out there?

[dan_fromm2]

https://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.html

[AJG]

I still remember going to a demo of a scanning back in the 1990's--the exposure time was at least 7 minutes!  I got a dirty look when I asked what could be done if your studio was near heavy traffic or a railroad line, which mine was at the time.
Between the substantial cost and the impracticality of it I wasn't interested.  Rodeo Joe is on to something, though.  Versatile tilt/shift lenses should be much easier to design now with thinner mirrorless bodies than they were for SLRs and DSLRs.

[rodeo_joe1]

On 11/5/2022 at 8:51 PM, AJG said:

the exposure time was at least 7 minutes!

Gosh! And I thought having to wait about 20 seconds (including the 5 second delay timer) for a 240 megapixel 16 shot pixel-shift exposure was a long time. Same requirement for lack of vibration and stable light though.

FWIW, I just can't believe the detail such a file reveals. The downside is that it also reveals there's no such thing as depth-of-field. At least not at any sensible aperture.

[john_cooper9]

A few years ago I remember someone in Switzerland (Seitz?) had a scanning back for 6x17 that scanned in less than one second. He was working on one for smaller format such as 6x7 that would have been even quicker. I will have to check him out again.

[AJG]

21 hours ago, rodeo_joe1 said:

Gosh! And I thought having to wait about 20 seconds (including the 5 second delay timer) for a 240 megapixel 16 shot pixel-shift exposure was a long time. Same requirement for lack of vibration and stable light though.

FWIW, I just can't believe the detail such a file reveals. The downside is that it also reveals there's no such thing as depth-of-field. At least not at any sensible aperture.

Don't worry about the lack of DOF--most people see most photographs on their phones... I'm always struck by the paradox of the incredibly high quality images that are easy to achieve now with digital cameras, decent lenses and good technique that will be seen on such small, uncalibrated and poor quality devices.