alexo

<p>I'm glad I was able to help. Good luck!</p>

<p>You might want to read this before you invest in a back for your Hasselblad:<br /><br />http://www.ludd.luth.se/~torger/photography/mfdb-guide.html</p>

<p>The RB67 is a beast. I wouldn't take it on a trip unless you're going on a special photography field trip. It's not fun lugging it along. It's big, heavy and unwieldy.</p> <p>The Hasselblad is much more manageable, but it's a 6x6 square, not a 6x7. So, it's not a question of whether one is sharper than another, it's a question of what size negatives/slides you want and whether you want a square format. If you crop a 6x6 neg, you'll get a 6x4.5 image, in which case, you may as well get a 645 camera.</p>

<p>I've never had great luck scanning film. The scans, no matter how good, lose the brilliance of film. Try shooting 120 slide film and run it through a slide projector. That's the output in all its glory.</p>

<p>Hi Mike,<br> <br />I didn't use a formula or a calculator (although I'm sure there is one). I took a supposed proper exposure (in our example 1/125 sec at f 8) as 1 stop + 7 stops over exposure + 7 stops under exposure = 15 stops dynamic range. That's it.</p>

<p>Hi Mike,</p> <p>The dynamic range is a function of the sensor, not of the lens. Furthermore, a stop is a stop is a stop, they don't get better, they don't get worse. The dynamic range is not within an individual stop, it covers more stops.</p> <p>When you're shooting a scene, and you make your exposure (regardless of the lens you use), you will have one part of the scene exposed properly and then you're going to have parts that are lighter than your "proper" exposure and some scenes that are going to be darker. So, let's say your exposure is 1/125 sec at f8. A sensor with 15 stop dynamic range will preserve details in places that are lighter than your perfect exposure and darker. So, in this instance, even though you're exposing at 1/125 and f8, your highlights will be preserved up to 1/16000 and f8 and your shadow detail will be preserved up to 1 sec and f8 FOR THE SAME SCENE. </p> <p>In other words, you have a scene where there are some parts that are so bright, they need a proper exposure at 1/16,000 and f8 and some parts that are so dark that their proper exposure would be at 1 sec and f8. All of these parts are contained within that one picture. So, when you have low dynamic range, the parts that are in the deep, deep shadow will not contain any details. For example, if you have a car in the shadow, and you don't have a great enough dynamic range, you won't be able to see the car when you try to lighten that shadow in post processing. All you will get is black turning into gray. Whereas with greater dynamic range, when you lighten the shadow portion of your scene in Lightroom or some other program, you'll be able to see the car. The same concept comes into play with regard to the light areas. If you have a very light part of the scene that should have been exposed at 1/16,000 of a sec and f8, but you exposed at 1/125 and f8, that light area will also have details preserved when you try to darken it in post processing. Otherwise, it would just go from white to gray without any captured details.</p> <p>So, the difference between a 14 stop dynamic range and 15 stop is that with a 15 stop, you will have detail preserved from 1/16,000 and f8 to 1 sec and f8 when you expose at 1/125 and f8, while the 14 stop chip will preserve detail from 1/8000 and f8 to 1 sec and f8 when you expose at 1/125 and f8.</p> <p>I hope this clarifies things.</p>

<p>The dynamic range of 15 stops means that the sensor is able to preserve detail within a 15 stop range. That means that if you expose for the gray tones, your highlight detail will be preserved within 7 stops of your exposure and your shadow exposure will be preserved within 7 stops of your exposure. </p> <p>This is helpful when working in high contrast scenes where you have very bright highlights, such as the sun and very deep shadows. You don't have to make a decision as to whether expose for the highlights, thus preserving the detail and letting the shadows fall where they may or exposing for the shadows and blowing out your highlights.</p>

<p>I had gone through the same process recently and I had come to the conclusion that if long exposure is important, you have no choice but to go with a CMOS sensor. After looking at it for a while and doing some research, it became clear that just slapping a Sony A7R on a technical camera such as Cambo Actus or Arca-Swiss Universalis is the best bang for the buck.</p>

