How To Get 39 Megapixels From a 53-Year-Old Camera 347
G3ckoG33k writes "An article at The Register Hardware describes how Hasselblad film cameras dating back to 1957 can be given a new life using a digital back to get images at a super resolution of 39 megapixels. From the article: 'The CFV-39 digital back allows you to get those cameras out from the last century and use the V-System cameras with their beautiful glass once again, it simply fits in place of where the roll film used to be. Hasselblads have never been inexpensive, but talk about a return on investment. Here is a manufacturer looking after a fiercely loyal user-base and along with it offering what could be seen as the ultimate green camera system.' Oh, by the way most pictures taken during the Apollo space program in the 1960s were taken with Hasselblad." Hasselblad's been making digital backs for quite a while now, but this one's very impressive in speed (and cost — "only" about $14,000) compared to earlier models.
Vinyl records and tube stereos too (Score:2)
Re:Vinyl records and tube stereos too (Score:5, Funny)
I've still got the Hasselblad I bought when I graduated college. It cost me $1000 and was all the money I had back then. With a kid in college now, there's no way I could ever afford a digital back for my camera. But the notion of being able to shoot in that beautiful square format and then upload the huge RAW file to Photoshop is a dream.
While I'm dreaming, I'd like to be able to afford a digital back for my 11x14 Deardorff, too.
(my wife says "Dream for 10 million dollars and a thicker cock, while you're at it". Thanks a lot, hon.)
Re:Vinyl records and tube stereos too (Score:4, Informative)
14k buys a lot of film. (Score:3, Interesting)
Why not just shoot a $4 roll of film, and scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner at a mere 2400DPI for a fat 30 megapixel image, plus you have an in-camera archival backup slide, which can later be drum-scanned at an even higher resolution if needed?
And you don't even need batteries.
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But much less than $14k.
In color? (Score:2)
How much are you gonna pay for processing?
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5 bucks for an 8x10 glossy that has pretty damned-good resolution.
Got several hanging on my fridge of my cat, taken with a Minolta X-700.
Re:In color? (Score:5, Funny)
Why would your cat have its own fridge, and why would you hang your photos there?
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Cat is diabetic, insulin stored there.
Re:In color? (Score:4, Funny)
He also keeps his last cat in there.
Re:In color? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're definitely not going to equal the quality with any 35mm or digital of similar frame size. It's just not going to happen, even with expert technique.
Re:In color? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not to mention that a scanned image will never achieve the same quality as a born-digital picture. Also, convenience. If you take hundreds of shots, and factor in the time spent in getting them processed, then scanned, you'll be loosing a lot (compare to just plug in your camera and there are your pictures).
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It costs a lot more than $3 to develop a roll of medium-format film.
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:5, Informative)
Back when I was a photo assistant a roll of medium format film (transparency) cost about $29, including the cost of getting it processed professionally, not down at the drugstore. So, being a bit lazy I'll figure $35 a roll now, which means that $14K can buy you about 400 rolls of film. To a pro photographer that is not a lot of film. The digital will pay for itself fairly quickly.
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That's a good point.
Another is that a craftsman does not begrudge good money spent on quality tools of their trade that will last for years/decades[1] with proper care.
It's considered a sound investment that pays back across the board.
[1] YMMV, depends on craft/trade
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Not to mention you don't have to wait for processing with digital. For a professional the time saved might add up to $14K on the first job.
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"Far more"? $20 buys me 5 rolls of Portra 160 NC/VC.
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Wow, you can still find film? I haven't exactly been looking, but I haven't seen any in years...
I don't think that film photography will ever go the way of the dinosaur. It will just be further relegated to the realm of art and to highly esoteric and technical uses.
I think that NASA aught to take a look in storage and see if they have any Hasselblads left over from their old space programs. I have a strong feeling that a $14k adapter for a 39MP camera would be a better investment than the money spent on the
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:4, Interesting)
For the total costs involved in qualifying the cameras, the actual camera costs aren't so very important.
