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The decline and fall of Reflex.

LTig

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But it has no indexical relationship to the subject being photographed, so what it adds may look real but it’s fake.
... which is not much different from using a sensor without an AA filter ... ;)
 

audio2design

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But it has no indexical relationship to the subject being photographed, so what it adds may look real but it’s fake.

I know the difference between a model and actual data, and it would bug me, if I had the technique and equipment to avoid it.

Rick “willing to carry a camera that doesn’t need it” Denney

By extracting features and pulling them out of the noise, is it any less "real" ?
 

rdenney

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By extracting features and pulling them out of the noise, is it any less "real" ?
The features it is extracting are generated as much by the random patterns in the noise as much as by anything put there by the lens.

But in any case, I've never needed a noise-reduction algorithm for files from my Pentax, unless I use an ISO of 6400 or higher. At that point, I like the denoising filter in DxO Photolab software. I do not need the filter to add detail, because the scene's real detail is already present. Only rarely to I print large enough that the noise would even make it past the printer's pixels.

Aliasing is a different issue. I've only had one case where I could detect aliasing noise when using the Pentax. I was making a photo of a church bishop, and the decorative pattern of the weaving on his vestments produced mild moire. It was not obvious enough to be an issue, especially at the size I printed it, where the pinter pixels masked it. But I have certainly had to apply sharpening processes to images from my Canons, to overcome the softness induced by the AA filters, and those images are printed nearer to their potential enlargeability.

Rick "who scans film and knows all about aliasing interactions between grain and sensels--a whole other topic" Denney
 

JeffS7444

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It's my understanding that the MF digital market is very small. It could be that FF digital is good enough for the vast majority of advanced amateur and pro photographers. During the film era, MF was (more or less) the standard choice for portrait and wedding pro's.
In my darkroom days, I felt like I could get great results from 35 mm, but it was much easier with 6x4.5 and larger negatives! Even to this day I sometimes wonder if I'd enjoy having a 5x7 view camera and just making contact prints: That's what Edward Weston did, and it was an exhibition of such prints which really gave me a new appreciation of small prints viewed at close range.

But in the digital world I feel that distinctions aren't so obvious: I am able to get shallow depth of field and 80 megapixel raw files from a Micro 4/3ds camera using pixel-shift and a Olympus Zuiko Pro lens. Stitch multiple images together in post, and the effective imager size can be whatever I want it to be. Yes I have FF too, but I need to pick my system with care, because there are many high-performance boat anchors in the FF market, but I want to stick with something closer in spirit to a carbon fiber road bike, not a luxury SUV.

Am wondering if the "next big thing" isn't larger sensors or more pixels, but more emphasis on improved onboard computational imaging to compete with mobile devices. I figure there's much potential there for features like auto-HDR combined with large-sensor performance.
 

audio2design

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Am wondering if the "next big thing" isn't larger sensors or more pixels, but more emphasis on improved onboard computational imaging to compete with mobile devices. I figure there's much potential there for features like auto-HDR combined with large-sensor performance.

+1. Cameras are miles behind, and when you can do burst of 10+ FPS, it makes a lot of sense, not to mention they can electronic shutter pretty good.
 

rdenney

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You guys have at it. Just remember that any technology you can think of to make small sensors work as well as large sensors can also make large sensors work better.

By the way, I can get 90 megapixels from a film scan, too.

Rick "yes, a true 90 megapixels from 6x7 and larger" Denney
 

rdenney

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I don't know what the next big thing is, but improvements in dynamic range and low light sensitivity are always welcome.
Yes, indeed. The Sony sensor used in several of the medium-format cameras (Pentax, Leica, Fuji, Hasselblad) is still very near the state of the art in its ability to pull useful tonality and color out of inky black shadows.

That said, the most dynamic color photos of my life, as a viewer or as a photographer, were taken with Velvia, which may have 5 stops of dynamic range. Sometimes, it’s best to let those shadows stay inky black.

The various high-dynamic-range strategies, ranging from graduated filters of old to HDR tone assignment now to the hyperclarity filters in Instagram often call attention to themselves, and not in a good way.

But power tools are like that.

IMG_0129.JPG


Rick “sometimes it’s dark” Denney
 
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Ron Texas

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@rdenney I can remember how everyone raved over Velvia. I agree with you on the shadows. Especially in digital nobody wants to see blown highlights, but loss of shadow detail is acceptable
 

rdenney

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Digital is like transparencies in that regard--blow the highlights and there's nothing to work with. But shadows can be unforgiving, too. This Velvia photo (on 6x12 film in the view camera) was perhaps one-quarter stop underexposed.

japanesemapleinautumn2009.jpg


It’s in the shadowed bark that it loses shadow detail. I would have exposed digital the same way, but would have more texture in that bark.

