brettdeacon
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Posts posted by brettdeacon
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<p>There is no question that drum scanners have superior resolution and dynamic range in comparison to an Epson-caliber flatbed. In my experience as an owner of both, the difference is extremely obvious. Whether or not you need this extra resolution and dynamic range for your purposes and intended print sizes is your call. Buying a used drum scanner can be a crapshoot. However, if it works, it can pay for itself in short order by producing scans that would cost on the order of $100 a pop at a service bureau. </p>
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<p>I agree with previous posters that Photomatix is an excellent HDR program. It is certainly possible to overdo the effect and create garish looking images, but it is also possible to exercise restraint and create natural-looking images that cannot be created without blending multiple exposures. I wasn't aware of the new version of Photomatix until reading this thread, so thanks for the info!</p>
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<p>Hi guys. Paul, you asked "I'm wondering (not being into HDR myself) what is the connection between wind and bracketing for HDR purposes?" I also live in a high wind area, and the problem is that there can be significant subject movement that makes it different to combine multiple exposures. The a900 has an auto bracket mode which I use all the time at the +/- 2.0 EV setting, and it cranks off 3 images very quickly. However, when the subject is moving noticeably, as in a telephoto shot of a field of wildflowers blowing in the wind, combining multiple exposures is often not possible. Even when subject movement is less of a problem in a scene, the fact that the a900 does not allow the possibility of auto bracketing with mirror lock-up means that combined images can be somewhat soft. This is my main beef with the a900. Now that I think about it, the fact that something this minor is my biggest problem says a lot about the quality of the a900!</p>
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<p>Hi Kevin. It's not possible on the A900, so I'm sure the answer is no for the A850. This is a shame - this and live view with focus check are the only features important to me theat these cameras lack. I usually use the auto bracket setting at +/- 2.0 EV, but without mirror lock-up this can produce softer images. For telephoto lenses the softness/camera shake is such that I don't even bother trying. One can always use the manual exposure function and dial in bracketed exposures by hand using the exposure compensation button and have the benefit of mirror lock-up, but this is slow and cumbersome and doesn't work with moving subjects. I was hoping for a firmware solution but it seems clear to me by now that Sony has no plans to offer this for these cameras.</p>
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<p>Hi guys. Paul, great post and great pics. Richard, as always I love your posts and your awesome use of depth of field. You remind me of a 4x5 photographer who uses a DSLR.</p>
<p>Went to Grand Teton NP this January for a few days. Here are a few favorites from the trip. All pics: Sony a900 camera, lenses =Zeiss 24-70, Sigma 100-300 f4, or (rented) Zeiss 135 1.8. The Zeiss 135 is a poor focal length for me. Not good for landscale photography. So why am I saving up to buy one??<br>
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<p >Hi Steven. You may find this link to be of interest: </p>
<p > </p>
<p ><a href="http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/a900-one-year.shtml">http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/a900-one-year.shtml</a>. </p>
<p > </p>
<p >The a900 is a fantastic camera. I use it for low ISO, tripod-based landscape photography. Image quality with lenses like the Zeiss 24-70 and Minolta 100 2.8 macro is excellent. The resolution of this camera will quickly make you dissatisfied with lesser lenses. Answers to your other questions can be found in numerous reviews on this and other sites, like the one posted above at Luminous Landscape. If you’d like to see a few images made with the a900, I have some posted below. Good luck. </p>
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<p >Brett</p>
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<p > </p>
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<p>I like Astia because of its dynamic range. Velvia looks great on a light table but is difficult to scan. I'd say the difference between films like Velvia and Astia is more important if you're scaning with a machine with lower dynamic range, like an Epson flatbed. A Nikon will do better, and a drum scanner even better still. It's relatively easy to reproduce Velvia-like color with scanned Astia in Photoshop, but is much more difficult to reproduce Astia-like dynamic range with Velvia in Photoshop. You can always add saturation and contrast, but pulling detail from blocked shadows is another matter. </p>
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<p>Michael, chill. Richard is a respected and respectful poster on this forum. There is more than enough information on the web about the pros and cons of Sony cameras to assist you with an answer to your question. Judging from your statement that the Sony system "may or may not suck" I suggest starting there.</p>
