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There are those who claim that the 12 and 16MP DSLRs are a match for
medium format. I was surprised at how well an image from a friend's D70
uprezzed. But when it gets down to the impact of a print, at 24"x30",
I'm still sticking with scanned 6x7 slides. For prints that size has
anyone switched? If so, which DSLR?
Thanks!
-chasfs
http://chasfs.com

"chasfs" <> wrote:

> There are those who claim that the 12 and 16MP DSLRs are a match for
> medium format. I was surprised at how well an image from a friend's D70
> uprezzed. But when it gets down to the impact of a print, at 24"x30",
> I'm still sticking with scanned 6x7 slides. For prints that size has
> anyone switched? If so, which DSLR?

The best dSLR (the Canon 1Ds mk2) produces 4992 x 3328 pixel images. At
24x30", that's about 140 pixels per inch. If you or your friend have an A4
photo quality inkjet, crop out a 1120 x 1400 pixel section of a D70 image
and print that at 8x10.

Now note that 24x30 from 6x7 is an 11x enlargement. Get a good 11x14 print
from a good _35mm_ slide made, since that'll be roughly the same print
quality as 6x7 at 24x30. I think you'll like the film print better than the
digital print.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

In article < .com>,
chasfs says...
> There are those who claim that the 12 and 16MP DSLRs are a match for
> medium format. I was surprised at how well an image from a friend's D70
> uprezzed. But when it gets down to the impact of a print, at 24"x30",
> I'm still sticking with scanned 6x7 slides. For prints that size has
> anyone switched? If so, which DSLR?

You can use a panorama software and for instance stitch together four
8MP images (arranged as 2x2), which will give you an image in the size
of 20-30MP, depending on perspective and overlap between images. Such an
image should easily outperform a MF image. Lots of work to create a
really seamless panorama though.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus 4040, 5050, 5060, 7070, 8080, E300 forum at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
Olympus E300 resource - http://myolympus.org/E300/

In article <>,
Alfred Molon <> wrote:
>
>You can use a panorama software and for instance stitch together four
>8MP images (arranged as 2x2), which will give you an image in the size
>of 20-30MP, depending on perspective and overlap between images. Such an
>image should easily outperform a MF image.

Depends what you're using it for. A 20-30 MP image won't contain the sort of
crtical fine detail that you can get from a slide taken on a good 6*7
camera, such as the Mamiya 7. For a lot of subjects this won't matter (and
once you get to this level, there is enough detail to sharply fill your
normal visual field, so it only really matters for grain-sniffing anyway),
but for some subects, a MF print from a slide will still have a certain
sharpness when you stick your nose up against it that the 20-30MP digital
image will lack.

>Lots of work to create a really seamless panorama though.

You sound like a man who hasn't tried Hugin.

> chasfs writes ...
>
>There are those who claim that the 12 and 16MP DSLRs are a match
>for medium format.

Some say that about the 16 Mpix Canon 1Ds MII, fewer say it about the
12 Mpix Nikon D2x because the sensor is so much smaller. Then again,
many don't think the 16 Mpix Canon is a quite match for MF either.

>when it gets down to the impact of a print, at 24"x30",
>I'm still sticking with scanned 6x7 slides.

I like to stop at 20x24" with 6x7 myself but I see your point. I have
an 11 Mpixel dSLR body and don't think prints from it are superior to
645 scans, fwiw.

>For prints that size has
>anyone switched? If so, which DSLR?

Those using 22 megapixel digital backs for medium format seem to feel
the print quality is superior to scanned mf film. Phase One just
announced 31 and 39 Mpixel backs for mf and it's quite likely those
would be superior to mf film.

As for the Canon 16 Mpixel body, here's an interesting comparison of it
to 4x5" scanned film (Canon lost but not by as much as you might
think).
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/1Ds-4x5.shtml

Canon will likely bring out a 22 Mpixel full frame version either next
February or a year from Sept (if they keep to their 18 - 24 month
design cycles) and that one might be a good match for scanned 6x7. In
the meantime I've replaced 35 mm film with 8 and 11 Mpixel dSLR bodies
but still use my medium format systems for landscape, though I must say
scanning MF film seems so backwards compared to processing RAW files
that I'll be glad when I can get similar quality from digital and sell
off the film bodies.

Bill

"Bill Hilton" <> wrote:
>
>>when it gets down to the impact of a print, at 24"x30",
>>I'm still sticking with scanned 6x7 slides.
>
> I like to stop at 20x24" with 6x7 myself but I see your point. I have
> an 11 Mpixel dSLR body and don't think prints from it are superior to
> 645 scans, fwiw.

Exactly. You only have to scan 645 at 2000 ppi to get 13MP, and while 4000
ppi scans are pretty funky, one can get a very nice 2000 ppi from film.

> As for the Canon 16 Mpixel body, here's an interesting comparison of it
> to 4x5" scanned film (Canon lost but not by as much as you might
> think).
> http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/1Ds-4x5.shtml

Look again at what he's seeing at 30x40. That's a _big_ difference.

> Canon will likely bring out a 22 Mpixel full frame version either next
> February or a year from Sept (if they keep to their 18 - 24 month
> design cycles) and that one might be a good match for scanned 6x7.

