80+ megapixels from Germany

The ideal landscape camera

No joke. Using a better filmscanner, with over 4.000 dpi, than a
6x6 MF film delivers app. 75 megapixels.
6x7 gives close to 90 MP and
6x9 delivers over 110 MP

http://www.voigtlaender.de/cms/voigtlaender/voigtlaender_cms.nsf/id/pa_fdih7jzkae.html

Seriously, I find this a real alternative for dedicated landscape photography. Reliable, no-nonsense construction, quality optic, packable body… just take a light tripod, a couple of film rolls, and you can walk and climb with this equipment for days.

somebody is posting this.

There are people telling me I get 40mp below 1000$ buying a scanner and an analog medium format camera.

That each shot costs me anround 5$ is not mentioned.

Wrong forum.

Waaaaaay back, when I earned a living as photoshop guru, I had to work with these scanned-from-film files... Man, did I hate them. Noise, dust, specs, scratches, newtonrings, rotated... etc.... I'm happy film days are over.

hetedik said:

The ideal landscape camera

No joke. Using a better filmscanner, with over 4.000 dpi, than a
6x6 MF film delivers app. 75 megapixels.
6x7 gives close to 90 MP and
6x9 delivers over 110 MP

http://www.voigtlaender.de/cms/voigtlaender/voigtlaender_cms.nsf/id/pa_fdih7jzkae.html

Seriously, I find this a real alternative for dedicated landscape
photography. Reliable, no-nonsense construction, quality optic,
packable body… just take a light tripod, a couple of film rolls, and
you can walk and climb with this equipment for days.

Click to expand...

--
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This kind of statement and argument over it seldom ends, digital has the edge over clarity, may be not the severe high light areas, but digital gives a lot better image overall for higher ISO range, I would not agree this 100%. Each argument holds certain truth.

hetedik said:

The ideal landscape camera

No joke. Using a better filmscanner, with over 4.000 dpi, than a
6x6 MF film delivers app. 75 megapixels.
6x7 gives close to 90 MP and
6x9 delivers over 110 MP

http://www.voigtlaender.de/cms/voigtlaender/voigtlaender_cms.nsf/id/pa_fdih7jzkae.html

Seriously, I find this a real alternative for dedicated landscape
photography. Reliable, no-nonsense construction, quality optic,
packable body… just take a light tripod, a couple of film rolls, and
you can walk and climb with this equipment for days.

Click to expand...

--
Regards, K
http://www.studiosota.com
Blog http://khun-k.blogspot.com/

Somehow you fail to mention the expense of high-end scanner for 6x9 format and the actual hassle of scanning.

Oh yeah, I love those big brilliant slides too (I have few of them of my own) but from practical point of view, there's too much of trouble working with them.
--
http://www.lupomesky.cz/foto/index-en.html
Canon EOS 20D, Canon HV20

Is the simplicity of usage with contemporary digital cameras a sufficient “superb” quality index?

For me it’s not enough in some cases. Especially landscapes. So I use also middle and large format professionally scanned slides with great success.
Marinov
http://forma.hit.bg

Bastian09 said:

There are people telling me I get 40mp below 1000$ buying a scanner
and an analog medium format camera.

Click to expand...

Of course you don't buy a scanner, which for MF would cost several times the price of the camera. A good drum-scanner is easily over 5.000 Euro....
You find a professional scan-service and let them scan your best pictures.
For instance this here: http://www.filmscanner.info/

Bastian09 said:

That each shot costs me anround 5$ is not mentioned.

Click to expand...

It's clearly not free, or even cheap. (von nichts kommt nichts

The real question is, do you (think) need 50+ megapixels??? If yes, what is your alternative? How much does a MF digital back cost today? If you don't use a MF digital back professionally, you will obviously not buy it, just to take a few hundreds landscape pictures a year. Up till app. 5-700 pictures a year, the good old film would even be cheaper. Of course, some places you could even rent a digital MF, what would also cost a few hundreds, and this money is gone.

Bastian09 said:

Wrong forum.

Click to expand...

It's the perfect forum. I don't know about a more megapixel-focused forum at the whole internet

Seriously, ambitioned amateur photographs (most I know) have beside their SLR(s) a walk-around pocket camera. I have a Powershot. I am suggesting, this film MF could also be an additional camera, for serious landscape pictures. You could try it, and after a few years, you could probably sell it for the same money, you have paid for it. On the other hand, 15.000+ digital back is hardly worth anything after a few years.

Hmph. why do 80mp? When I'm really in the mood I use my speedgraphic 4x5 with a modern super angulon xl mounted and then use my artixscan 45t+ at a mere 2500ppi optical to get 125mp.

