I need info about Leaf Aptus II 28

[Pics2]

This is my first post here.
I've been searching about digital MF a lot lately, trying to make up my mind on stepping up to MF. I'm DSLR user (Canon 5D II) doing mostly product studio photography, so I have zero experience with digital backs.
To get to the point,
I decided on Leaf Aptus II 28, since my budget is limited and I want new equipment, not the used one.
I would really like you to help me with any experience from users of this back. What worries me are two things that I read:
- Extensive moire problem and
- Noiseless pictures only at ISO 50, I hoped not to see noise at least at ISO 100.
Any help appreciated, thanks!

 

[dougpeterson]

Moire is much more common on the DM22 than the DM28. What sort of work do you do?

If you shoot fabric catalogs for a lot of your studio product work and tend to shoot at f/8-11 then I might advise something else (e.g. A pre-owned p30+ or a new DM40) but for most shooters I would not would not worry about the moire on a DM28 too much.

The quality of the dm28 at ISO100 is excellent. At 200 and above it depends a lot on your criteria and use; for many/most people iso200 is also quite good. For some iso400 is also ok. Very few would consider iso800 usable.

If both of these sound rather vague its because i see this all from a dealer's perspective. That is it mostly depends on the user. If you shoot emotion-driven long lenses hand held outside wide open you'll never see moire fairly often. If you shoot in a catalog house shooting clothes against a background using f/11 on a camera stand and most of your clients use artificial fabrics then you'll see moire frequent. Likewise the quality of ISO200 will be considered excellent by some kinds of shooters and entirely unacceptable by others; those shooting dark moody scenes lite by tungsten light will likely be disappointed. Those shooting in an open window church using ISO200 to allow use of longer lenses handheld will probably feel great about the results.

I have to as, if you're mostly in the studio why are you worried about the ISO? Do you not have enough Watts to shoot away at ISO 50? Do you shoot motion and are worried about flash duration with your lights at max (if so there are some great affordable lighting options that perform well at higher watts)? Or is it the other work you shoot you're non studio you are more concerned about in this regard? Most of our customers who shoot a broad variety of stuff end up keeping two camera systems; a DM28 is never going to shoot long lens night sports games. The right tool for the job and all that.

Ideally you would work with a dealer that can let you get hands on with such equipment. We and other dealers across the world would welcome you into our studios or ship you an evaluation rental for you to use as close to your actual intended use as possible. You could then see how often you'll get moire and what is needed to deal with it if you do and you can shoot various ISOs and see how you feel about the results.

The annoying part of medium format is that it requires more research because there are more options (as the gear is more specialized) and less "common knowledge". The good part is in this higher end market you don't have to go it alone.

Im using my iPad so I cant leave my standard Capture Integration signature, but to be 100% transparent you must consider me a biased source of info as we are a medium format dealer (though I also use the gear extensively myself).
http://www.captureintegration.com/leaf/aptus-ii/

In any case, the best thing you can do to get good advise from the rest of the board is to tell us more about yourself and your style and your needs, hopes, and dreams (as pertains to photography anyway). You're asking the questions you know you don't know. But there are many questions you don't know you don't know and those can be even more important. "mostly studio product" can mean a lot of things. Perhaps you could post some examples of typical work or a web portfolio?

Doug Peterson
Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration

 

[Pics2]

Dear Doug,
thank you for quick and informative replay.
I'll send you examples of my work that reflects my needs, I'll make an appropriate gallery. It would be great to talk with you in more detail.
For now, I have to say that I live Mid to East Europe country with no Leaf dealer( Hasselblad, Phase One neither) close around. I can't try or rent the equipment, that's my problem, and that's why I'm trying to collect as much as possible info.

 

[yaya]

Pics2,

If you'd like to see a Leaf back you can contact me offline and I'll see what we can do

BR

Yair

 

[FredBGG]

If you have the Canon 5D II I would suggest you get a larger sensor than the DM28. The DM28 is a 44x33 sensor.

The DM22 and DM33 however are larger. A bit bigger than 48x36.

The larger sensors will give you more of the medium format look shallower depth of field and better wide angle coverage.

While the shadow detail and color of the DM28 will be better than the 5D I still think you will find the cameras a bit too close in overall look.

 

[FredBGG]

Moire is quite easy to fix in post.