Really? I actually doubt it. At least for wide angle work at, say 24 x 30.
An enlargement from a Mamiya 7 would be an 11x enlargement, but from the
24x36 sensor, it's going to be 24x. There's no way a retrofocus lens at 24x
can compete with a Biogon clone at 11x.

> In
> the meantime I've replaced 35 mm film with 8 and 11 Mpixel dSLR bodies
> but still use my medium format systems for landscape, though I must say
> scanning MF film seems so backwards compared to processing RAW files
> that I'll be glad when I can get similar quality from digital and sell
> off the film bodies.

I'm still knocked out at what an enormous amount of detail a 4000 ppi scan
of 6x7 (Mamiya 65/4.0) has. I suspect that 16.7 MP will knock out 645/6x6
even for landscape work, but not 6x7.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

> David J. Littleboy writes ...
>
>The best dSLR (the Canon 1Ds mk2) produces 4992 x 3328 pixel images.
>At 24x30", that's about 140 pixels per inch.

No one who knows what they are doing would actually print it at 140 ppi
though, they'd upsample to a more printer-friendly number. I usually
upsample to 360 ppi for my Epson 4000 prints for example, and these
look much better than prints sent at lower ppi values. One of the
advantages of digital files over film scans is how smooth they are and
how well they upsample.

>If you or your friend have an A4 photo quality inkjet, crop out a
>1120 x 1400 pixel section of a D70 image and print that at 8x10.

This won't tell you much because the D70 sensor is different than the
1Ds M II sensor, because the Canon processing software is different
than the Nikon software, and because the file should be upsized before
printed.

Bill

"Bill Hilton" <> wrote in message
news: ups.com...
>> David J. Littleboy writes ...
>>
>>The best dSLR (the Canon 1Ds mk2) produces 4992 x 3328 pixel
>> images. At 24x30", that's about 140 pixels per inch.
>
> No one who knows what they are doing would actually print it at
> 140 ppi though, they'd upsample to a more printer-friendly number.
> I usually upsample to 360 ppi for my Epson 4000 prints for
> example, and these look much better than prints sent at lower ppi
> values.

Indeed, that is why upsized images from programs like Qimage look so
good. Qimage even uses the optimal/native ppi for most Epsons of 720
ppi (600 ppi for Canon), resampling the original file on-the-fly (!)
to 17280 x 21600 pixels for a 24x30" output with re-sharpening for the
actual magnification losses.
It uses an advanced proprietary ("pyramid") interpolation method to
achieve natural looking (not pixelized, no artificial edges)
magnification. Qimage's differences with e.g. Photoshop become even
larger with larger output size, and again it is not necessary to
pre-produce large print files for each output size because the print
spool-file is produced and sharpened on-the-fly. It really boosts
productivity and quality.

Bart

"Bill Hilton" <> wrote:
>> David J. Littleboy writes ...
>>
>>The best dSLR (the Canon 1Ds mk2) produces 4992 x 3328 pixel images.
>>At 24x30", that's about 140 pixels per inch.
>
> No one who knows what they are doing would actually print it at 140 ppi
> though, they'd upsample to a more printer-friendly number.

Upsampling does not change the information content of the image, it only
eliminates unnecessary artifacts.

Since I print with Qimage, I keep forgetting how easy it is to do the wrong
thing.

> I usually
> upsample to 360 ppi for my Epson 4000 prints for example, and these
> look much better than prints sent at lower ppi values. One of the
> advantages of digital files over film scans is how smooth they are and
> how well they upsample.

Again, that doesn't increase detail. Get your nose closer than 18" or so to
a 200 dpi print (however upsampled), and you'll see it's not photographic
quality.

>>If you or your friend have an A4 photo quality inkjet, crop out a
>>1120 x 1400 pixel section of a D70 image and print that at 8x10.
>
> This won't tell you much because the D70 sensor is different than the
> 1Ds M II sensor, because the Canon processing software is different
> than the Nikon software, and because the file should be upsized before
> printed.

It'll get you in the ballpark. The dSLR images are really quite close in
terms of the amount of detail per MP.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

David J. Littleboy wrote:

>>As for the Canon 16 Mpixel body, here's an interesting comparison of it
>>to 4x5" scanned film (Canon lost but not by as much as you might
>>think).
>>http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/1Ds-4x5.shtml
>
>
> Look again at what he's seeing at 30x40. That's a _big_ difference.
I wonder how much of that should be attributed to that maybe not so great
Canon lens: were do these red rims come from: chromatic aberration combined
with too much sharpening?
>
>
>>Canon will likely bring out a 22 Mpixel full frame version either next
>>February or a year from Sept (if they keep to their 18 - 24 month
>>design cycles) and that one might be a good match for scanned 6x7.
>
>
> Really? I actually doubt it. At least for wide angle work at, say 24 x 30.
> An enlargement from a Mamiya 7 would be an 11x enlargement, but from the
> 24x36 sensor, it's going to be 24x. There's no way a retrofocus lens at 24x
> can compete with a Biogon clone at 11x.
This crop was about 12mm from the center with a retrofocus *zoom* lens at its
short extreme range, might be asking too much.

-- Hans