Pacific coast trip

[compilerbitch]

Yesterday, I took a road trip up Highway 1 between San Luis Obispo and Monterey. The original plan was that I'd be shooting there again today, but my motel booking got screwed up so I ended up driving home last night instead. I have therefore been diligently playing Gun on my X-box 360 (pretty good actually, but not the main reason for the post!)

My reason for the trip was that I wanted to do an initial shakedown of my new Megavision E-series monochrome back. I'll write more about it soon, but suffice it to say, so far so good, and the results are pretty spectactular, I have to say. Ken Boydston (the person who designed the back) spent several hours setting it up for my Bronica, which included fiddling around with shims to get the focus exactly dead on, and at one point actually milling some excess metal from part of the back because it was (probably harmlessly) fouling the bottom of my AE-II metering prism (the back was designed based on the measurements of the newer AE-III version). He and Richard Chang tested all of my lenses, and all but the rather beaten up 75mm standard lens I got with the body were declared very good, and the 55mm shift-tilt lens was described as extremely good. It was suggested that I might like to swap out my 75 for a newer example -- it works, but Ken reckoned that there was something 'just not right' about it. I will hit eBay and pick one up (they are very common and rather cheap, thankfully). All of the lenses (even the dodgy 75) managed to resolve to the limit of the sensor at a working aperture of f/8 to f/11, and actually weren't much softer wide open, which was something of a surprise. 

The photos here were all taken with the Megavision back, and have just been adjusted a bit in curves. I did use some unsharp mask, but very little is needed -- other than a couple of cases where my focus was off or I managed to move the camera, everything was pin sharp at 100%.




40mm, f/11, 1/60th sec, deep orange filter





55mm shift/tilt lens, 1/500th sec, f/11. The print gives the impression that you can see every grain of sand, every stick and every pebble on the beach.




Same beach as above, same lens and camera settings.




75mm, f/11, 1/30th sec, deep red filter



75mm, f/11, 1/60th, deep red filter




75mm, f/11, 1/250th, deep red filter





I think this was taken with the 75, can't remember.




Also can't remember what I used here -- it looks like a 75.


This was the shift/tilt lens, can't remember the settings, but probably f/16 and about a 250th.



Shift/tilt lens, f/16, 500th. Rather extreme down/left shift and a bit of tilt -- this made everything pin sharp but caused slight vignetting at the top of the frame.

Comments

[pinguhateseng.livejournal.com]

Wow :-D Those are dead sharp and lovely, what more can I say?

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

If you zoom in to the originals, after a small amount of unsharp mask, they are just as sharp at the 1:1 pixel level too. I can honestly say that the combination of this back and the Bronica/Schneider lenses give the viscerally sharpest results I've ever seen. The 4x5/Better Light probably still has a bit of an edge due to the sheer 8000x6000 resolution advantage, but 4096x4096 isn't exactly crap either, and it's a bit sharper at the pixel level. Looking at prints from both systems (which is the only way to do it really), the Megavision results actually look sharper.

To get the same resolution (for a monochrome conversion) from a colour sensor would need *at least* a 48 megapixel sensor, probably more due to interpolation losses, and much more if an antialiasing filter is used. This currently is well beyond the state of the art, so I suspect that the Megavision is probably about the limit of what can currently be achieved for single-shot monochrome photography. The results look eyepokingly sharp, to the extent that in some cases I might actually consider *softening* the image a little. The results are way better than I might have hoped for. *bounce!*

[new-brunette.livejournal.com]

These are wonderful. You don't seem to be having much of a problem with flare - can just about see some in #6. But you do appear to have some sensor dirt in the top-right corner of each frame, which is annoying because everything else has the texture of pumice. In a good way!

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, the sensor dirt probably happened during all the faffing around with shims. I'll sort it out next time I use the camera. One good thing about this approach is that sensor cleaning is extremely easy -- you just push one button on the body and the back comes off, and the sensor is right there. Of course, there is no shutter in the way because there is a shutter in each lens. It looks like the dirt is most likely on the UV high pass filter, so it should be trivial to sort out. Even if it is behind it, the filter comes out with four screws -- I have a plain glass replacement for it for IR photography purposes (I asked about IR, and they made me an extra filter plate with plain glass in it), but I've not yet had chance to try it. Megavision are a bit different to the majority of back manufacturers, it seems. It's probably because most of their business is in the special purpose end of the market -- industrial and medical imaging, aerial photography, etc., so nearly everything they sell ends up customised in some way. The way the back looks tends to bear that out -- it looks more like a piece of military/aerospace kit than photographic gear, though that's understandable in the sense that as the backs are essentially hand built, that tends to lend itself to milled metal rather than plastic. Not quite as pretty, but way more solid, of course.