I tend to get great results from it... that's what happens when you know every shot takes you a cumulative 20 minutes even before the digital stage.

I mean... if you can make a decent 30x45 print from a 6mp file, what would you need 80mp for...
--
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Adam Kozlowski said:

I mean... if you can make a decent 30x45 print from a 6mp file, what
would you need 80mp for...

Click to expand...

Yes, you are right. We can have beautiful images from 6 MP, but more pixels do not hurt. As the technology was there, I let my slides scanned. The guys at the lab said, from a good quality slide (24x36) I would have app. 20 million pixels.

When I started with digital photography, I have red somewhere the connection between pixels in file and dots on print. If I remember well, in order to make a high quality print of an image, the resolution should be at least of 300 dpi. That means 300 dots per inch, thus 118 dots per cm. So a quadrate with a side length of 1 inch contains 300 x 300 = 90.000 image dots.

I assume, you meant centimeter, so let’s do the math first in centimeter.
Having a 30x40cm image:
30cm x 118dots/pixels = 3 540
45cm x 118dots/pixels = 5 310
3 540dots x 5 310dots = 18 797 400

So if you don’t do any interpolation, and you deliver 1 pixel for each dot on the print, you’ll need 18,8 megapixels!

If you would like to print in exceptional quality, 600dpi, than:
30cm x 236dots = 7 080
45cm x 236dots = 10 620
9 000dots x 13 500dots = 75 189 600 pixels

Just for the people not feeling home in this metric calculation, let’s take 20x30inches:
20inches x 300dots = 6 000
30inches x 300dots = 9 000
9 000dots x 13 500dots = 54 000 000 pixels

The "Voigtländer 667" is marketed as the "Fujifilm GF670 Professional" in Japan. It's a joint development project between Cosina and Fujifilm, and is obviously being built by Cosina. Yes, this is the manufacturer of el cheapo plastic superzooms, but also of high grade Zeiss ZF series lenses and the Zeiss Ikon 35 mm rangefinder camera.

If you're looking for an ideal landscape camera that actually is from Germany, go here:

http://en.leica-camera.com/photography/s_system/

hetedik said:

The ideal landscape camera

Click to expand...

hetedik said:

When I started with digital photography, I have red somewhere the
connection between pixels in file and dots on print. If I remember
well, in order to make a high quality print of an image, the
resolution should be at least of 300 dpi.

Click to expand...

The generally accepted value of 300 ppi is overkill if you consider a perfect human eye is limited to 1/200 inch resolution when viewing a well illuminated "high contrast" target at a distance of 17 to 18 inches. FWIW, there are more than just a few folks that believe anything over 200 ppi is wasted.

How many prints have you seen where the detail you are looking at comprises a transition from maximum to minimum? Unless you are looking prints of resolution test charts it's hard to see a practical need for 300 ppi.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

I am glad I stopped by the Canon forum and see that you bring this to my attention. I think this piece looks amazing!

Knowing how good the Voigtlânder lenses are (performing close to the Leica lenses I had to my M8) I have no doubt that this camera will deliver outstanding results. It will be very interesting to see how this optic performs as opposed to the Mamiya 7 80mm lens.

And while I agree with all the angry posters here that point out that scanning is a time consuming, money consuming, technical science that will take a lot of your time, I can also see your arguments:

A high resolution piece of equipment in a mechanical body that will keep your backpack light and will keep you shooting while the others took the bus back to charge their battery guzzling DSLRs.

All this being said, it's hard to beat the convenience of digital. Even art directors say film is going to die, except for the tiny ultra fine art niche.

hetedik said:

The ideal landscape camera

No joke. Using a better filmscanner, with over 4.000 dpi, than a
6x6 MF film delivers app. 75 megapixels.
6x7 gives close to 90 MP and
6x9 delivers over 110 MP

http://www.voigtlaender.de/cms/voigtlaender/voigtlaender_cms.nsf/id/pa_fdih7jzkae.html

Seriously, I find this a real alternative for dedicated landscape
photography. Reliable, no-nonsense construction, quality optic,
packable body… just take a light tripod, a couple of film rolls, and
you can walk and climb with this equipment for days.

Click to expand...

--
Best,
Richard.

300 dpi may be "overkill" as long as there are only smooth tonal gradients in a picture. But as soon as you have hard contrasted borders or small structured patterns, it makes a huge difference. Imagine printing a photo on your printer at 200 dpi - this will usually look okay. But once you print text, either alone or within a photo, you'll instantly recognize the resolution is too low, when viewing from a close distance. The same happens when elements of a picture are "text-like" in that they consist of strong contrasted small patterns.