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:4, Informative)
$4.09 for name-brand film that happens to be one of the highest resolution and finest-grain color negative films available.
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I use Fomapan 400 and it sells for $3.09US a roll.
http://www.freestylephoto.biz/420112-Foma-Fomapan-100-iso-120-size?cat_id=403 [freestylephoto.biz]
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:4, Insightful)
B&W is for Art.....color is for porn.
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:5, Interesting)
Black and white can definitely be artsy, but there's a lot of leeway you get that you don't get with color film. For instance in color you actually have to care about blowing highlights, you also have to care about what the color of the composition is conveying. A surprising number of otherwise great shots are ruined because you can't cram the lighting conditions into the range the camera can handle.
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like weddings, portraits and ads.
Sounds like porn to me. lol
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The same reason I don't back up DVDs by pointing a video camera at my TV screen.
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You seriously don't see the advantages of digital photography? You think it is just a "fad" and we will go back to using film?
Ok, assuming you are completely ignorant, I could try to seriously answer your questions.
First, a medium format film is not $4. Second, the inconvenience of switching rolls of film every dozens of pics is not comparable to switching batteries every hundreds of pics. Third there is no immediate way to view your shoots and every failed shot costs. Fourth, you need to process film, whic
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TFA implies that this miraculous invention 'allows' you to use these old cameras from "Last century". Like they stopped working when the CCD was invented. No
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you really, really think that somebody who owns a Hasselblad is going to drop $14k on it just because digital is the new hotness?
No.
They're going to do it if they have a job they can do with the digital back that can't be done with film.
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They will do it the first job that they can justify it.. If they are getting paid for the work, it is a deductible expense for the equipment. That can turn a $500 wedding into a $13,500 job when tax time comes around... (fuzzy math, I know... But the point IS valid.)
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It's as if actually loading a roll of film in a classic camera reduces your l33tness cred or something ...
Of course not, but with digital you don't have to bother hauling around film, and then processing it, and then scanning it.
That $14K you spend is probably peanuts compared to the salaries of talented professionals in the entire workflow of the project. If you can start sending files to post 30 minutes after a memory card or hard drive fills up and is swapped, instead of 2-3 days for processing and scanning, you can be recouping your investment quite quickly.
Generally speaking, materials and equipment is co
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:4, Insightful)
No. But I think it has definitely been overhyped. Over the lest several years many photographers have "gone back" to shooting film because they've found digital not living up to the hype. I know the photography world will never go back entirely to film - the mainstream market never will. But there has been a bit of a swing back to film in the professional and enthusiast market.
I clearly acknowledge there are advantages to digital. I can see that photographing events (sporting, news, etc) pretty much requires digital nowadays because of the need/expectation for fast turn-around. And the ability to check every shot is very important to other types of photography, particularly for weddings (you don't fuck up wedding photos).
But film is a tried-and-true medium which still has some advantages over digital. Film cameras can be very simple and are generally much more rugged than digital cameras. Many are all-mechanical designs that don't require any batteries, others only need a battery for the light meter. That's very useful when you're travelling, especially to remote locations. And film offers a huge amount of variability in appearance. Not only do you get to choose a type and emulsion, but in B&W you influence the result by your choice of developer and how you use it (e.g concentration, agitation, etc). You might be able to imitate many of these effects in Photoshop and the like (or maybe not), but it's not the same.
Yes, I admit I am a bit of a film bigot. But I'm not entirely unreasonable. Some digital cameras have started to interest me in the last few years.
Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL, you think those CDs are archival? You think magnetic hard drives aren't vulnerable to data loss/corruption? You think flash memory can't go bad?
Of course you can lose data on a computer. BUT, it's way easier to back up a computer file than it is a film negative. I can copy it to a second USB hard drive and leave it at a friend's house. I can upload photos to Mozy. I can rent a server somewhere and upload my data to that.
Way easier than arranging some way to copy all my film negatives, figuring out somewhere to store it in a proper environment, etc., and even then it wouldn't be lossless like backing up data is.
