Large Format Digital Photography

AudiiDudii wrote:

Charles Chien wrote:

Hi maxotics and AudiiDudii,

I had been thinking of such a setup a while back since I purchase one for Mamiya to e-mount (not compatible with A7R) from Fotodiox. I had been thinking of improving something like this - in your case, you take 40 shots to get a 5x7 - what if you are able to place two A7R, one at position #1, and the other at #21, then you only need you gig 20 times cutting the time in half. That's one of the reason that I had been eyeing on something like in the form of Sony QX1, which is very small compared to a regular camera. Unfortunately QX1 does not have manual mode so it isn't suitable for this application. But imaging Sony has a full-frame camera in Sony QX1 form, it would work perfectly, and you might be able to put 4 of those with cameras at positions #1, #3, #21, #23 at a time - taking only 12 shots for get a 5x7. In any case, hope to see more of this from you two. And, please also feel free to PM me with this.

This isn't the answer you're probably hoping to hear, but based on my experience with the trio of Sony RX1 cameras I have, I'm not optimistic about this approach working very well.

Because I am skeptical that you can find three camera bodies and lenses that perform similarly enough that their files can be combined seamlessly.

For instance, I can readily see differences between the files captured by my three RX1s. Not only in terms of sharpness and resolution, but also with color and exposure, which varies very slightly, but noticeably between them.

I do find different cameras have differences between the files captured. But I generally don't have a lot of problem using Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE), IF I remember to use the same aperture, ISO and shutter speed in Manual mode.  I know for sure that I keep forgetting to do it. Maybe I have only been lucky as I haven't tried enough. Or, maybe my two A6000 happened to be within the tolerance of what ICE is able to fix.

There are also potentially a few other issues that come to mind, but this is the foremost concern I have with your propose project.

But who knows? For your purposes, perhaps the files don't need to be identical in every respect and this approach will work very well for you. So perhaps give it a shot and see how well you like the results?

If one day I am determined enough to try out, I will definitely come back and report. Thanks for your feedback on this.