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Digital medium format in 2024 – it's not dead!

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ThdeDude

Well-known member
To me, a view camera or technical camera is an indispensible aid to seeing/visualizing the photograph.
??? How does a view camera or technical camera, as compared to any other camera, help you to see/visualize?

If I need help with seeing/visualizing I use the Viewfinder App on my iPhone. In the pre-smartphone era, I used a physical viewing/framing mask. I personally see no advantage of setting up view camera or technical camera for seeing/visualizing.
 
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scho

Well-known member
Anyone still using a LF scanning back? eg. BetterLight I understand that they have limited application, but was the technology never advanced?
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
??? How does a view camera or technical camera, as compared to any other camera, help you to see/visualize?

If I need help with seeing/visualizing I use the Viewfinder App on my iPhone. In the pre-smartphone era, I used a physical viewing/framing mask. I personally see no advantage of setting up view camera or technical camera for seeing/visualizing.
I don't really mean to say that the main reason to use a view camera/tech camera is as a viewing/framing device.

But it certainly is a large advantage, and here is why (IME).

If you use an iPhon app, or a physical viewing or framing mask, yes, you may be viewing the rough coverage of the image that you capture. But you will not be viewing the image through the camera/lens that you will be capturing with. And so it will not necessarily be exact. But also, you won't see the actual image that you capture at the time you are capturing it. And unless your image is straight dead ahead of you, you have no way of adjusting for that in real time (or really at all, if you don't have an X/Y shifting camera), viewing that in real time, and capturing what you are viewing in real time. Being able to not just shift to adjust for bottom/top/left/right framing, but also to view this adjustment and result in real time and then capture it, is a very large advantage for view/tech cameras over anything else.

This doesn't negate the worth of other means for visualizing or framing, but to me, this is clearly an advantage in favor of the view/tech camera.


Steve Hendrix/CI
 

John Black

Active member
Hi Steve - I'm not asking this question to poke holes in what you wrote, it's just genuine curiosity - wouldn't you get the same benefit from something like a GFX II with the their new tilt-shift lenses?
 

Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
Its personal preference and the cost of the last % on the high end for very specific features ... it is a moot point to ask whether one cannot good results with a Fuji camera. Of course in the end subject matter and the photographer outweigh the technical aspects of photography.

If it is one's hunch to do similarly well with a Fuji kit, it is better to sell-off all Rodie / tech cam gear if you feel this way.

It’s just that I think the thought of depreciation is primarily a problem for business owners trying to justify a tech cam and which factor in how much they will get back in 3y. Rodie glass through the bench can be had at a slight discount to new, but prices are stable at a high point given low supply, so the fear here is overblown. If you buy a Fuji today, you will ofc lose nominally a lot less in 3y once you go for the MK3.

My point is just that tech cams have long lost their pure business justification for most and I am totally fine with that and aware of this and for those who cannot afford it it is totally ok do get a Fuji and be happy and move on and make pictures.

The handling a tech cam is a lot more to me – its fun and a nice object and makes you compose more intentionally – and then there's the fringe cases you pay for, e.g. large stitching on a 150 megapixel sensor, etc. An IQ4 with a 60 XL can do 320 megapixel shots easily.

There's then many more aspects: special form factors – Alpa TC / Pano – ability to shoot film on most tech cam systems, etc.

To each their own and given the alternatives and people being priced out, the market has been steadily shrinking, especially since P1 hasn't put down its technology foot again over the last years.

Makes 0 sense for me to compare Fuji and a tech cam – by the measure of speed and basic production needs for more commercially oriented photographers it seems to be a more sensible choice, especially if you are cash sensitive.

Fuji cameras don't excite me at all – it starts with the haptics and feel of the lenses in hand.
 
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4x5Australian

Well-known member
Hi Steve - I'm not asking this question to poke holes in what you wrote, it's just genuine curiosity - wouldn't you get the same benefit from something like a GFX II with the their new tilt-shift lenses?
Hi John,
A new thread was started to discuss that comment by @Steve Hendrix. I invite you to ask your question on that thread, which is here:


I'll have a go at answering your question there, too.

Rod
 
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Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
I think the very broad "What does a view camera bring to the table" discussion if an important question to elaborate, but the reality is that view cameras:

a) Need to be tested in person to truly be appreciated
b) Cost substantially more if you want new lenses, backs and bodies

Which leads to this cocktail where those who appreciate them are ageing away with new potential users being detracted due to b) which lowers interest in trying to go for a) with a dealer. Add to this new Fuji et al and one can see why all tech cam manufacturers are in a crisis in terms of sales.

In fact, except if you go second hand, there's no "cheap way" into MFD tech cams; the most sensible short of going for an ancient back is to go for:

1) Used body 2-5k depending on the brand / model
2) Cheap "second class" tech cam lenses, e.g. 35 XL, 47 XL, sironar digital 55, 45, etc. for 1-2k
3) Ancient back 7-10y old for 3-5k

This puts you in 10k territory to start with ancient used equipment and is below the cost of a new XT tilt lens (other than 70 HR).