In the "which is easiest to prevent data loss" wars, digital wins hands down.
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Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:4, Interesting)
"In the "which is easiest to prevent data loss" wars, digital wins hands down."
Not when your camera is storing those shots as JPG. You've just introduced loss before you've even made your first copy.
And is that really a relevant point when discussing a medium format back for a really fucking expensive camera? I think it's a safe bet that everything done with these things is being originally stored in raw format as dumped from the sensor.
For archival, there is no beating digital. Analog copies will always have flaws where digital copies are theoretically perfect assuming nothing went wrong in the process. Even if something did go wrong, that can be verified and accounted for by copying the damaged portion again.
I have a home server and a rented server with ISP-hosted backup. If I take a photo that I find important, I can drop it in a folder on my laptop that is regularly rsynced to my home server. Within 15 minutes as long as I'm at home it's now stored on at least three hard drives (laptop + RAID1 in the server), plus possibly still the flash memory used in the camera. If I think it's really important (usually reserved for financial data and work), I can put in in a subfolder that my home server automatically rsyncs hourly with my remote rented server. Now it's on four hard drives and one flash device in four different machines and located in two different states entirely. Tonight the server will back up the "really important" directory to the ISP-provided space. Now it's on four hard drives, a flash drive, and a SAN.
While what I do is complicated, it is possible to use tools like Dropbox and Mozy among others to deliver the same functionality in a form more usable to the average person.
Thanks to digital, as long as I am responsible with where I store my files it is practically impossible for anything to be lost. If I had taken them on film, I would have exactly one "original" grade copy and that's it. If the negative is lost, it's gone and there's no getting it back.
Assuming sufficient capture quality, digital always beats analog.
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Good cameras can store the raw CCD data for later postprocessing.
Even with JPEG though the important thing is you only take the loss hit ONCE. After that you can keep copying it as many times as needed without taking any further loss.
With analog formats like film every time you copy the photo you lose more quality.
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You seriously think it is easier to back up film? That film will not degrade over time. It is much easier to maintain a backup of a digital photo for ever than permantly preserving a film negative.
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Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:5, Informative)
But to develop said roll of film, will cost you another $5 roughly, $4 if you're just getting processing which you want if you're scanning. [dwaynesphoto.com]
A decent medium format scanner (that will give you the quality of a digital back) runs you $2,200 + S&H [adorama.com] that's assuming you can even get them! Film scanners, aside from the cheap crap, are getting harder and harder to come by. Flatbed scanner kind of suck and get you no where near the quality of a digital back especially a 39 MP one.
So, for the price of a digital back: $14,000 - $2200 = $11,800. $11,800/ 8 per roll = 1475 rolls of film - doesn't include postage.
That medium format back can shoot hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pictures before shitting the bed. So, each shot is less than a penny. Even if you can only get 300,000 shots of a typical pro level DSLR, that's $0.05 per shot.
Digital wins!
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You also forgot to mention all the virus-laden picture frames, all the heavy metals used in batteries, the rare-earth minerals used to make the sensors, and a lot more, which makes digital worse for the environment.
I don't get viral infections from film.
My camera will also work after an EMP - I doubt yours will, and I also doubt your digital pictures will remain intact after such an event.
Ditto my manual-everything lenses.
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My camera will also work after an EMP - I doubt yours will, and I also doubt your digital pictures will remain intact after such an event.
Ditto my manual-everything lenses.
The photographer on the other hand probably won't survive the nuclear blast that produced it. Yes, there's a few other ways but it's more experimental science than a practical weapon. That goes both if you're going to a war zone or you happen to be a terrorist victim, they prefer the conventional bombs.
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Are you out of your mind? Every time I finish a shoot with medium format and Polaroids I throw out a small baggie full of trash: boxes, wrappers, polaroid crap, etc. Then I use a couple liters of distilled water (that I burn gas, to get it to my house) and a bunch of chemicals to actually get an image - oh yeah, that generates trash too (film cassettes, 120 film paper backing, spools, etc). The landfill space needed to cover 5 years of shooting is magnitudes greater than for digital.