<p>Both the 45+ and the Pentax 645D require a dark frame. As far as I know, there's no way to turn that off.<br /><br />There's a great article, which should give you a pretty good perspective if you're considering jumping into med format digital:<br /><br />http://www.ludd.luth.se/~torger/photography/mfdb-guide.html</p>

<p>I've bought many things from Keh and I always buy BGN marked items unless they don't have them. I could never see any difference between their BGN and EX items. Everything works, everything's clean and really great.<br> The focusing screen comes standard.<br> <br />There should be a dark slide included with the back, although I don't know if this particular back comes with it, but I've never heard of a back coming without a dark slide.</p>

<p>You're doing everything right. You're supposed to get 15 frames on a 120 back. Check the negatives and see if the spacing between negs is consistent. If it's not, you need to have the insert repaired.</p>

<p>Hi,<br> I'd like to throw a monkey ranch into this discussion and make a case for getting the Nikon.<br> As you are aware, the 645D uses a CCD sensor. One of the biggest issues with a CCD sensor is that it generates a lot of noise once it starts heating up. It starts heating up during the exposure. It doesn't like long exposures at all. You may start seeing noticeable noise with as short an exposure as a few seconds. This is a huge issue if you're doing any sort of available light photography, light painting or whatever else.<br> Secondly, there's not much in terms of picture quality that the Nikon will give up to the 645D. In fact, there's hardly any. You would have to really nitpick to find the differences in picture quality and for every example you find, you'll find another example where the Nikon is leaps and bounds ahead and that's especially with low light and long exposure photography.<br> The Nikon kit has much better ergonomics, much greater selection of lenses, both old and new, plus third party lenses. The flash handling of the Nikon system is leaps and bound ahead of the Pentax as well as autofocus.<br> There was a discussion some time ago on another forum where one of the guys shot the same scene with the Canon 5DSr and Pentax 645z. I downloaded RAW files (these were shot in daylight at base ISO). There was ZERO difference in image quality. The color rendition was different, but in terms of resolution, color depth or anything that counts, there was NO difference at all.<br> So, if I were in your shoes, I would go the Nikon route. It's a much more flexible system and you won't miss anything that a crop factor med format can offer.<br /><br />My two cents.</p>

<p>5. Maybe. It all depends on the purpose. You'll get pretty much the same quality a lot cheaper with a full frame digital camera for a lot less.<br> <br />9. They can use whatever they want. Capture One seems to be one of the better software packages out there, but it's not the end all.<br> 10. Some buy medium format and some buy full frame (35mm) cameras. It all depends on their purpose.</p>

<p>You can get an eye level finder for hasselblad to make it possible to view the scene in the viewfinder.</p>

<p>Hi,<br> Let me see if I can address some of your questions:<br /><br />1. The 105 is more or less the equivalent of a 60mm lens in 35mm terms, so the 135 will give a bit more working distance, although not all that much more.<br> 2. Whether you need flash for macro largely depends on what you're shooting and under which lighting conditions. The 1/30 sec synch may or may not be a problem depending on what you're shooting. If you're shooting live insects, then probably yes, if you're shooting anything other than that, then probably no.<br> <br />3. Bellows is useful if you're shooting at higher magnifications. It allows you to easily focus and vary your magnification. I don't know how difficult it is to find or how much it costs.<br> 4. Your tripod will be ok with autobellows.<br> 5. You don't need a ball head with bellows. I use a standard 3 way pan head, which I find to be a very good fit.</p> <p>Hope this helps. Good luck!</p>

<p>I had never gotten a scan that even remotely approached the luminescence, the color or the pop of the slide. What you lose is dynamic range, color gamut, color luminescence. In other words, you lose the soul.</p> <p>Shoot negative film if you're going to print it. Shoot positive to project. There's nothing like a medium format projected slide.</p>

<p>I had this problem. I had to bring the camera in for service. I don't know exactly what they did, but they fixed it. It's not the insert issue, it's definitely a camera issue.</p>

You may want to check out the Slik 330dx with a 3 way pan head. It can handle the load and I find it to be quite versatile. It can get down low, you can set it up on uneven surfaces and it's very sturdy.

<p>I inquired about digital projectors some time ago on these forums and people recommended the LCD projectors because of the greater and more consistent color brightness. I tried them and they're good, but it's not the same as a med format slide projected on the screen. </p>