 

[GrahamWelland]

When I moved from the D3x to the Aptus 65 there were three compelling reasons. Colour, colour and colour. The DM28 is faster and more refined but essentially the same. Resolution difference with the 5D II is basically moot. Bit depth is more visible in terms of colour and tonality IMHO.

I shoot landscapes so my exposure to moire is much less. I've never run across it with my Aptus at all. With my P25+ I slam dunked both colour and pattern moire the first trip out in the field although I was perhaps a little unlucky. Since then no problem. With the 28mp sensor it has never been an issue for me.

 

[fotografz]

Read this ...

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?p=375121&posted=1#post375121

Ignore any brand mention ... doesn't matter what brand. What matters is selecting the right sensor for your range of work, be it Hasselblad, Phase One, or Leaf ... and good lighting techniques.

-Marc

 

[dougpeterson]

Read this ...

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?p=375121&posted=1#post375121

Ignore any brand mention ... doesn't matter what brand. What matters is selecting the right sensor for your range of work, be it Hasselblad, Phase One, or Leaf ... and good lighting techniques.

-Marc

I don't entirely disagree - in so far as all brands can be used to produce extremely high quality images, and lighting is more important than anything else in good quality images.

BUT I would disagree pretty adamantly that brand does not matter. For a studio photographer the tools, stability, speed, flexibility, and support available for their tethered shooting software matters quite a bit.

 

[Shelby Lewis]

If you have the Canon 5D II I would suggest you get a larger sensor than the DM28.

While the shadow detail and color of the DM28 will be better than the 5D I still think you will find the cameras a bit too close in overall look.

I'm not so sure...

I shoot the aptus II 6 (28mp) and it's worlds different than my 5Dii... but here is where camera system/optics plays a big part of the equation. I personally did not like the non-schneider (non-LS) optics of the AFD series cameras... i thought they lacked character... so I shoot an RZ all the time now. The look I get from those optics, in combination with the 28mp aptus sensor is completely foreign to the 5Dii. Sharper, but with more dimension and smoothness. Still very little DoF at portrait distances, even stopped down a bit.

That said, the larger sensors will take this difference a bit further...

Yes, you will have noise at ISO 100... the 28mp sensor is an ISO50/100 sensor... go much above that and I've found that it loses the great qualities that MF gives me. The samples I have below are all ISO 100, I believe and still look great, though.

Here's some stuff shot with it recently.. there's a certain something about the rendering that would difficult to achieve with my 5Dii, and the sharpness and ability to print larger is significantly higher IMO:

Just my .02$.

 

[Shelby Lewis]

oh... no problems with moire yet, in my experience so far (over a year or so).

 

[fotografz]

I don't entirely disagree - in so far as all brands can be used to produce extremely high quality images, and lighting is more important than anything else in good quality images.

BUT I would disagree pretty adamantly that brand does not matter. For a studio photographer the tools, stability, speed, flexibility, and support available for their tethered shooting software matters quite a bit.

Just trying to avoid another pissing contest Doug. The link I provided is skewed to Hasselblad because of the studio mentioned, but I felt that skew shouldn't be the criteria for investigation of all the options available.

So, I won't get into it with you ... all of the big name brands I mentioned (Hasselblad/Phase One/Leaf) do an equally fine job tethered in the studio, and to imply differently is just fodder for debate that doesn't help the OP one little bit.

-Marc

 

[Pics2]

Thank you all for your input!
Shelby, that's exactly what I'm hoping to achieve-"Sharper, but with more dimension and smoothness". Nice pictures!

 

[fotografz]

oh... no problems with moire yet, in my experience so far (over a year or so).

You aren't shooting product shots in studio ... often close up ... involving fine detailed patterns Shelby. Or landscape and architectural shots where distant details like roofing tiles or other finely spaced detail can produce moiré.

Like this from an S2:

http://www.reddotforum.com/showthread.php/336-What-do-you-do-with-moire-in-the-S2

Or this from a 5D:

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00W8gC

Or you just have been lucky so far ...

Somewhere along the line I've experience moiré from almost every camera I've owned ... except a Muti-Shot, and so far the H4D/60.

If you notice it in time, like when shooting tethered to a computer, you can often change the camera distance to subject to alleviate it. Otherwise it is a huge PITA to fix in post, even with some of the excellent software solutions available today.

-Marc

 

[Shelby Lewis]

Color me lucky, I guess!

