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Leaf Aptus II-5 Image's

routlaw

Member
Have been demoing a Leaf Aptus II-5 this past week with the Phase/Mamiya camera and 80 2.8 Lens. Nothing special here on this but thought I would post an image from some field work yesterday for those considering this back.

ISO 25, 1/20 sec exp, F16, developed in LR.

Thanks for looking.

Rob
 
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T.Karma

New member
Have been demoing a Leaf Aptus II-5 this past week with the Phase/Mamiya camera and 80 2.8 Lens. Nothing special here on this but thought I would post an image from some field work yesterday for those considering this back.

ISO 25, 1/20 sec exp, F16, developed in LR.

Thanks for looking.

Rob
Great. Exactly what I have expected. Now, I am sure some will say one cannot judge from a downsized file, but here I can see what I am looking for.

One subject where digital shows its quality (or the lack of) is in the skies.
Canon's always look plastic, others look like cut out cardboards - but here you get some of the depths that used to show up with Film, especially Velvia. Well, this is not Velvia - but you get the idea. Excellent! :thumbup:
 

David K

Workshop Member
Rob, nice shot but the color looks off on my monitor... a bit on the blue side. I loved my Aptus back... they make a great product.
 

T.Karma

New member
Quote: "...and certainly not a web based JPEG!"

You are right, it is all hallucination! But certainly a good one, .......! :angel:
 
T

tetsrfun

Guest
ISO 25, 1/20 sec exp, F16, developed in LR.
******
What have you found to be the "usable" high ISO?

Steve
 

routlaw

Member
Rob, nice shot but the color looks off on my monitor... a bit on the blue side. I loved my Aptus back... they make a great product.
Hi David,

I think this is fairly accurate actually. It was late afternoon with some warm glow on grasses in the field but there was a lot of fog and clouds of very unusual nature yesterday which did create quite a bit of atmospheric coolish haze. FWIW I also converted this file in Leaf Capture using the in camera std daylight gray balance and found it to be a bit off for sure. For instance the shadowed areas of the snowy road were noticeably more bluish-magenta as was some of the distant fields which are snow covered. In any case color temps are probably somewhat cooler this time of year at this altitude & latitude with snow on the ground compared to what you are used in FL. Note the left side of the weathered telephone pole and weathered fence post, those are quite yellow from the late afternoon sun while the remainder of the post are fairly neutral gray.

Rob
 

routlaw

Member
ISO 25, 1/20 sec exp, F16, developed in LR.
******
What have you found to be the "usable" high ISO?

Steve
Steve for the most part I have been using the system at ISO 25 for all the outdoor work, and up to 100 in the studio. At 100 with very dark objects you can see some noise creep in, but 50 is really quite clean. Its a very rare day when I use high ISO's even on my D3. In other words this is one area I have not delved into to any significant degree @ 200 and 400 the highest ISO this back is capable of.

Rob
 

routlaw

Member
Great. Exactly what I have expected. Now, I am sure some will say one cannot judge from a downsized file, but here I can see what I am looking for.

One subject where digital shows its quality (or the lack of) is in the skies.
Canon's always look plastic, others look like cut out cardboards - but here you get some of the depths that used to show up with Film, especially Velvia. Well, this is not Velvia - but you get the idea. Excellent! :thumbup:
Thanks, glad its helpful. Well no doubt much is lost form the downsized jpeg for sure but in this case I kept compression to a minimum. I do think the back is very very good, and certainly outperforms my D3 in most ways. This is an area I have gone to many times to test gear, lenses etc including my scan back which still blows the II-5 completely out of the water. But this back exhibits the least amount of digital attributes I have seen for a bayer sensor single capture. Very clean, and natural looking textures and detail.

Rob
 

routlaw

Member
Here a couple more for those interested. Neither of these files have had any sharpening what so ever, jpeg compression of 9 out 12 in PS. I was noticing however just a slight bit of front focusing from the camera in AF and MF mode both. Again ISO 25, F5.7, 1/160th of sec.

Rob
 
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routlaw

Member
One more, just a basic table top thing to see how well the back handled moire on fabric. ISO 50, F13

Rob
 
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carstenw

Active member
Isn't the pattern in the fabric too coarse to really test this on this shot? Looks great though.
 

routlaw

Member
Isn't the pattern in the fabric too coarse to really test this on this shot? Looks great though.
Probably, but on the micro level you could see some minor effects of this on a 100% zoom, nothing that would show up in print. I will make one more test on a finer cloth garment before sending the kit back to the vendor tomorrow.