For larger viewing distances, however, I agree - 200 dpi should do.

J A K said:

hetedik said:

When I started with digital photography, I have red somewhere the
connection between pixels in file and dots on print. If I remember
well, in order to make a high quality print of an image, the
resolution should be at least of 300 dpi.

Click to expand...

The generally accepted value of 300 ppi is overkill if you consider a
perfect human eye is limited to 1/200 inch resolution when viewing a
well illuminated "high contrast" target at a distance of 17 to 18
inches. FWIW, there are more than just a few folks that believe
anything over 200 ppi is wasted.

How many prints have you seen where the detail you are looking at
comprises a transition from maximum to minimum? Unless you are
looking prints of resolution test charts it's hard to see a practical
need for 300 ppi.

Regards,

Joe Kurkjian

Galleries: http://www.pbase.com/jkurkjia



SEARCHING FOR A BETTER SELF PORTRAIT

Click to expand...

Richard Fossum said:

A high resolution piece of equipment in a mechanical body that will
keep your backpack light and will keep you shooting while the others
took the bus back to charge their battery guzzling DSLRs.

Click to expand...

One LiIon battery pack is good for at least 500 exposures on my DSLR.

It's about as large as one or two rolls of film.

How many exposures do you get from one roll of film?

I use to carry one spare battery with me on a one-day trip.

How many rolls of film do you carry? Or will you take the bus back to develop your film after the first roll of say, 12 or 36 images is exposed?

Hi,

Your points are valid. At the same time we know that with digital "we" shoot more photographs (just because "we" can), thus we use more battery. We also use battery for reviewing images on the fly, a convenience that film doesn't allow. And maybe the most important part here, is that on a 7 day hike in cold weather the manual film camera will keep you clicking. Another part of the paragraph you quoted is high resolution. I suppose the only digital camera that would give you the same native resolution as a high(est) quality scan from the 6x7 would be a DMF. Now let's talk about batteries and bulk.

Please don't fail to see my bias towards digital here. I just posted this to say that I can see the arguments for why I should fancy this imaging device.

GiovanniB said:

Richard Fossum said:

A high resolution piece of equipment in a mechanical body that will
keep your backpack light and will keep you shooting while the others
took the bus back to charge their battery guzzling DSLRs.

Click to expand...

One LiIon battery pack is good for at least 500 exposures on my DSLR.

It's about as large as one or two rolls of film.

How many exposures do you get from one roll of film?

I use to carry one spare battery with me on a one-day trip.

How many rolls of film do you carry? Or will you take the bus back to
develop your film after the first roll of say, 12 or 36 images is
exposed?

Click to expand...

--
Best,
Richard.

I was intrigued until I saw the electric shutter. I want a camera for doing long exposure at night, especially cold nights. But these battery operated shutters are not going to handle the cold weather. the batter will run out very quickly...it's a shame...at the right price with a mechanical shutter I would have seriously considered one of these....
--
must watch: http://www.climatecrisis.net/
My Latest Gallery: From Peru to Chile: http://www.pbase.com/salim/peruchile2005

Even if the S2 lenses are indeed from Germany, the sensor in S2 is made by Kodak

Max

GiovanniB said:

http://en.leica-camera.com/photography/s_system/

hetedik said:

The ideal landscape camera

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

hetedik said:

The ideal landscape camera

No joke. Using a better filmscanner, with over 4.000 dpi, than a
6x6 MF film delivers app. 75 megapixels.
6x7 gives close to 90 MP and
6x9 delivers over 110 MP

http://www.voigtlaender.de/cms/voigtlaender/voigtlaender_cms.nsf/id/pa_fdih7jzkae.html

Seriously, I find this a real alternative for dedicated landscape
photography. Reliable, no-nonsense construction, quality optic,
packable body… just take a light tripod, a couple of film rolls, and
you can walk and climb with this equipment for days.

Click to expand...

Buy a 5DII take 5 shots vertically stich them togheter..BAM 100mp...
--

http://www.pbase.com/jdf
(Pbase supporter)

I have made this same point in other forums. Film is over the hill for many applications, but not all. Quite a few landscape photographers still prefer to lug around a MF or 4x5 field camera around and after the shoot simply develop and scan the images. No batteries, no super expensive digital backs to lug around or be stolen from your car, and the weight trade-offs often make film the preferred tool for capturing an image. An 8x10 negative is capable of yielding over 1 gbyte of image information when scanned at 24 bits. You would need to have access to an AIG type bailout to afford a digital sensor that could match that.
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