Friday. Time for an outrageous comparison.

[tashley]

Now before one thousand people take aim and fire, THIS IS A BIT OF FUN!

Draw any, or no conclusions. I will draw my own!

Here are crops from three shots. One on a Wista 5x4 field camera with a Rodenstock 150mm lens. Fuji Provia, about F16 at about 1/30th on a tripod. Scanned professionally on a Fuji Finescan to 9150 x 7215 pixels. Because I'm a large format Noob, I managed to underexpose by about a stop, Doh!

Next is the same scene on a Canon 1DS III with Leica R 50 Cron using an adaptor, at F4 and 1/2500 and ISO 200 focussed manually using Live View.

Next is an M8 shot with a 35 Cron at F4, 1/1000th, ISO 160 focussed via RF with a 1.25x magnifier.

Tripods all round.

All files given roughly appropriate sharpening (i.e. none for the film shot and some for the others) in LR then exported to Photoshop, where the two digital images were up-rezed using Bicubic Sharper until the image sizes were about the same. Then Mode>8 bit and save as JPEG.

Not a great methodology - and the light changed between shots - but nonethless the lenses gave very similar fields of view and everything was done happily within the diffraction limits of the particular lens/body combos.

Oh, and did I mention that the Wista is made of quince wood, with cherry-red bellows made of leather and lots of brass?

May the great Voyage of Discovery continue!

:-)

T


Wista
film.jpg


Canon 1Ds III
canon.jpg


M8
Leica.jpg



The full scene as shot on the M8:
full_leica-1.jpg

[wattsy]

The 10MP of the M8 will clearly only take you so far but it looks worse (in comparison) than I would have guessed.

By the way, has your project (the one you need the extra resolution for) got anything to do with coastal erosion?

[sdai]

4x5 wins hands down ... and I'm not going into Canon vs. Leica.

You know what? the last thing many camera companies want to see is head to head comparisons. :

[stunsworth]

The M8 shot surprises me.

[delander]

As this is a bit of fun:

Thats an interesting comparison Tim, did you take the shot from the top of the stairs leading down to the beach?

Although the M8 shot looks out of focus I suspect you made every effort to get it spot on. The light is better for the Canon shot. I have seen comparisons between the 1DS3 and the 1D3 uprezzed and the difference in the detail captured was nowhere near what you post here.

Jeff

[sandymc]

Actually, the 4x5 shot surprises me - I would have expected better.....

Sandy

[jaapv]

Something weird - the first ones should show more resolution relative to the M8 and the M8 shot appears a bit unsharp.

[earleygallery]

I would guess that there is some problem with the M8 shot, focus or vibration? It should be sharper.

The detailing on the green hosepipe is clear and sharp on the 5X4, not so on the digital shots.

[jaapv]

The Canon shot looks a bit oversharpened.

[Speenth]

Is there something you're not telling us? Something about your 'smiley' at the end of the post makes me think you're holding on to a vital clue. ...

The M8 image looks almost to have been post-processed for an oil-painted appearance. There is definitely something wrong with it.

You manually focussed the Wista (obviously) and the Canon. Could it be that your 1.25x magnifier on the M8 is the gremlin in the works? Or was it the case that by the time you'd set up the third camera the cliff was eroding beneath your tripod's feet?

[gmaurizio]

Was the provia film 100F, 400F or 400X? Wet mounted for scanning? I am amazed you did not get a better scan from the provia, since it should get much more detail than any of the digital captures.
Besides, since you have the full images, which was closer to your perception of the subject?

[jaapv]

What amazes me is that the Canon shot is so well defined that one can tell that the focus is on the wall, not the fence. Excellent!

[Daniel Ortego]

Well, I’m no die-hard Leica groupie since I like the Canon as well. However, the M8 sample provided is not accurate. I’m hard pressed to see how it could be that far off without some underlying physical defect or simply, inaccurate focusing. Then again, the original file is a tad soft. Anyway, the Canon is by far the best!

BTW: Two thumbs-up for composition!
Regards,

[Paul Hart]

Tim: maybe the M8 shot would have been better taken with a certain Tri-Elmar??

[blakley]

The Canon shot is much more saturated and is also yellower than the others - I'd like to see it balanced to the same settings as the other photos. For pictorial effect I like the 4x5 best, and its grain makes me feel all tingly & nostalgic.

I have started to notice that since getting the M8 I too have been producing very saturated color work - I'm going to have to go back & take a look at this and decide if I like a less saturated look.

[innerimager]

As I just finished teaching a class to medical students on this subject, I can't resist saying this Tim, please take it in context. But the M8 shot is a great example of a "negative" placebo response. People do get serious side effects from placebos as well as benefits. Expectation and matter are codependent. best....Peter

[thompsonkirk]

On my screen the Canon image is the most disturbing because it seems so seeriously oversharpened. The sun seems to have come out a bit more for that shot & has turned the wall into a mass of artifacts.

Why not follow the general rule : bicubic sharper for downsizing images, bicubic SMOOTHER for res-ing up?

But maybe that's part of the humor.

[jackal]

Tim, what have you done in lightroom ?

there are a ton of noise filters on the M8 shot by the looks of it
it almost looks like a photoshop "crayon effect" filter

[fotografr]

Tim--I am really disappointed in you. How could you be so wrong about this? Today is Thursday........not Friday.

[luigi bertolotti]

LF is always LF, no doubt... but the M8 is not convincing me... nothing seem really on focus... 35s (judging from the several threads about, and also from my personale exp.) are the more risky in focusing issues with M8...

Canon, even if also to mee is someway oversharpened, is very good... well it had a Cron..