Even if you try it and you realize the advantages tech cams are not easy to stomach for the average photographer, ie one can see that it is a better photographic tool, but often it will be a secondary product besides an AF camera and then it becomes tricky for new users short of going with ancinet equipment.

More modern would be:

+ 8k IQ3 100
+ 5k Rodie 40 HR
+ 4k Used RM3DI

That's 17k, let's say with luck 15k. 20k for a two lens kit.

Ideal for hobbyists who are enjoying retirement and have no kids to raise, mortgages to pay and careers to start, I suppose.
 

jduncan

Active member
View attachment 209152

About sensor development – the likelihood of new tech trickling down from B2B, defense, is not to be discounted. Look at the specific camera used for the Sphere in Las Vegas. Funded by a billionaire, the economics of the sphere do make sense.

This is a huge sensor:

View attachment 209153

Would be nice to see a 3x3 inch sensor with 300 megapixels strapped onto 4x5 cameras. The sensor is produced in batches of 12:

View attachment 209158

Another application for higher res, larger sensors could be next generation of virtual reality and reality capture.

I am thinking of Holodeck type stuff, yes.

As CPU and GPUs become more powerful and data throughpout increases, we might approach a new (intoxicating) level of immersion with ultra high resolution VR headsets based on high res immersive video captured by such large sensors which could drive demand.

The Sphere in Las Vegas already does this on a large scale whereby visitors are transported into different world by being positioned in a huge video sphere which displays video content captured by the 300 megapixel big sky camera. This is real right now and on a smaller scale such venues could proliferate down the line; think about meeting rooms where you can in real time be transported into a different part of the world in a highly immersive video feed captured by a large sensor like big sky’s.

Think the sphere video feed in a future version of Apple's upcoming Reality Pro Headset which is bound to be released in a few weeks. It has 23 megapixels live video capability processed in real-time by a high performance small nanometer custom chip.

Its just that photographers won't drive the evolution, but they could benefit from demand via other areas and being a second line use case. Ie if demand for next gen sensors creates ultra high dynamic range breakthroughs surpassing negative film we might just have a company like Phase One strap it into a box costing 60k selling it to enthusiasts for photographic purposes. Arri already achieved and commercialized color neg DR equivalence; the tech just needs to be shrunk now.

Think also of night vision and military or robotic vision – they need all the sensitivity and DR they can get to interpret the world in real time. A robot in a war zone will greatly benefit having two 200 megapixel high dynamic range "eyes" to identify threats and interpret the surroundings. Once developed, I see no reason why a company like P1 wouldn't just use that for plain old photography.

Its just that we've hit an in-between performance plateau, accompanied by some economic problems like inflation driven by covid, wars, but the journey might continue before you know it! I am sure if you go back in history through camera companie's camera releases you will find phases of a few years with no new products and then all of a sudden a rush of next-gen.

There are just too many exciting applications for high res high DR sensods in other fields that it is unrealistic to me that we won’t see at one point a next digital back.

I just hope at this stage we won't see an escalation Taiwan in the short-term as this would elongate the timeline again for economic recovery and new high end consumer camera spending.

This said, Rodie HR lenses still have resolution reserves and diffraction effects can be mitigated by image processing pipeline. So all good!

2024: new XT lenses and XT XL
2025 and beyond – let's hope for new sensor tech and lack of global economic shocks
Thanks for sharing that sensor is amazing.
Best regards,
 

jduncan

Active member
There is no doubt that larger sensor are technically possible, and have been done even in the past (I believe I remember a photographer who has ordered a bespoken large format sensor, priced like a house, 12 megapixel monochrome). But the costs are too high for "normal" photographers, and, as part of my above argumentation, prices will not come down with the present-days lithography, since they are governed (exponentially) by the sensor area.

http://largesense.com/ has been anouncing them forever. http://largesense.com/index.php/products/ls911-mark-2 USD 90000 "expected", for the monochrome version. "Expected" it has been for years.

So I maintain that new manufacturing approaches might be needed, like this one:https://global.canon/en/news/2023/2...5BQkOvk5gJTqAgLR7tGkIwFz_lobBPDME4XqB9llzia3c
Hi,
The problem with the past is that as technology advances it becomes more and more capital intensive. Recently ASML sent a new EUV lithography scanner to Intel, not only does it cost, more than 300 million dollars but it is big and takes days or more to install and calibrate (https://www.anandtech.com/show/21194/asml-ships-first-high-na-euv-scanner-to-intel)

Because of that, consolidation is extreme in the microelectronics market.

Camera sensors are not manufactured with the most recent technology but they are using nice nodes today. In the olden days even companies as small as Leaf were able to innovate and explore non-standard formats like 56 x 36mm a sensor as wide as a 645 film but with an "interesting" aspect ratio.

Phase One does not have the sales, but they have the cloud, maybe they can convince Sony to invest if they show a big sensor mirrorless camera with nice AF and a reasonable price.

