MF....is it dead?

[j. rivera]

I was talking with a camera dealer friend today and he said the

following;

 

'The digital �revolution� is actually beginning to affect the

professional equipment market faster than the amateur. The market for

all medium format equipment is getting very soft.'

 

Any thoughts?

[s._d._baldwin]

You have no idea what you just started! I plan to grab a bag of popcorn, sit back, and enjoy this one!!

[graham_middleton]

Horses for courses. I have a drum scanner and can scan my transparencies and enjoy the digital advantages just as easily. A pro might like to show the client a tranny and let him worry about reproducting it accurately and not just this is what it looks like on a particular monitor - it might print like that or it might not, and if it doesn't who is to blame (the photographer, the designer, the repro house or the printer???)

Digital can be quicker but I can still get film developed on the same day, so professionally it can be used to satisfy a craving from a client but far better to stick to what you know and have a reputation for.

The clients will dictate what is used eventually. It's kind of like what type of brush is used to create a masterpiece - it is of no consequence if it is a masterpiece. At the end of the day, you can stick a digital back onto a medium format camera and join in if you like - you still need a quality lens and camera - long live medium format.

[andrew_schank]

That guy must have read the article mentioned a few weeks back that claimed digital was now "replacing all the 4X5 Hasselblads". The digital revolution is mostly affecting the point and shoot market, in my opinion. The only decent SLR type of system cameres are like the Nikon D1 at $5000 for just the body, and they certainly can't hold a candle to the image quality of a medium format cameras is capable of. None of the wedding photographers and serious landscape people I know have gone digital. There are some $20,000 digital backs made for medium format cameras that are getting more studio uses for commercial photography, but they don't replace medium format, they are an addition to it.

[jerry_lehrer]

I sincerely hope that the market is getting soft. That way I will be able to pick up some great values in Rolleiflex TLRs and Hasselblads.

 

Please contact me when you have any "softened" equipment to sell me!

 

Jerry

[victor_lioce]

Boy!

Digital is causing quite a stir indeed! And even more confusion. I joined the local chapter of PSA and these people can't even make up their minds what defines a color print, B&W print, Digital catagory and Mixed Media.

 

A photographer entered a "color print" which took 2nd place. Turns out he ackowledges that he used a digital process to remove the background of the photo to make it "less distracting." Yet, he wasn't disqualified or required to enter the print in the digital catagory.

 

Another gentleman shot a b&w image (not sure by what medium) and then used a digital process to color shift the image and "warm it up a bit!" and then printed it with a computer printer. The image was entered in the B&W print catagory and placed!

 

I felt like a fool with my "traditional" B&W and color print images. It seems like the grey line is getting really fuzzy!!!!

 

I wonder how long it will take before they become confused about the definition of a 35mm transparency????

 

Victor Lioce

[shambrick007]

Let's just say this - I think MF has more time left than large format! Film mfgs seem to be dropping LF emulsions left and right, and there is plenty of LF equipment from pro studios for sale on Ebay every day. As for me, I'm gonna start stock piling and freezing LF film. At least I can buy it faster than I can shoot it.

[andrew l. booth]

Interesting question.

 

This week marks the release of the Canon D30 3.3MPixel SLR. I spent some time this morning reading through Michael Reichmann's "D30 Vs. Provia 100F" article on his Luminous Landscapes site (and the ensuing fallout on Phil Askey's "Digital Photo Review" site). Michael's conclusion? Digital is better.

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/d30_vs_film.htm

 

http://www.dpreview.com/

 

You may not agree with his conclusions, but digital is definately encroaching on 35mm. Personally, I'm planning to replace my 35mm gear with digital sometime soon, but I'm also thinking about buying some more Medium Format gear too. I always use MF for 'serious' photography, and 35mm to cheaply capture pictures for scanning, so I could live with a slight quality drop in the smaller format in return for increased convenience in digital capture.

 

For the amateur (which I am), digital at MF quality isn't here yet, and will take a few years. I can't justify buying a $15000 digital back, but I can see how digital will offer cost savings for professionals in some areas where MF film is used at the moment. Kodak has been demonstrating a 16M Pixel digital back at Photokina for instance.

 

I can see digital appearing in MF in the commercial area (it's here now) and maybe becoming more widespread in a couple of years when prices reduce. I expect the black and white 'art' market to hold out for a long time though, and 35mm film photographers to find refuge in Medium and Large formats. If high resolution comes to photography via Medium Format digital backs, investment in good MF equipment remains a sensible move.