 

[FredBGG]

Thank you all for your input!
Shelby, that's exactly what I'm hoping to achieve-"Sharper, but with more dimension and smoothness". Nice pictures!

The larger sensor size of an Aptus 22MP or and Aptus 33MP will be even better for this. With a smaller sensor you are seeing less of the projected image of the lens.

If you are going up in size why go from 36x24 to 44x33 when you can go to slightly larger than 48x36.

The size of the capture area has a more significant effect on the final image than a small difference in MP count.

Going back to the 5d II. The biggest difference you will see is in the shadows and the better color reproduction.
You will be able to much better adjustment in post and adjustments to skin tones look far more natural.

As far as sharpness goes with the right lenses the 5D II or even the older 1ds is no slacker.

Optical sharpness however is not everything. Tonal quantization... the amount of different steps in tonal and color reproduction add descriptiveness to the image and give you more detail, texture and depth. It's important to keep in mind that vision is our strongest sense.

Here is an image shot with my 'vintage" Canon 1ds 11MP camera and the 100mm f2 (non L lens) shot wide open.

and a crop from the same capture

Here is a shot with the 5d II

and a crop from the same capture

Sharpness and smoothness is there, but what MF and larger would bring is a different perspective and DOF fall off look.
Something like this:

These was shot with a 6x8 camera on film, so no where near the micro sharpness of digital, but the larger format
just has more dimension.

Here is a polaroid shot on the 6x8 camera. I think it's a good example of how
larger formats sort of see more dimension. it's a polaroid and a small one at that.
As such the actual resolution is very very low, but the large format just sees depth
in a different way.

I know these images are very different between each other, but my point is that sensor size counts.

 

[FredBGG]

dp

 

[Shelby Lewis]

The larger sensor size of an Aptus 22MP or and Aptus 33MP will be even better for this. With a smaller sensor you are seeing less of the projected image of the lens.

If you are going up in size why go from 36x24 to 44x33 when you can go to slightly larger than 48x36.

The size of the capture area has a more significant effect on the final image than a small difference in MP count.

Going back to the 5d II. The biggest difference you will see is in the shadows and the better color reproduction.
You will be able to much better adjustment in post and adjustments to skin tones look far more natural.

As far as sharpness goes with the right lenses the 5D II or even the older 1ds is no slacker.

Optical sharpness however is not everything. Tonal quantization... the amount of different steps in tonal and color reproduction add descriptiveness to the image and give you more detail, texture and depth. It's important to keep in mind that vision is our strongest sense.

I know these images are very different between each other, but my point is that sensor size counts.

I totally agree with all of this... but as someone who shoots 44x33, I'm just giving the point that the difference in "look" is still there as 44x33 is still a decent step up from 36x24 (larger than 48x36 is to 44x33)... and I with the particular system with which I use it (RZ), I find the 44x33 is much closer to the larger 645 format in rendering than it is to the smaller 35mm format.

I definitely wouldn't group it in with the 5Dii as having a similar rendering.

No dispute about sensor size... this is a great point. I just didn't want the original poster to think that the 44x33 would look like 35mm. It may not be full 645, but it still gives a pretty special rendering compared to my Canon gear, especially with the RZ lenses. I found less so with the non-LS mamiya glass.

I still also shoot with the 5Dii... and also agree it's capable of files that are plenty sharp. But the AA in that cam still gives those files a particular accutance deficiency that can somewhat be overcome with deconvolution sharpening (or similar), IMHO. It's a different kind of sharp, again, IMO.

Great discussion... I really appreciate such informed banter!

 

[Pics2]

Fred and Shelby,
thank you both on your great explanations.
I guess I know what you are talking about, since I had this experience when I stepped up from APS-C to FF sensor of Canon. The difference is huge. I know that Aptus 22 has bigger sensor, but if Aptus 28 is better performer in every other aspect, than I wouldn't mind a little bit smaller sensor. But, I don't know. Is Aptus 28 sensor better than Aptus 22? They are priced the same

 

[Shashin]

...I'm just giving the point that the difference in "look" is still there as 44x33 is still a decent step up from 36x24 (larger than 48x36 is to 44x33)... and I with the particular system with which I use it (RZ), I find the 44x33 is much closer to the larger 645 format in rendering than it is to the smaller 35mm format.

+1