Hell, they just stopped
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Good thing regular photography with all the wasted shots, deadly chemicals, and printed paper is so safe for the environment.
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Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:5, Insightful)
When you spent $2500-$3000 for the camera body, and close to that much for EACH lens (and photographers, while maybe technically able to get by on 2-3 lenses, usually have several more than that) Plus flash, tripod, other accessories... By the time you get to the full setup, it is pretty easy to get into the $15,000-$20,000 range. And you want them to throw all of that away, because "they should get with the times already" ? Tell you what.. Throw away (NOT trade in) your Ferrari and buy a Prius, and see if you think it was worth it.
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This is probably the best car analogy I've seen on slashdot.
And yes, only 2 or 3 lenses is a PITA. I have more than that: http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f349/khyberkitsune/camera.jpg [photobucket.com]
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Considering that MF backs are a professional tool, the analogy I always use is: I don't see you bitching about the price of F1 cars.
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Wow. That looks almost exactly like my friend's set, down to the hippy strap!
I used to have very similar setup until one trip in Chinese (this one didn't happen in Tibet) countryside when the lenses were destroyed (smashed but not stolen) by the Chinese "Public Security" (aka police). Luckily the body(ies) w/ good normal lens and short zoom were kept elsewhere at the time...
So this system is for Hasselblad and way out of my range, but I kinda hope that one day they'd start making affordable digital backends
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Why not just shoot a $4 roll of film, and scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner at a mere 2400DPI for a fat 30 megapixel image...
Because film doesn't have infinite resolution. You can only fit so many of those silver halide crystals on a bit of film, and that limits how much "data" can be stored in the frame. 35 millimeter film at normal ISOs (aka that $4 roll you mentioned) can't really be printed larger than 8"x10" unless you have an artistic attraction to extreme graininess.
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Epic fail. Medium format isn't 35 mm. 35 mm is full frame, and smaller than medium format.
Even the cropped medium formats digitals are much larger than 35 mm (typically 36x24 mm) and starts at around 33x44 mm making it at least 68% larger.
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Re:14k buys a lot of film. (Score:4, Informative)
A cheap, fairly slow film can resolve 140 lines per mm. Even on a 135 (35mm) film, that equates to 17MP. Obviously, a 17MP digital camera does not resolve 17MP, you have to anti-alias, so the actual resolution is less. I have never tested a DSLR, but I have tested the Red One film camera with a 4.5k sensor, with Master Prime lenses, resolution is close to 3.2k after debayering, anti-aliasing and low pass filtering.
This is worth a read: http://www.audioguy.co.uk/files/pdf/Arri_Digital_Camera_Basics.pdf [audioguy.co.uk]
A good emulsion will resolve 25-30 MP on 135.
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Because to get 30 quality megapixels with a decent dmax from a film scan you need at least a dedicated film scanner, something along the lines of a Nikon 9000 ED, and even then, you can't see your work as you go.
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Nice (Score:4, Interesting)
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apparently we were thinking the same thing... :)
that would be the most awesome thing ever to see:
The old school workhorse K1000 with a digital back
I'd seriously consider trading in a tooth or two, maybe even a pinkey finger for a 10MP FX CCD (not CMOS) for my F3hp...
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Good luck finding someone to take the other side of that bargain.
Re:Nice (Score:4, Informative)
What controls did the cameras you tried lack?
Or do you want one with no option to turn on the automatic stuff?
Its the UI. On my old K1000, the front ring on the lens is focus, back ring is D.O.F / F-stop, Mostly-Single-Function rotary dial on the top for shutter speed (and a complicated way to change film speed for the light meter, etc), a film advance lever, and a shutter release. Also a combination film rewind/back opener dial on the top. The UI is physically fast, simple, intuitive, instant to learn, lifetime to master. Like a CLI.