 

Having said all this, I don't believe in the original quote that MF interest is 'softening'. The last couple of years have seen a rennaisance in MF imaging, with increased automation and new manufacturers entering the MF arena. Products such as the Mamiya 645E and the new Bronica rangefinder are ideally positioned to move serious 35mm users to MF. Sure, the next five years will see big changes, but for now nothing can match the price/performance of 120. I expect to be shooting MF/film for years to come, and MF/digital beyond then.

[andrew_schank]

The other thing about the up coming "pro quality" digital cameras is that, what will we do with 100 MB files the cameras will eventually be able to generate? So anyone who wants one will constantly need "next years" computer to use them propperly, with the newest printers available as well. Plus the endless hours spent sorting out the software, incompatibility problems, etc, etc. When those days come, the simple act of loading a roll of 120 film and getting it processed may end up being a nice relief from all the complication.

[nhat]

I have a Kodak DCS 520, which is based on an Canon EOS 1 body and delivers 2 megapixels. The quality is only decent up to a 5x7 Epson inkjet output.

 

It can never touh the quality of a neg from my old 1960 Rolleiflex that's been drum scanned. I shoot for some e-commerce sites and the DCS or the Nikon D1 is more than enough for online purposes. But that's all I use it for.

I hope that it will make the medium format soft so I can run out and buy a nice new Rolleiflex GX or a Contax 645!

[greg_lawhon]

While I agree that the cost/quality equation of digital capture doesn't come close to traditional film-based MF imaging now, the more interesting current debate for me is this: can the print output from 35mm film, scanned on a high-end drum scanner, properly prepared, and printed on a Lightjet printer, rival the quality of MF in the 11x14 to 16x20 inch print size range?

 

I haven't yet done tests of my own, but I've read a lot of posts that suggest there is a one-format jump in final print quality from the process I just described. If I could get 16x20s from 35mm that look as good as the "analog" 16x20s I get from MF now, I'd be interested in the greater lens choices, flash capabilities, and speed of 35mm. I doubt I'd give up all my MF gear (especially because if this is true I could get even better or bigger prints from my MF transparencies too), but I'd probably use 35mm again for some things (something I haven't done for 10 years since I discovered the MF difference).

 

I guess I just need to have some prints made by one of Lightjet labs!

[joseph_albert]

How long does a film emulsion need to be on the market in order to fully recoup R&D costs and turn a profit? Clearly, Fuji and Kodak are banking of photochemical processes being around at least this long given the introductions of new emulsions recently. Considering that fuji and kodak at in both the digital and film business, I don't see photochemical film disappearing particularly soon.

[msitaraman]

Get a 16x20 LightJet print made from a 6x6 or 6x7 chrome and decide for yourself. Then try doing commercial MF work like a fashion shoot with a digital back and see if it is practical...<br><p>

 

Meanwhile, chew on this (I know its not about MF but interesting nevertheless). <br><p>

 

From the current issue of the Economist magazine<br><p><br><p>

 

 

 

<i>

SMALL, neat and convenient they may be, but digital cameras have yet to displace their film-based counterparts. The main problem is the quality of the images they produce. The sensory chip inside the sort of digital camera used by amateurs captures an image consisting, at most, of 2,000 by 1,500 picture elements, or pixels. That multiplies to a mere 3m pixels. A photograph taken with standard 35mm film has the equivalent of about 20m pixels. This means that digital pictures can be pretty blocky affairs�adequate for snapshots or pictures on a web page, but not for the serious user. But if a recently unveiled invention lives up to its promise, that could be about to change.

<br><p>

Existing digital cameras contain sensors based on one of two technologies. High-quality models, such as those used by newspaper and advertising photographers, rely on a chip called a �charge-coupled device�. CCDs, which have been around since the early 1970s, consist of an array of elements, each of which acts like a �bucket� of electrical charge that fills up as light falls on it. A CCD can thus be used, in conjunction with a lens and a shutter, to capture an image: variations in the amount of charge stored in the buckets correspond to variations of brightness in the image.The best CCDs can capture 6m pixels�not quite film quality, but often close enough.