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<p>Hi Bill! I hope you ran into some decent colors in the Tetons. It's a great place for a fall colors. So is the North Shore, and I love the Lake Superior image you posted. Was it taken near Silver Lake, or near Gooseberry Falls State Park? I realloy miss northern Minnesota!</p>
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<p>I went to the Tetons last weekend and captured the one posted below, and this 15-shot vertical stitched panorama: <a href="http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=514&gallery=GrandTetons">http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=514&gallery=GrandTetons</a>. Both taken with the Sony a900. I LOVE this camera!</p>
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<p>Last one, for fun. I played with the levels slider in PS, did some cloning, and desaturated. Shot with the a900 and Sigma 100-300 f4.</p><div></div>
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<p>Snowy Range, WY #3</p><div></div>
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<p>Snowy Range, WY #2</p><div></div>
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<p>Gorgeous macros Wayne! I like the first one the best. What lens did you use?</p>
<p>Here are a few recent shots with the a900 and CZ 24-70; three exposures +/- 2 EV combined in Photomatix.</p><div>
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<p>I own the a900 and love it. Best camera I've ever owned. So good that my trusty 4x5 probably has cobwebs growing on it - can't say for sure since I haven't bothered to use it for the better part of a year. If I were going on a major photography trip and needed a backup body, I would buy the 850 in a heartbeat. I'm sure this isn't Sony's target market, but it would be an easy decision for me. It was tough for a while hanging in there with Sony and watching the incredible Canon's and Nikon's come out, but I'm so very glad I did. The a900 doesn't have video or a kung fu grip, but as a pure photography tool I wouldn't trade it and my CZ 24-70 for anything out there.</p>
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<p>Sigh. I lack the time and interest for a pissing contest, so let me briefly respond and end my contributions to this thread.</p>
<p>Your statement that I "believe blown highlights to be irrelevant when it comes to prints" indicates that you didn't bother to read what I wrote. I said that the issue of blown highlights on film vs. digital is not particularly relevant to the print quality of *properly exposed photos.* I'll grant you the likelihood that were I to overexpose all my photographs by 3 stops, I'd get fewer blown highlights with Ektar than my A900. So what? I’m not even going to get into HDR photography, which I do quite often with my A900 to get dynamic range far beyond Ektar.</p>
<p>It’s great that you feel confident contributing to a thread on the print quality of scanned film vs. the A900 when you’ve never printed an image with the A900 or another 20+MP DSLR, and confident that the personal experiences of those of us who have are invalid and based on misinformation and ignorance. It’s not something I would choose to do, but to each his own. Taking me to task for not being interested in testing the dynamic range of my DSLR is, again, irrelevant to a discussion on the print quality of *properly exposed photographs.* I appreciate your efforts to “inform” me, but I’m not stupid enough to misunderstand that MF film has more resolution than 35mm film, or that scanned MF film has more resolution than the Sony A900. This thread is about discussing the quality of 16x20 prints, and a number of variables are relevant to this discussion that photographers like me who have printed with both scanned MF film and the Sony A900 are in a position to answer from personal experience. Despite the resolution advantage of MF film over the Sony A900, I guess the reality is that the digital images seem to be "good enough" for us, at least at print sizes of 16x20 and smaller. And let's keep in mind that the OP will be scanning on An Epson V700, which probably doesn't resolve even half of the detail of a Mamiya 7II photograph captured on Astia.</p>
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<p>In all honesty, I don't have much interest in performing such a test because I am very satisfied with the dynamic range in Sony A900 RAW files at ISO 100, which is what I shoot 95% of the time. I'm used to shooting slide film (Astia) so perhaps my standards are not as exacting as others who use negative films. Your tests show that Kodak Ektar does a better job than some digital sensors in retaining detail in very overexposed highlights, but with instant feedback via histogram I can tell when I've blown out the highlights and just take another shot at a different exposure.<br>
The question I posed to you had more to do with the issue of print quality being discussed on this thread, which I take to mean issues such as resolution, noise/grain, etc. for properly exposed images. I take your non-answer to my question to mean that you haven't printed with images from the Sony A900 or Canon/Nikon 20+MP DSLRs. Those of us who have appear quite satisfied with the print quality relative to scanned film. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how your blown highlights image is particularly relevant to the print quality of properly exposed photos. I'm honestly not trying to start a flame war here, but I think it's important to value the opinions of with personal experience related to the topic of print quality using the different systems mentioned by the OP.</p>