On the other hand, on an automatic digital Cannon from a couple years back, its clicky heaven, definitely a windows style interface. Clicky Clickly Clicky thru the menus and dials, no rhyme or reason, and maybe you can adjust the shutter speed, but not really interactively or easily. Like a GUI. Like trying to use a real camera while wearing oven mitts.
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Yes, gimme a digital back for a K1000. I had one of those in the 90s.
A fairly common set up is a telescope or microscope with an industry standard lens t-mount, then a ridiculously overcomplicated digital camera, complete with all kinds of useless gimmick features. Great, I can now take micro-photographs in sepia tones. Fan freaking tastic. All that junk does is get in the way.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-mount [wikipedia.org]
A dig back for a K1000 would be about perfect, since all I really need the camera for, is to
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Probably not. Think of the small number of cameras on T-mounts compared with the number of DSLRs whose owners don't know what a T-mount is. It's easier to put all of the features in that normal users want and have edge cases just ignore them than creating custom cameras.
I use a couple of Nikon DLSRs entirely in RA
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A noted Nikon writer, Thom Hogan has been writing about a more modular system and how it would make financial and market sense to Nikon (or whoever adopted that strategy). Probably won't ever come to fruition as the Japanese camera makers are very, very conservative and the cost to enter the market very high,.
It also makes no financial sense to create a system like this. A camera company could approach it in one of three ways:
* Put a cheap sensor on a back, price it low enough that people can get it instead of a cheap DSLR and put it on their old manual SLR. Cons: the low-end dslr market is among the most lucrative in digital photography; the support for this item would be a nightmare as thousands of buyers try to mate their backs with cameras that haven't been touched in 20 years.
* Put a cheap sensor on a back,
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All you've said is true, but...
While agree a K1000 is not a likely candidate for a digital back, there are a lot of Nikon owners who have invested heavily in excellent glass that will not work correctly on their newer bodies (Yes, in theory the D300 should work, but it really doesn't). As far as turning on and off the sensor a CCD does not suffer the same limitations, that is an issue with CMOS sensors.
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I know.
And it pisses me off too.
I bailed on Canon when they switched from the FD mount and went to Nikon...
Meh, with my investment in glass I have little choice but to go with a high end body (still cheaper than any other option).
I am working on a digital back for my F3 though. I have a couple spare backs and I'm going to cut one up to put a deep depleted CCD onto it. I have not bought the sensor yet, I'll do that once I get the cooling and data management stuff done. Plan on mounting power and storage f
At that resolution, what will be the lossy format (Score:2)
be? Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
Jpeg is okay, but it puts it's pictures into 32x32 blocks which doesn't always make sense (made more sense in the days of 640x480 pics) and jpeg2000 never seems to be implemented anywhere for some reason, especially the browser level.
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RAW (Score:4, Informative)
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JPEG2000 never took off because it has problems with it's wavelet compression, details just blur out. Have a read: http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=317 [multimedia.cx]
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/JPEG_JFIF_and_2000_Comparison.png [wikimedia.org]
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Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
Lossless RAW is the only way anyone will shoot with such a camera and back, but it's not a problem. A 64 GB CF card would hold over a thousand images, and medium format is used for shooting landscapes, not action. The cameras are big, heavy, used on a tripod and taking photographs with one is normally a process of minutes to hours of setup followed by a handful of shots.
There are a few photographers that use medium format for portraits, but it's rare. And even then you're talking about dozens of shots,
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be? Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
According to TFA
"Each image is approx 50MB in its RAW form from the card - or transferred, which equates to a 117 TIFF file (8-bit) when unpacked and saved. So the supplied 2GB CF cards could hold just over 30 images when in the field. "
And much bigger CF cards are available if you want them. Newegg sell ones up to 128GB!