<br><p>

In 1995 a new kind of sensor emerged, based on complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the process used to make the vast majority of the world�s silicon chips. This means that, unlike CCDs, which are fabricated in specialist factories, CMOS sensors can be manufactured using standard chip-making equipment, which makes them a lot cheaper to mass produce. It was the introduction of CMOS that allowed digital cameras to become mass consumer items, even though CMOS chips did not match the resolution or quality of CCDs.

<br><p>

The accepted wisdom in the industry held that CCDs would continue to dominate the professional end of the market, but that CMOS sensors would gradually improve, perhaps drawing level with CCDs by around 2003. So a collective gasp went up when Foveon, a small company based in Santa Clara, California, unveiled its new prototype sensor at the Photokina trade show in Cologne last month. It is a CMOS sensor, yet it outdoes even the best CCDs, with an unprecedented resolution of <b>16.8m pixels.</b>

<br><p>

Making such a large CMOS sensor, says Dick Merrill, Foveon�s chief scientist, required new circuit-design techniques to overcome the current leakage which restricts the amount of data that a CMOS sensor can store. It also needed subtle (and, for now, secret) modifications to the CMOS manufacturing process. But the result is a sensor that is said to be as good as the best CCDs.

<br><p>

High-resolution CMOS sensors have a number of advantages over CCDs, says Mr Merrill. As well as being cheaper, CMOS technology makes it possible to include extra functions on the sensor chip itself. Future chips could handle image-processing tasks: sharpening edges, smoothing areas of flat colour such as blue skies or skin tones, and generally knocking on the head the old adage that the camera cannot lie.

<br><p>

Another advantage, from a professional photographer�s point of view, is that, since CMOS sensors are essentially glorified memory chips, it is possible to study a particular area of the image repeatedly (while focusing, for example) before capturing a finished version. This is not possible with CCDs, which require the whole image to be read out in one lump. Another benefit is that a CMOS sensor typically consumes about a tenth of the power of a CCD of equivalent resolution.

<br><p>

Now that CMOS sensors have leap-frogged over CCDs, however, the most important point is that the way is clear for a Moore�s Law-like improvement in image sensors. It may be some time before 16.8m-pixel sensors trickle down to the consumer market, but it is sure to happen eventually. At which point, film really will be doomed.</I>

 

[ian_crouch]

Dear Jeff

In response to your question, I thought the group might like to read the following extract from Medium Format Camera FAQ written by Robert Monaghan (http://www.smu.edu/~rmonagha/mf/mffaq.html). In the article there are some interesting tables that compare the different MF sizes to digital equivalents!

 

Q: How does medium format compare to digital cameras?

 

"...even with the new Foveon 16.7 megapixel CMOS chip or the older $55,000 4kx4k CCD medium format digital backs, film still has lots more image information. A 6x7cm slow speed color film image is equivalent to a 566 megapixel CCD chip (!), which is 33.8 times the capacity of the 4kx4k 16.7 megapixel superchips of today. Stated another way, the best 16.7 megapixel chip cameras are only getting about 3% of the 566 megapixel equivalent image data of a 6x7cm slow film image. Since most of today's better pro digital cameras are circa 3 megapixels, even a 6x4.5cm image will have over a hundred times more image data than a multi-kilobuck digital camera. "

[mark_blackman1]

The biggest barrier I forsee in the amateur arena will be cost. If the PC market is anything to go by, the price and resolution of CCD's and CMOS devices will 1/2 and double respectively on an annual basis, your £10,000 20 M pixel back will be down to a few hundred pounds shortly. Where the price barrier will kick in is the field of printers. I can take a 6 x 6 b&w negative from a £175 used rolleiflex and produce 10 X 8 cropped & enlarged prints at around 50p a throw. I wont ever need to buy a new 'printer', or find myself with an antiquated set up 18 months after purchase.

 

It is of course ironic that in the wider field of information storage (& after all, what is a negative other than stored info?) that current research is looking hard at analogue devices!

[derek_simpson]

Batteries batteries batteries. Up a mountain where do you recharge ?

In the studio it is coming for convenience but not I believe for quality. Why replace a relatively simple, proven, high quality, dependable, system with something 5 times the price and worse ?

And when it's the same price and better - batteries.

[brian_c._miller]

If medium format were so dead, why is everybody coming out with new medium format cameras? The only ones not producing someting new seem to be Ansco, Nikon, and Canon.

 

I think the main reason film manufacturers are dropping various emulsions and sizes is demand and storage. New emulsions are mainly financed on the 35mm market. Konica dropped IR, and if you notice, their production consisted of one shipment a year. A local camera store, Glazer's Camera, always had a supply of last year's film. So it's evident to me that there wasn't that much demand for it.