Hasselblad and Fuji can band together and go to Samsung or someone else if Sony decides to drop MF sensors because they get a challenger in the important Phone market or something.

Another option is to use mathematics and combine smaller sensors.

Let's see what the future brings.

Best Regards.
 
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Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
On the brink of a new exciting year for Phase gear – who's looking forward to the 70 / 90 tilt, XT XL and 150?

Good we get some action from Denmark as it means the IQ4 will not be the last back, almost certainly!
 

Pieter 12

Well-known member
Not an expert, not even a dilettante. But why couldn't a large sensor be simulated by an array of smaller sensors, with software stitching the images together? A couple of challenges I would imagine to be dealing with the inevitable physical seams between the sensors (two exposures, with the sensors physically moving a tiny distance?) and matching the color of the individual sensors of such an array.
 

buildbot

Well-known member
Not an expert, not even a dilettante. But why couldn't a large sensor be simulated by an array of smaller sensors, with software stitching the images together? A couple of challenges I would imagine to be dealing with the inevitable physical seams between the sensors (two exposures, with the sensors physically moving a tiny distance?) and matching the color of the individual sensors of such an array.
Yes you can do this! A lot of big telescopes use tiled sensor arrays. For example, here is the kepler ccd array:

More examples here: https://www.teledyne-e2v.com/en-us/news/Pages/50th-anniversary-of-the-ccd.aspx

The issue is the gaps - for astronomical purposes, I imagine they are taking hundreds if not thousands of shots to stack anyway and can overlap and align later as needed. For something like portrait photography though, I think you’d either need to rely on AI/classic mathematical algorithms to infill, or have a sensor that has nearly 0 gap between the edge of the die and the pixel area.

Dealing with the tiling is “easy” - we already have to! The big CCD and cmos sensors are larger than the reticle size of most (all?) silicon manufacturing process, so in order to make a bigger chip, they expose 4-6 different times, stepping over to a new silicon area each time. That’s why you get centerfold/tiling issues on certain lenses or with a bad or out of date calibration. You need a “white flat” to correct the gain between the tiles.
 

Ray Harrison

Well-known member
No one looking forward to the new XT XL?
I really like my Cambo WRS-1600 and my x-shutter rodie lenses with t/s. While I need to use a cable, I get all metadata except the movement info, I get tilt and swing both, more shift latitude than the current XT, I can rotate the camera and so on. I have my eye on that 138 float / x-shutter over and above an XT XL unless it has an unbelievably amazing feature set. What do you think will be the must-have features of that body?
 

Pieter 12

Well-known member
Yes you can do this! A lot of big telescopes use tiled sensor arrays. For example, here is the kepler ccd array:

More examples here: https://www.teledyne-e2v.com/en-us/news/Pages/50th-anniversary-of-the-ccd.aspx

The issue is the gaps - for astronomical purposes, I imagine they are taking hundreds if not thousands of shots to stack anyway and can overlap and align later as needed. For something like portrait photography though, I think you’d either need to rely on AI/classic mathematical algorithms to infill, or have a sensor that has nearly 0 gap between the edge of the die and the pixel area.

Dealing with the tiling is “easy” - we already have to! The big CCD and cmos sensors are larger than the reticle size of most (all?) silicon manufacturing process, so in order to make a bigger chip, they expose 4-6 different times, stepping over to a new silicon area each time. That’s why you get centerfold/tiling issues on certain lenses or with a bad or out of date calibration. You need a “white flat” to correct the gain between the tiles.
I was under the impression the difficulty in making big sensors was the challenge to produce them without defective pixels--the larger the sensor, the more chance there will be to have defects. Having tiled sensors would seem like an ideal way to overcome that issue--4 FF sensors in an array would more than cover the 645 format, true 6x6 shouldn't be that much more difficult. It would take 15 FF sensors to cover 4x5, probably a lot more trouble and expense. Speaking of expense, a true MF digital camera or back would probably cost 4x as much as a FF camera...
 

Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
I think its gonna be 18mm as there's most likely a differentiation agreement in place.

If that's the case I am not sure I am in. The rise needs ro be 25-30, sides 20, ideally 22.5 ...

Happy New Year
 

Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
I really like my Cambo WRS-1600 and my x-shutter rodie lenses with t/s. While I need to use a cable, I get all metadata except the movement info, I get tilt and swing both, more shift latitude than the current XT, I can rotate the camera and so on. I have my eye on that 138 float / x-shutter over and above an XT XL unless it has an unbelievably amazing feature set. What do you think will be the must-have features of that body?
Asymmetric shift ways (high low different than left right and high 25 at least)

It would be great if it had a rotating BACK ADAPTER and NOT a rotating BODY as in the XT. That way the XT lenses can also be used for swing.

The reason to do 18mm left right would be that it is the perfect max stitch on the short side of the sensor leaving 2mm overlap. 20mm is ideal if the sensor is in landscape made, ie more the ultrawide case.
 
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