Really the only reasons to shoot lossy on any DSLR now is either because you are shooting thous
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While it would depend a lot on what the photographer is doing, he also tethers his camera to his PC most of the time (since he only shoots stationary things in controlled environments), and the images get saved directly to the computer rather th
goodie (Score:3, Informative)
There have been digital backs for Hasselblads before. But it's not really such a great deal: you're connecting an expensive digital back to an optical system that wasn't designed for digital image capture, and a heavy mirror box, film crank, and viewfinder that you don't need with modern digital sensors. Oh, and for all that trouble, your lenses don't even work the way you're used to since the sensor is rectangular and smaller than medium format film. And at the rate sensor technologies improve, you can expect that this thing is obsolete in a couple of years.
Sensor size and price (Score:5, Insightful)
Two problems. The sensor is barely what could be called "medium format". The article says these sensors are 36.7 x 49 mm. That's basically twice the size of the standard 35 mm frame (36 x 24 mm). Even 6x4.5 is bigger than that.
The other problem is bigger - price. For $14K you could get several medium format film cameras and lenses (e.g Hasselblad/Zeiss, Mamiya, Fuji, Bronica, etc), a very good film scanner (e.g Hasselblad Flextight X5 [hasselblad.com]), a big server to store your scans on, plus a fridge full of film.
You'd only go the digital route if you need fast turn-around. For everything else, I'd rather go the film option, thanks.
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It's not just fast turnaround, but convenience. How many rolls of film can and will you reasonably carry around with you? How fast can you load one in to your camera? Then once you've shot the photos, do you take the time to develop and scan them all for review?
That is one of the major benefits of digital (fast turnaround being another) is that you can take so many more photos. Getting 16GB+ flash storage devices is cheap and easy, and even when you take extremely large RAW photos, you can store a lot. They
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I don't think you have your prices quite right...
Hasselblad Flextight X5 Scanner
* Virtual Drum, Vertical Loading
* Glare-Free Path to Film
* Scan 35mm to 4x5" Film & Prints
* 4.9 D-max
* 8000 dpi Maximum Resolution
* Fast 300 MB per Minute Speed
* Batch Scanning Capacity
* Auto Crop
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The other problem is bigger - price. For $14K you could get several medium format film cameras and lenses (e.g Hasselblad/Zeiss, Mamiya, Fuji, Bronica, etc), a very good film scanner (e.g Hasselblad Flextight X5 [hasselblad.com]), a big server to store your scans on, plus a fridge full of film.
You cannot get an equivalent Hasselblad at that price, and replacing all your lenses will cost you a fortune (lenses run $2,000-$7,000 each).
Remember this is for people who already have a Hasselblad film camera and want to go digital.
The Hasselblad H4D-40, which has the same sized image sensor, is $20,000 and is their "entry level" camera at that resolution.
As for film, look at the max DPI listed for that Flextight X5. 2,000 DPI at 6x5 (a standard 120 frame size) is significantly less than you'll get with
Girl in Article Picture with Guitar (Score:2)
This isn't news. (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been doing this ever since the first digital backs came out in 1992. You put the back on your 'blad (or, generally speaking, any MF cam you can mount your back on to - I've seen hacks putting them onto Rollei TLRs), connect a cable to PC sync port in the lens (where the shutter is) and you're good to go. If you need to trigger strobes, most backs have their own PC sync. Ta-da.
Seriously, you can put a MF back on a shoebox with a pinhole in it and you'll get a picture, just short the PC sync cable to fire it. Soooo not news.
digital backs aren't anything new (Score:3, Informative)
But apparently they're still too bloody expensive.
For the same price you could get a nice full-frame 35mm DSLR, and some good glass. I'd wager it would be a wee bit more usable too.
old movie camera hack (Score:5, Interesting)
Or, use 2-1/4" film and drum scan to get 400MP (Score:2)
Don't believe me? Measure it yourself...
The other way around (Score:4, Interesting)
I routinely shoot the other way around: old Pentax and Nikon lenses on my DSLR (Canon Digital Rebel series), with suitable lens adapters. The best adapters are the M42 to EOS adapters, which let you use Pentax screwmount lenses. The digital imaging doesn't cut you any slack, a crummy lens makes crummy pictures, while a good lens makes good pictures. Plus all that old-fashioned lens flare, cool bokeh, and more. Fun.
