On Jul 5, 2007, at 4:44 PM, David J. Littleboy wrote:
> The 4/3 sensor is 1/4 the area of the FF sensors, and not really a
> serious
> format. If one is concerned with image quality.
Technically, there's merit to what you're saying. Given a the current
10 megapixel 4/3 sensor with a 4.7 micron pixel pitch and a
comparable full-frame 10 megapixel chip with a 9 micron pixel pitch,
all things being equal, the larger chip should display a comparable
noise profile a couple of stops down the road from the 4/3 chip. The
overall IQ is an assemblage of a lot of factors, though. The 4/3 lens
mount is a pretty well-thought-out digital lens mount and Zuiko's
high-end glass is really very nice. Much nicer, IMO, than comparable
offerings by Nikon and Canon. Of course, they're generally more
expensive, as well. I kind of wonder how many of those high-end
lenses are actually out there in the world, really. Kind of hard to
justify coughing up $5000 for a lens to put on a little $600 plastic
4/3 camera.
Under most circumstances I doubt you could tell the difference
between a landscape shot with a full-frame sensor and a 4/3 sensor,
though. Certainly not because one falls apart sooner when being
printed in large formats. That line of discussion last night about
not enlarging a 35mm negative past 8" x10" and never using Tri-X for
anything as large as 5" x 7" was kind of a warning flag that we
aren't going to agree on this. And that's OK.
If by that you meant that you've found a workflow that allows you to
make prints from film stocks like PanF Plus or Velvia that don't
appear to have originated from film, then what you're saying makes a
certain sense. With extremely fine-grained films at small enlargement
sizes you can make prints that have very little in the way of tell-
tales that would let you know there was an acquisition medium of any
kind involved. The kind of stuff you see in magazine ad work. I have
an acquaintance who's anal about grain because he does stereoscopic
photography and grain kind of kills the illusion. He almost always
uses Kodachrome 64. He can't understand why I've ever shot any
Kodachrome 200. He thinks the grain is objectionable. He's always
saying, "Why shoot Kodachrome if you're going to have grain?" Of
course, I just like the way it looks. I like the colors, I like the
contrast and I like the grain structure. I'm not a huge fan of the
flaky latitude with that particular stock, but it's got a look all
its own when the stars are aligned and your karma is working right.
Just don't let a black cat cross your path or walk under any ladders.
I've routinely made 11" x 14" enlargements from Tri-X that I'd show
to anyone and I've enlarged Velvia slides to 16" x 20" a number of
times with very pleasing results. Past that 35mm starts to fall
apart, IMO. You went on to say that 6x7 falls apart past 16" x 20"
which is about the starting point for me with 6x7. And of course you
went on to say that the output from a 5D is the equal of medium
format film, which is another big agree-to-disagree. I know the
output is easier to work with and much easier to print, but I
honestly believe you need 100+ megapixels to equal the richness of
the grain pattern visible in optical prints made from 6x7. Of course,
you don't like seeing grain. Which points out a huge aesthetic
difference that I imagine is going to form a lasting dichotomy
between those of us who grew up in darkrooms and the younger
generation who learned to be photographers sitting at a computer.
That ugly ol' grain is the essence and character of the medium for
some of us, where I regularly read people discussing about the best
way to eliminate it from scans.
I just scanned this 30-year-old Ektachrome 400 slide tonight. At 6400
dpi it came out to 5141 x 8085. I downscaled it to 2912 x 4368, which
is the output size of a 5D. Now, I'm not going to pretend that there
was actually 41 megapixels of information there that made it through
the lens and stuck to the film. In fact, the focus is a little dodgy
as it is. I think the guitar is in focus better than his face. But
here's a jpeg (I don't have the server space to upload a tiff or I
would) that's about a meg and you can still see grain aliasing. I
think that I could get everything that's rational to get if I could
scan at 12,800 dpi. But to me this old piece of Ektachrome, that
wasn't a particularly good stock to begin with, yields a much more
engaging image than a 5D. No moire. No strange plastic fleshtones.
This image hasn't had any post-processing, so unsharp masking might
help its apparent sharpness, but it would also help accent the grain
aliasing. Film, man. Heh...OK, I've ranted about film enough. Not
that I don't like digital at all. It's handy. I work with digital all
the time. I just shot a project where I did exteriors on 35mm stock
and interiors (interviews) on 720p video. I'm fine with the way it
looks. It's just that ya gotta repect the emulsion, baby. Grind me up
another horse and feed that gelatin into my camera. ;-)
Anyway, to get back to the point where my sanity started to slip,
where things start to fall apart with the Oly is in low light. That's
the real catch to the small sensor. Their flaky way of doing business
left a lot of us freaking out over the past few years. I'd used OMs
since the mid-70's and it was hard for me to walk away from the
company completely. Zuiko glass has always been the lure of that
company. The cameras were nice enough, but the high-end glass has
always been excellent and the 4/3 concept is sound. I always kind of
thought the 4/3 concept would evolve into their equivalent of a
digital Pen (especially when they came out with the E-300 and its
finder design was so similar to the old Pens). If they kept the 4/3
as their digital Pen, made the cameras much smaller and then came out
with a new lens mount for full frame sensors (a digital OM?) it would
give them an excellent range of products, but I seriously doubt that
they're looking at it like that. In the meantime, their Live View
technology, nice macro lenses and ring flashes make the 4/3 cameras
really good for forensic photography. They seem like they were
designed for the job.
-Rob
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