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<p>Les, I'm curious as to whether you've printed images shot with a 20+ MP DSLR like the A900. I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts as to how prints at various sizes, say 12x18 and 16x20, compare to scanned 35mm and MF film.</p>
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<p>John: I have a drum scanner and the A900, and just checked out some 100% crops of scanned MF Astia (center crops of 6x17 images taken with my 4x5 and the Rodenstock 150 APO Sironar-S, regarded as one of the sharpest 4x5 lenses available) and A900 images (Zeiss 24-70 lens, optimal aperture, tripod, mirror lock-up, etc.). At 16x20 and 300 dpi, there is more fine detail in the MF scan. Both images have essentially no grain at this size, at least prior to sharpening. At 50% magnification, which is in my experience the best magnification to judge the appearance of the final print, the difference between the two is negligible and in all likelihood irrelevant to all but the most extremely picky viewers.<br>
This comparison applies to drum scanned MF film. The Epson V700 has far less resolution and dynamic range than a drum scanner. With good glass, the Sony A900 will be very competitive with MF Astia scanned with the Epson in terms of resolution and will have superior dynamic range. Other advantages include better depth of field (if this is desirable) and far greater post-processing flexibility (HDR, focus stacking, etc.). If I were in your shoes, I'd most likely go with the A900 and Zeiss glass unless my client was insistent upon me shooting film. Plus, the A900 (and all DSLRs for that matter) is a lot more fun to use!<br>
This just my 2 cents of course; feel free to take or leave my advice. From my experience working in an art gallery I wonder if photographers like us care far more than 90%+ of consumers about the kind of very small differences in image quality evident in the scenario discussed in this thread?</p>
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<p>I'll throw out another tip: shoot RAW. This may be a pain for your purposes, but it will help if you are really concerned with noise reduction. Sony jpgs are notoriously noisy (A900 jpgs have visible noise even at ISO 100) and you can reduce noise by converting the RAW images yourself and using Neat Image/Noise Ninja/etc. Also, Sony's Image Data Converter software is horrible and increases noise relative to Adobe Camera Raw, which in turn is worse than other programs such as DxO Optics.</p>
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<p>Hi Joseph. Make sure you have "microcontrast" set to zero- if it's 1 or higher it will produce a sharper and noisier image. With it set to zero I don't see any additional noise with Photomatix compared to CS4/ACR.</p>
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<p>1. Forgetting to reset movements to default positions after I'm done taking a photo. I've had a few otherwise excellent photos ruined because of movements I didn't know were present at the time.<br>
2. When using a SLR/DSLR as light meter, forgetting to verify that the meter's ISO matches that of my 4x5 film.<br>
3. Not stopping down enough in situations where movements can't render a landscape in sharp focus. All other things being equal, I would much rather error on the side of using too small an aperture than have annoying out-of-focus elements in an image.</p>
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<p>Hi Joe. I have a DAYI 6x17 camera back for my 4x5 and love the Schneider 110 XL. This lens is incredibly sharp, wide but not too wide, and has a huge image circle which means no vignetting and plenty of room for movements. 75mm is VERY wide and would seem to be limited in applicability to a broad variety of real-world situations, at leats for landscape photography. Almost every good 6x17 image I've captured over the last few years wouldn't have looked near as nice with a lens that wide. Just my experience and preference though - your tastes may be different.</p>
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<p>My other camera is an Ebony 45S 4x5 view camera. My Sony A100 was purchased as a "backup" but ended up getting used far more often than the 4x5. Now with the A900 it will be interesting to see how much use the 4x5 gets.</p>
Panoramic Camera
in Large Format
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<p>Hi David. My impression is that dedicated 6x17 cameras tend to be much more expensive than a basic 4x5 camera with a 6x17 back like the DAYI/Shen Hao. I use an Ebony 45 with the DAYI back and love the combo. Unlike most dedicated 6x17 backs, the 4x5 camera/pano back combo allows for the use of camera movements and more flexibility with lens choices. Here are a few links to pics taken with this combo:<br>
<a href="http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=31&gallery=Best">http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=31&gallery=Best</a><br>
<a href="http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=29&gallery=Best">http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=29&gallery=Best</a><br>
<a href="http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=101&gallery=Best">http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=101&gallery=Best</a><br>
<a href="http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=208&gallery=Vedauwoo">http://www.brettdeacon.com/photo.php?id=208&gallery=Vedauwoo</a><br>
Brett</p>