The Nikon adapters aren't as solid. Maybe it's the fault of my cheap Ebay adapter. Nikon made some amazing lenses in the F2/F3 era.
Forget automation, of course: stop down metering, manual focus.
...laura
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Yeah, unless Hasselblad (never owned one) has changed the lens mounts on the digital versions, the box itself is really not a huge deal. I'd rather get the integrated camera and sensor.
Personally, I just switched from an old Nikon F4s to a D3. It might have been nice to get a digital back, but there's just not enough space to get all you can with a fully digital body. I've got a truck load of learning to do, too - I've done nothing but point and shoot for a decade, and while I like bokeh as much as the nex
Re:H3D (Score:4, Insightful)
I own a blad, but there is no way I can afford this back (yet). Nor would it be justified for the shooting I do. That said, if Nikon would offer backs that would fit their older cameras I would be in the market, especially if they were <$1000 and FX sensor size, even if "only" 6 to 10 MP.
Dear Nikon:
I want a digital back for my F3HP and my 90s please.
-nB
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I own a blad, but there is no way I can afford this back (yet). Nor would it be justified for the shooting I do. That said, if Nikon would offer backs that would fit their older cameras I would be in the market, especially if they were <$1000 and FX sensor size, even if "only" 6 to 10 MP.
Dear Nikon:
I want a digital back for my F3HP and my 90s please.
-nB
The only way this will happen is if Canon does it first. Let's be realistic, there is no reason for Nikon to shit all over it's most profitable, sub $1k market with a support-intensive, low margin piece of gear.
Re:Big Deal! (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the point, cellphones can have a ton of megapixels but with their tiny lens setup the image will be garbage no matter how fine grained the sensor is. This isn't about getting more megapixels, it's about getting digital images out of expensive old cameras with very expensive lens setups.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not just the lenses, the image sensors are much smaller in cellphones and cheap cameras. High end cameras use larger image sensors, which allow more photons per-pixel. More photons means more accurate light sensing.
In other words, a high end camera with no lens will have significantly better color and contrast, and as a result better detail and clarity, than a cellphone camera even if they have the same number of megapixels. Add in the lenses, and high end cameras are better in every way. Because o
Re:Big Deal! (Score:4, Insightful)
A high-end camera with no lens will give you grey or black, or occasionally multi-colored blurry, fuzzy blobs at the very best. I think you meant "a high end camera with the most basic kit lens"
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe he's doing pinhole photography.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I often just turn my resolution down on my consumer grade camera.
The 8 MP (or is it 10?) just gives more white noise. No point, unless you want to fill up your hard drive, and slow down online backups.
Re:Big Deal! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Big Deal! (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, when shooting motion pictures on film, the typical shutter speed is 1/48th of a second to provide proper motion blur, while that shutter speed is considered fairly long by still photography standards. You can get away with shooting movies with a lot less light than a still photographer is going to be able to get away with.
Re:Big Deal! (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe it will if marketing wants it to but if it does they will be shit 50 megapixel shots.
The trouble is putting lots of megapixels on a small sensor doesn't work very well for a couple of reasons.
Firstly the coverage factor is poor on small high resolution sensors, most sensor types need some space between the active cells for various reasons, so more pixels means LESS active area.
Secondly as I understand it (i've done a little bit on optics but i'm not an expert) depth of field is related to the ratio between aperture and sensor size. So if you want lots of light (and you DO want lots of light because of "shot noise") AND a reasonable depth of field you need a big sensor.
Re:Big Deal! (Score:5, Informative)
The f-number which decides the depth of field is the ratio between the aperture and the focal length.
The real reason behind why small sensors does not work well with many pixels, is because it will make less light retrieved by individual pixel sensor (i.e. sensel). Since manufacturer tries to cramp as much pixels on a small patch, the image will worsen especially in low-light environment.
This is why FF (full-frame sensor, 135 film equivalent) and 6x6 (Hasselbrad V-system in TFA) has its market.
Re: (Score:2)