There is a little bit of flare in a couple of the frames that I didn't spot at the time. Most of these lenses aren't really too bad as far as flare goes -- they are all primes, which helps. I used hoods most of the time, and shielded the lens either with my hand or by holding up a magazine just out of shot so it cast a shadow on the lens. The couple that got away I think were probably because at one point I was using a Cokin filter holder with a deep red filter and a couple of modular shades clipped to it -- this works well, but there are two positions you can clip the shade to the holder, and I used the front one which left a small gap. I realised this later, so the shots done with a deep orange filter didn't have this problem.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

The pictures are great.

Your ease of cleaning is something that I'd love to have. I've not been keen on giving mine a proper clean, sinceI can't make contact with it in the way I'm used to when it comes to cleaning optics, so prefer not to take the physical contact risk.

The resolution must look amazing. I've been wondering if DSLR manufacturers might release a high end mono camera for that resolution reason (With increased sensitivity as a bonus extra!) but obviously no-one has thus far. The closest we've has is the astrophysics version of the Canon 20D, with the IR filter removed.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Kodak briefly sold a mono version of one of their DCS Pro backs, but that's it. I don't know -- I think the Japanese manufacturers are looking toward such huge volumes that anything odd is not likely to happen. Mind you, with niche cameras like the GR Digital and that rangefinder thingy that had a Leica screw lens mount, I suppose anything is possible. I could potentially believe someone like Leica might do it, but from what I've heard, a lot of the big names in high end film basically bankrupted themselves trying to go digital. Hasselblad is the crying shame, of course -- the H series cameras and lenses are all really just rebadged Fujis -- the only thing Hasselblad about them is the name badge and the fact that Hasselblad paid for half the development costs. I'm not at all sad about the Leica/Panasonic tie up, however -- I have ended up swapping out the one I had for the new DMC-FX07 Leica/Panasonic. It's 7 megapixel, tiny (slightly wider than credit card size front-on, and about 2cm thick (the lens folds flat to the surface of the body), and it actually says Leica on it as well as Panasonic. I've not made any prints from it yet, but I would expect the results to be on a par with the one I had previously (which is to say that US Letter size prints look totally fine). I'm actually planning on going shooting tomorrow with the large format gear (Bat is here, and requested large format out of curiosity, since she's never seen a large format camera before), so I'll probably take the tiny little Lumix as a quick and dirty way of checking out shots without needing to set up the big camera.

I suppose I might as well take my chances when they happen -- I suspect that she'll get pretty irritated with the large format experience, so I'll be restricted to medium format for the remainder of her visit! :-)

[davefish.livejournal.com]

In that case I may have mild doseybat envy today.

Hasselblad don't really have the development process for shifting to digital. Their philosophy was one of slow considered engineering, and it wasn't so suited to the high development speed of the digital changeover.

Also, they didn't have any compact market that would let engineers get used to working in digital, whereas the Canons etc. have the volume of the compact market, to migrate IP into adn get more cash out of it.

Actually, completely sidelining, there is currently a big shortage of Canon EOS lenses, as people playing with digital compacts are starting to upgrade to the bottom end DSLR's, and gather up lenses. Canon jsut can't keep up.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Wow, the focus and contrast in these is amazing. Wonderful shots.

I just noticed you friended me and I'm wondering if we have met. We have quite a few of mutual friends so it's not that unlikely but I'm really bad with names and faces...
Your photography is intriguing so I'm going to add you back because I don't want to miss it. :o)

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

I had been meaning to friend you for ages, mostly because I keep seeing your posts on other LJs and because of the photography interest. We *may* have met, probably at the Calling or something, but I also have to admit I don't remember either! :-)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Well, as long as you can live with my mindless drivel aside from the photography related posts, you're welcome! ;o)
For the photography posts, constructive criticism is always welcome. I'm still very much at the beginning...

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Your drivel is perfectly OK, don't worry. :-)

Actually, I'm feeling like a beginner again myself -- I *thought* I had the photography thing pretty much down, but learning to cope with the incredibly critical finickyness of my new cameras is being quite difficult.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Heh, I wouldn't even dare start on fully manual medium formats, although the concept is intriguing...