Rick “still thinks in terms of the Zone System” Denney
 
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Ron Texas

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Maybe the question is do you care about how good the image looks or whether it was shot on the latest gear?
 

JeffS7444

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I think one of the joys of today's photography is that it's actually a multitude of possibilities where wet-plate imaging and digital technology need not be mutually exclusive. My photo's not so exotic: Shot on color negative film using a Canon Rebel G equipped with modern Canon 40/2.8 lens, scanned, slight chromatic aberration removed and a touch of perspective correction applied. Lately I've had a hankering for an old-fashioned "tropical" teak-and-brass plate camera, and stereo versions existed too: Wonder how Playstation VR will work as a viewer!
202106 Colorado Boulder Canon Rebel G-018-1.jpg
 

Blumlein 88

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I think one of the joys of today's photography is that it's actually a multitude of possibilities where wet-plate imaging and digital technology need not be mutually exclusive. My photo's not so exotic: Shot on color negative film using a Canon Rebel G equipped with modern Canon 40/2.8 lens, scanned, slight chromatic aberration removed and a touch of perspective correction applied. Lately I've had a hankering for an old-fashioned "tropical" teak-and-brass plate camera, and stereo versions existed too: Wonder how Playstation VR will work as a viewer!
View attachment 158858
Just looking at it I would have guessed a scanned film image. Something about the way colors look on film vs digital.
 

Blumlein 88

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Like not that much over processed?
No it's that digital cameras get white balance and color so accurately vs film. Over processing of film or digital is possible.
 

rdenney

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Film is like listening to LP's using a vacuum-tube amp. Each has its own tendencies, which may or may not favor the photographer's intentions.

Digital sensors are not necessarily more accurate, so they are not like transparent DACs. They are more like early discrete-component DACs fed into good solid-state amps, through a DSP system that may or may not do things consistently with the photographer's intentions.

The Pentax's color rendition is superb, but many favor the color rendition of its predecessor, which used a Kodak sensor. That's the one thing that has really improved. My Canon is ancient in digital terms, and I have to do more things to correct its color than the Pentax needs. But none of that is on the same planet of what I have done to calibrate color on my scanner, calibrate my monitors, and the workflow that I use to correct color on scanned film so as to retain the film's inherent characteristics.

It's really difficult to find a digital sensor that will emulate saturated, narrow-range film like Velvia, and doing so throws a lot of information into deep shadow and nobody wants to see detail go away. So, the temptation with digital is to make everything visible, because the data is there. But that does not necessarily serve the photographer's intentions. I feel the same way about audio systems and (mostly) recordings that focus so much on clarity that apparent detail becomes exaggerated.

Rick "decisions start with intentions" Denney
 

audio2design

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The Pentax's color rendition is superb, but many favor the color rendition of its predecessor, which used a Kodak sensor. That's the one thing that has really improved. My Canon is ancient in digital terms, and I have to do more things to correct its color than the Pentax needs. But none of that is on the same planet of what I have done to calibrate color on my scanner, calibrate my monitors, and the workflow that I use to correct color on scanned film so as to retain the film's inherent characteristics.

It's really difficult to find a digital sensor that will emulate saturated, narrow-range film like Velvia

"Most" of the color detail is in software, not in the sensor itself.

As pretty much every camera on the market (with rare exceptions) is a single flat sensor with a color mosaic on top, there are influences from the hardware on the color output, both in localized effects, and overall effects. Pretty much all color sensors now are RGB mosaic. There will be minor differences in the RGB filter characteristics and in demosaic algorithms which covert from the RGB pattern to RGB per pixel. In the "old" days, CCD based video cameras often had CMY sensor as opposed to RGB. It allowed more light in, hence better SNR.

I can't remember if the old Kodak sensor was full-frame? That would give it an advantage w.r.t. color moire. I remember they used to use a bit different Bayer pattern as well.

I have not tried the Velvia plug-ins that are available, but I think several are available: https://www.fredmiranda.com/VelviaVision/
 
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Ron Texas

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Color rendition is just one of those things. Maybe someone can work up a preference score. Adobe's default "Color" profile has quite a lot of pop to it.
 

audio2design

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I think photos should be a reminder to techno-audiophiles that "accurate" does not equal preferred all the time. Sometimes that is lost site of.
 
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