Rob
 

KeithL

Well-known member
Here a couple more for those interested. Neither of these files have had any sharpening what so ever, jpeg compression of 9 out 12 in PS. I was noticing however just a slight bit of front focusing from the camera in AF and MF mode both. Again ISO 25, F5.7, 1/160th of sec.
Again, it's almost impossible to make an accurate judgement here. The image of the fence post and crop do appear to be soft, but is this representative of the web based jpeg or the original file?

Keith
 

T.Karma

New member
The table top shot looks promising too. The wooden structure,... I have actually never seen a digital shot that shows wooden structure in a lively way. Especially not when the surface is polished and has this deep and warm glow in reality like on tablesplates etc, .... very difficult to transport this into a capture.

But over all, it is great. The good thing on this back is also, it is the most affordable out of this new Aptus II line.
Definitely a candidate to consider. Pity that it is doesnt do ISO 400 clean, though.
 
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routlaw

Member
Again, it's almost impossible to make an accurate judgement here. The image of the fence post and crop do appear to be soft, but is this representative of the web based jpeg or the original file?

Keith
Hi Keith, as previously stated I did experience a bit of front focus on the kit yesterday, it was not nailed down as well as it should have been, also there was no in camera or post production sharpening on these files. I put these up to illustrate the natural and non digital appearance of the file... even though focus could be a bit better. The detail is a 100% crop.

The boot shot is much more indicative of what to expect when images are nailed a bit better.

Rob
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
Probably, but on the micro level you could see some minor effects of this on a 100% zoom, nothing that would show up in print. I will make one more test on a finer cloth garment before sending the kit back to the vendor tomorrow.

Rob

I would say that it is difficult to "test" moire handling as it is quite random. Twenty shots in a row might not exhibit any, and then the next ten could be murder.

More resolution/more photosites are the best remedy for handling moire. A 22MP digital back can easily produce moire in images. However, everything is relative. 22MP is better than 16MP, but not as good as 39MP, when it comes to moire. And relativity includes what subject, what aperture, distance to subject, etc. Many factors.

As far as ISO, I consider the Aptus II 5 a 25 to 200 ISO product (25 - 100 is ideal), although ISO 400 can be used with good exposures and high key subject matter in moderate print sizes.


Steve Hendrix
 

schweikert

New member
I used my Aptus 22 for several years. A couple comments.

Lightroom does fine with the Aptus files but the default color calibration in LR for Leaf files isn't great. Once you do a DNG Profile calibration from a Macbeth chart, the colors are so much better. I agree the color from the first post image is just off.

I agree with Steve; the Dalsa 22 sensor is great from 25-100 and 200 is certainly very usable and can create nice prints, 400 is quite subjective. A high key 400 shot is fine, a B&W conversion of 400 and higher is actually interesting with a film chunkiness, usable when wanted.

My complaints were always, that 25-50 ISO required pumping too much power with studio packs. I found myself doing multi pops for many shoots, even with multiple 2400W packs.

Skin tones are truly the best part about the sensor in the A22 and A-II5 (same sensor).

Moire is a strong reality and honestly appeared in just about any shoot that had textiles or fine patterns. The only reshoot I have ever had to do was with the A22 shooting 10ft high art textile panels created for a synagogue. I've done plenty images side by side with the Canon 5DII and an A22 and the files are close but moire rears it ugly head with the Leaf often. Leaf Capture has one of the best local correction tools for moire especially since it saves it to the raw file allowing conversion in any other raw processor.

Leaf Capture make nice conversions, tethering is rock solid, but as an app, not the most pleasurable to use. I ran more files through LR since I prefer color toning and color work that adds to an image. I loathe the curve tool in Leaf Capture. Never understood why they couldn't make normal curves and levels tools.

Do I regret owning the Leaf, not at all. I created some very memorable work. What it did teach me was what I really want a digital back to be, better speed, image file quality, better ISO's for normal work and at a much better price point. Getting the A-II5 at $7-8K is reasonable. A22's are down in value to about $4K and the image quality is the same. Problem with digital backs is that they cost a lot and drop like bricks in value.

Battery life on the A22 wasn't great. I found it reasonable to get 2 hours of continuous operation in normal temps per SBL-160, pretty poor. So stock up on batteries and just suck it up and buy Leaf's branded batts, the generics don't work long, crap out for good. Buy a dual charger and keep those things charged for untethered studio work. For tethered studio work, not a big deal, run the back via firewire.

John
 
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