Velvia 50 35 mm.. 120..4x5 in against D 700 and Hasselblad H3 31

wanted to look at what i get from my systems sort of to evaluate whats it looking
like last year but didnt have time up till last week when i shot some Velvia 50

with f11 on an F 90 Nikon against a Hasselblad 500 CM (120) against a field camera with150 mm Nikon lens ( yes that existed) .
As digital cameras i used the D700 against the MF Hasselblad H3II 31MP
with Hc 2.8 80 and I also used a CF 60 mm from the old system on it.
All was on same sturdy Manfroto tripod with Cambo ball head.
used self timer or cable release. no wind !

weather was bad with low contrast light I chose that because its very demanding on the systems. all film was processed in the best lab in town and scanned with
a highend Imacon flextight scanner at highest possible physical resolution
and stored as tiffs.
The Digital files were raw files processed in Capture NX2 and Capture one or
Phocus for Hasselblad files
It was very difficult because of the not comparable focal lengths.
but for that purpose i both used a very sharp 60 mm micro nikkor old version

and on the Hasselblad both 80 mm which is a slight tele because of the not 120 size of the H3 so 60mm to 80 mm is a good comparison

i also looked at the cameras with both 60 mm focal lenght making the Hasselblad have double size.

note that the medium format film files are a crop from a larger area so the camera
and film combination would look a bit better at the same field size... !
next week i might get a D3x to look at also that 8 because I´m curious)
here are the clip files
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pkpictures01/sets/72157622523607863/

here are some sheets





Peter

I would like to see the D3x compared.

rayman 2 said:

wanted to look at what i get from my systems sort of to evaluate whats it looking
like last year but didnt have time up till last week when i shot some Velvia 50

Click to expand...

Why an older non-updated film like velvia 50 when Velvia 100 is newer, has finer grain, and is a sharper film? Those that complained when velvia 50 was discontinued and didn't like velvia 100 were probably just afraid of change even though velvia 100 is a better film.

Velvia 50 renders virginia bluebells purple.

Excellent post. it is really interesting to see how the Velvia performs against the digital.

Thanks for posting this.

i was wondering whether Thom has comparable samples. It would be interesting to compare against others like D300 and the mighty D3x (but the subject has to be the same ... :-( )

Because I know the Velvia 50 for a long time and many people do that too....
and i doubt that it will be that much different but I have no problem to shoot
them side by side. apart from that it isnt easy to get all typs of films
off the shelf here from 35 over 120 to 4x5 inch....

The D3X should be coming pretty soon. I alread asked to get one. ; )
Peter

Thanks for doing all that work, very interesting.I don't know about all the other choices but I'm in agreement with the Velvia 50/D700(D3) comparison.

It may be that with the very best available film, scanned with $20000 of equipment, in oil or whatever it is they do and with the best possible exposure on the sturdiest tripod it may be possible to beat a 12Mp machine but in the real world I find 35mm film to be obsolete. I really miss my OM4Ti, it was perfection and a joy to hold but I wish I could take my D3 back in time to redo those shots.
--
Brian
Fine Art Print sales of the Isle of Skye at:
http://www.eyeofskye.co.uk/

xrdbear said:

It may be that with the very best available film, scanned with $20000 of equipment, in oil or whatever it is they do and with the best possible exposure on the sturdiest tripod it may be possible to beat a 12Mp machine but in the real world I find 35mm film to be obsolete. I really miss my OM4Ti, it was perfection and a joy to hold but I wish I could take my D3 back in time to redo those shots.
--
Brian
Fine Art Print sales of the Isle of Skye at:
http://www.eyeofskye.co.uk/

Click to expand...

The Imacon or Hasselblad scanners are in the row of the best scanners in the world and with these pictures we are at the grain level... you wont get higher resolution.......the grain of the film is the limit.
Its a very sturdy tripod ! The tripod is good enough to show the quality of the
MF digital camera......
I can tell you that I have the feeling that we are at the MF film level with our
digital DSLRs.......the higher the speed (iso) the more it shows....

Well at the same focal length you can say that the MF camera has double the size
so for all the people who say that MF and MF backs arent useable over 400 iso...

; P

Thanks! Absolutely fascinating and informative. Look forward to the D3x results.

--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/9476880@N02/

rayman 2 said:

The D3X should be coming pretty soon. I alread asked to get one. ; )
Peter

Click to expand...

Thanks Peter. It will definately complete the test

looks like we have a winner here ... H3

Thanks for your effort....I felt confident saying that my D700 ran circles (at least 3X) around my old F2A....and it shows.

Thanks for posting.

Leswick

thanks rayman

super comparison
great work
it looks like copenhagen
is it?

i mal

Leswick said:

Thanks for your effort....I felt confident saying that my D700 ran circles (at least 3X) around my old F2A....and it shows.

Thanks for posting.

Leswick

Click to expand...

Whilst I make my living using digital for real world applications i.e. prints {at least for low iso work} from film look every bit as good as those from my D3 or D700. I have recently tried out the newish Ektar film from Kodak and printed several 18x12inch photographs from the resulting negatives with them easily matching the D3 output, though at higher iso settings it is no contest digital wins very easily.

Scanning film is adding an extra step to the process and, using some very old 35mm cameras I was very happy with the resulting images though I admit to enjoying using mechanical cameras and manual focus etc. And you have to spend a fair amount of cash to get a dslr with as good a viewfinder as you get on a lot of older cameras especially my F3 and equally old OMs.
Jim

Thanks!!

I think the Velvia 100 is a slightly better film though.

Thx for sharing.

--
Yves P. Photographe
Share the Knowledge

NPS Member
PBASE Supporter

Some pictures I like:
http://www.pbase.com/yp8/

Fact is the 31mp MF back blows them all away by a margin. OK, it's high iso is restricted, but how many used (or could even get high iso 5x4!) and this is it's market...imagine what the 60mp backs are capable of, some comparing them with 10 x 8 sheet film.

I agree though, taking into account higher iso films, that even the 12mp D700/D3 compares vey favourably with what was achievable with MF film.

It's all very well comparing with 50/100asa Velvia all the time but so often my 'Blad was loaded with 400 NPH and I suspect the D700/D3 can match that.

D3x will give marginally more resolution but generally poorer noise..to double the resolution you need 4 x the pixels so that would be 48mp..on a FF?! Questionable noise and lens performance I would suspect?

Rayman,

Great comparison! Must've been a lot of work. On your flickr page, you could post all of the film, and digital files so we can compare the FOV of the different shots. They don't have to be full resolution, just not cropped.
hotos, http://www.sheltx.com/

Thanks for posting. My D700 cried when I asked it why it couldn't be as good as the H3. Then it gave me 15,000 reasons($) why it wasn't as good!

Really appreciate the comparison and I still love my D700 - it is definitely better than my 127 Brownie reflex was and then my beloved 35mm Argus C-3!

Regards,

Tom T