analogue/digital
Hello my friends!
First take my apologies for being so rare in this warm and comfortable company of yours! I´m in a very turbulent period these times . . . which is good - but extremely time-comsumpting . .
Today a had a talk with Georg about Sinar, Hassel, Seitz and so on - and their price-ranges.
I´ve done some with a H3D recently - i rent them jobwise - and i was very impressed. I showed an example here some weeks ago.
Well - i see it under some different aspects:
buying such a camera and three or four lenses one needs comes at around 50000.-€.
how long does it take to reach at least the break-even point where one starts make profit again?
That depends on the frequency of jobs you NEED exactly this equipment for.
Where is the REAL and REALISTIC fortune of such a system?
Especially for landscape-photography - which isn´t as highly priced as advertising-photography i bet - in my eyes using analogue LF seems to be a far better choice.
You can get a very fine 4x5" or even 8x10" camera wit a set of exellent lenses for around 5000.-€
Then you buy a perfect automatic E6/C41 used processor from Jobo for around 1000.- bucks on ebay
Then you buy a used drum-scanner for about 2000.--4000.-€ on ebay.
This way you have an equipment for under 10000.-€ which you can get a much higher resolution as you can get from a H3D for 50000.-€.
Drum-scanning a 4x5" or an 8x10" @4000dpi results in 16000x20000px resp. in 32000x40000px as 16bit-TIFF. Razor sharp - showing exactly what the lens delivers in optical resolution.
Using a 50ASA tranny or a 25ASA b/w is extraordinary detailed, dynamical and sharp. Even at very big sized prints.
I´m working on a job recently for 3 pictures to be print 7m wide @150dpi for in-shop display use. One of it is racing horses . . Digitally it´s impossible to get a highres picture being printed that size with 150dpi. Not even with a Seitz digital 6x17 camera. It provides around 170MPx - but you need about 400MPx . . .
I used a 6x17cm with a 90mm SuperAngulon which is more than 90deg horizontally loaded with a 50ASA Velvia drumscanned@4000dpi. Resolution, dynamics, sharpness is exellent!
There´s motion-blur because i moved the camera synchronous with the horses (impossible wit a scanner-camera) - but you can recognize very fine details in sharp areas.
You simply get much more for lesser money using analogue LF photography with ALL it´s advantages.
And that means: highend-scanning.
Very often - too often - digital photography is preferred over analogue because people don´t use it as hightech but loose a great deal of it´s quality by inconsequent handling.
I told Georg to think about the cost-effectiveness of a digital 50000.-€-system - which wouldn´t be worth less than the half in two years . . and antique in five years - compared to a 10000-€ system which will work fine for at least 25 years . . . ;-)
As a pro you learn about cost-effectiveness very quick . . and in my eyes an 1DsMkIII is an intelligent combination of quality/resolution and price. More is fine, of course - but it´s bad relations of price and what you get for it . . in my eyes.
If it has to be really big with a static sujet i use the Canon for multirow-stitches of some hundred MPx or i use analogue LF. Or i rent a H3D or a Sinar Hy6 for one ore some days.
Being in Georg´s place i would buy complete range of analoge LF film processing and scanning unless a H3D or a Hy6 come for under 20000.-€.
"When will digital have surpassed film, what does it take?"
What it takes? Real big money . .
Will it surpass film? Maybe some years ahead it will REALLY surpass MF or even LF at reasonable costs . . but that´s future-talk.
best, Klaus
P.S.: i showed it before - but here again correlated to the theme "landscape" - it´s an 8x10" Velvia 50ASA drumscanned at only 2000dpi (there are some low-res parts in it from testing a composing and there are some artefacts from compressing as "lightweight" jpgs for the Zoomify-server):
http://www.klausesser.de/Talhaus.htm
Camera was an 8x10 Linhof KardanBi with a 5,6/240mm Symmar.