 

As long as a film is popular in the 35mm format, I would expect that it will be produced in all of the other sizes, too. There are a few which don't follow this observation, like Kodak Verichrome Pan, which is available in 120 and ... Cirkut panoramic format!

 

Digital backs are very expensive, and have a very limited market. They are also slow. The cheapest back I've seen used a B&W array, three color filters, and had to be hooked into a PC. The other backs aren't that much better.

 

The average point & shoot consumer market is what is being threatened. Fuji and Kodak are having to deal with that. It's the tremendous volume of consumer film which has kept these companies in business. If it wasn't for that huge market, a lot of other stuff wouldn't be produced. I think that stuff like Kodak HIE and Tech Pan are really made possible by the consumer market.

 

I expect film to be around for my lifetime. Whether it is good quality film, I don't know. I just finished testing Macophot IR as a replacement for Kodak HIE, and I'm underimpressed. The specialty films will be gone eventually, but I'm sure that we will have film available for the next 50 years.

[ron_shaw]

"but I'm sure that we will have film available for the next 50 years."

 

Dont bet on this statement, unless you are prepared to make your own.

[iklimon]

>>If medium format were so dead, why is everybody coming out with new medium format cameras? The only ones not producing someting new seem to be Ansco, Nikon, and Canon. <<

 

I've often wondered why Canon or Nikon hasn't jumped into the MF marketplace. Does anyone have any insights into the corporate philosophy that may preclude such a move? Is it just not lucrative enough for them?

 

Just wondering

 

ian klimon

[rick_campbell]

Yes. It's dead. You all might as well just box up the obsolete little beasties and send them to me. You can e-mail me for shipping instructions. ;-)

[roger___3]

By my experience as a dedicated amatuer I would perceive that the immediate change in film and formats is not so much digital cameras replacing traditional. It is, as others have stated, digital processing of film and prints revising thoughts on format requirements and standards for print excellence.

 

At the expense of high end scans and Lightjet printing, I'm not in a position to do my own testing. I've asked questions along these lines, though. Folks have their theories that they will more than gladly postulate upon. I've yet to run across information says I took the same image using 35mm and MF and high end scans and prints at 11X14 or 16x20 looked the same, or this is how they were different. Or I had the 35mm scanned and the MF printed traditionally and this is how they were different. Beyond theory or people how have raved about digital prints, I've not run across a valid test comparison like this.

 

Then we get into the arena of LF vs MF. Will MF replace LF? Can a Horseman 6x9 scanned and printed with top notch equipment and expertise equal the results we've come to expect with LF.

 

I don't perceive the ability of a digital camera to produce a fine 5X7 print anything to brag about and have not heard of anything cheaper than megabucks to do better.

[todd frederick]

Hold on...I need another bag of popcorn.

[j. rivera]

Todd, grab another bag.

 

I urge you all to check out Mike's site. His thoughts about the EOS d30 are very interesting. Of course, we have to take his word for it, but considering how well his site is done, I'm sure he's hit the mark on the print quality.

 

For commercial work (I'm not a pro, so I don't know) I would think sharp 11x17's would cover most applications. If that's the case, with the price for decent digital cameras dropping below 4K, it makes sense that more and more work will be done with digital. If that's the case, will traditional MF support flounder? It seems logical that it will. Instant gratification and the "new economy" (what ever that means) seem to go hand in hand. And, it may be cheaper.

 

On the other hand, when hiking up Mt. Whitney, it's nice to know my old ricoh TLR can still get the job done.

 

Cheers,

[mark_mitchell4]

MF dead? Not a chance. As long as there are enough photographers in this world who can appreciate the striking differences between a 35mm Velvia chrome & a 120 Velvia chrome there will be MF. I've talked to a couple of Canon & Nikon reps who also say that for the immediate future, digital is earmarked for the masses. I can't see digital producing the beautiful tonal graduations of a MF chrome for a LONG time. People 15 years ago were saying film only had 10 years left.

Digitals are nice toys, just not serious stuff.

[brian_c._miller]

Well, photography is here and painting isn't dead, so I figure that there will still be film made for another 50 years, minimum. I don't know if Kodak will be making it, but somebody will. I'm not sure that my Pentax will be working that long, but my view cameras will.