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Should I or not?

Bracketing and GND always worked for me and have been working for decades.
Then perhaps I could ask you to have a look into that post and download my RAW files and help me have a look? :)

And the 80mp is significantly larger than 50mp.
When you do stitching by movements on a technical camera you fully utilize the whole image circle of a lens. The IQ150 has a smaller sensor, but the pixel density is about the same as an IQ180. For example if you stitch on the 40HR lens, you get about 130 MP on the IQ180, but you also get about 130 MP on the IQ150.
 
Cambo+Rodie 40mm+(Rodie 90mm)+Nikon D810 (or lighter Sony A7R) +24mm+70-200mm f/4 do not weigh much at all for long hike.
I have to admire your strong body. For me I even gave up the Alpa MAX and picked the Alpa STC. I might eventually end up with an A7R-II or A9 with a Canon TS-E and a Sigma 24mm f1.4 Art for long trips.
 

Landscapelover

Senior Subscriber Member
I think you've missed the point of all this discussion as its never been in dispute what an IQ180 is capable of and this possibly is why at some points this topid has got a little heated as peopld are looking at this far to personally.

The OP doesn't like using his IQ180 and finds if far to limiting for his capture needs and quality expectations compared to their Canon equipment.
It is not personal. I've had several MFDB, not only IQ180. I've enjoyed trying them all. I sold and bought the IQ180 back. At the current price point, it is a very attractive MFDB. I've just want to make a point that changing the MFDB will only cost you money. You've already had the best MFDB and the new CMOS back will not give you any better images.

To me, for landscape photography except night photography, the IQ180 is more than enough.

However, medium format is not for everyone. There are lots of limitations. It is not Canon or Nikon for sure. Take it or leave it.
 
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Landscapelover

Senior Subscriber Member
I have to admire your strong body. For me I even gave up the Alpa MAX and picked the Alpa STC. I might eventually end up with an A7R-II or A9 with a Canon TS-E and a Sigma 24mm f1.4 Art for long trips.
As I said, I usually pack only one system, most commonly IQ180, Cambo, Rodie 23mm or 40mm and Rodie 90mm or SK 60XL.

I am a small Asian guy. I used to pack more than these in old day. I believe any dedicated landscape photographer can handle these.
 

jagsiva

Active member
Do you guys really use 23mm tilted or shifted a lot when doing landscapes? Isn't this more for indoor and architecture?
For my taste FF 21mm FOV is quite wide already for landscape use, and the 24 Super Elmar on the S or the 21/3.4 on the M or the Zeiss21/2.8 do fine IMO in regards of corner performance.
I am not talking against Tech Cams (and as some here know I recently bought an Alpa TCS) but I think we can not say that there were no sufficient wide angle lenses for "non-tech" cameras.
I use it exclusively for landscapes and with 1 deg of tilt @f8-9, and tripod about 5.5-6ft, the DoF is maximized at HFD. Sharp into the corners. Only issue is watching for the nasty red flare, and sometimes it is only after I load it up in C1 that I notice it, so well after I can do anything about it.
 

Landscapelover

Senior Subscriber Member
When you do stitching by movements on a technical camera you fully utilize the whole image circle of a lens. The IQ150 has a smaller sensor, but the pixel density is about the same as an IQ180. For example if you stitch on the 40HR lens, you get about 130 MP on the IQ180, but you also get about 130 MP on the IQ150.[/QUOTE]

As a landscape photographer, I prefer full frame. I haven't always stitched. I also take either a single frame or panning, therefore, 80mp is 80mp and 50mp is 50mp.
Although 50mp is very fine for landscape photography, the price of IQ180 is very attractive compared to the new CMOS back. It has more mp and fantastic dynamic range.
If I've already owned the IQ180, I'd think twice of trading to the 50mp-CMOS DB.
 
I am confused now. Am I right the IQ150 is not full frame? As a landscape photographer, I prefer full frame. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I haven't always stitched. I also take either a single frame or panning, therefore, 80mp is 80mp and 50mp is 50mp.
By panning you would get spherical information, which would be less than ideal when you stitch a very wide angle of view in the 4:3 or 3:2 format. You would get rather soft corners in the output image if you force a rectilinear stitch out of the spherical information. If you fail to find the correct nodal point you also risk getting parallax.

On a technical camera such like the Alpa MAX or Arca RM3Di or the Cambo equivalent you can have lateral movements and vertical movements at the same time. This is the easiest way to get parallax-free rectilinear stitching. It is essentially a way to help you enjoy what can be captured by a sensor as large as the whole image circle of the lens. You simply have a sensor with size beyond the current technology :)

Below shows the Visualization Tool made by Digital Transitions:

For the IQ180 + 40HR combo: 2-way stitching gets you about 130 MP:


For the IQ150 + 40HR combo: 4-way stitching gets you about 130 MP as well:
 

gazwas

Active member
On a technical camera such like the Alpa MAX or Arca RM3Di or the Cambo equivalent you can have lateral movements and vertical movements at the same time. This is the easiest way to get parallax-free rectilinear stitching. It is essentially a way to help you enjoy what can be captured by a sensor as large as the whole image circle of the lens. You simply have a sensor with size beyond the current technology :)
You make is sound so easy - if only stitching was as simple as that. :D

When stitching with a tech camera you have to be very specific with every point in capture and its very difficult to see errors or problems until you sit at the computer after the shoot. Anything other than very simple stitches was always a bit of a disappointment when I shot with a tech camera so for me it's hardly a selling point. LCC correction in C1 was great on single images but with large movements I never thought the images matched 100% colour wise and I found it very frustrations always needing to hop into PS to fix shots.
 

algrove

Well-known member
There is simply no getting around it, the mirror for 645 is ~1.6x larger in linear dimensions than the 135 mirror. Mirror slap is massive, so working with MF is necessarily slower.

None of this is new BTW, this always existed when film was the dominant medium.
Thanks for bringing up the 645 mirror issue again. I do not know if you currently own (or have experience with) the Pentax 645Z, but the 645Z mirror dampening is very good versus the 645D (from what I read) and from my own experience with the Hassy 503CW. Many reviews have also mentioned same, such as MR and MT. Can't remember what Lloyd C said about this point. Mirror slap is no longer massive with the 645Z to me.

Also the mirror lockup (MLU) capability of the 645Z is just about prefect. If one uses the IR remote the first push locks up the mirror and after waiting a few seconds, in case vibration is occurring from locking up the mirror, I then hit the remote a second time to capture the image. I detect no vibration in peeping large. The same also holds true for using the 250 CF V lens in same manner. Even hand held shots with MLU have proved successful while pressing the shutter half way to activate MLU and then a second time for capture.

I regularly use the M240 and find for critical focussing with LV, I must deactivate LV to reduce the chance of multiple shutter actions from causing vibration. That also makes for slow image capture which I don't mind for landscapes.
 
You make is sound so easy - if only stitching was as simple as that. :D

When stitching with a tech camera you have to be very specific with every point in capture and its very difficult to see errors or problems until you sit at the computer after the shoot. Anything other than very simple stitches was always a bit of a disappointment when I shot with a tech camera so for me it's hardly a selling point. LCC correction in C1 was great on single images but with large movements I never thought the images matched 100% colour wise and I found it very frustrations always needing to hop into PS to fix shots.
Well for me it wasn't really that bad. I didn't find much parallax to worry about except that I detected the mazing issue for the first time (mazing can be seen in the examples below because I did not have prior knowledge about it). Can't really complain much. It's a lot easier than dealing with the alignment issues for bracketing :D I also didn't have color issues (perhaps I'm not so picky with any residual color casts... just didn't bother with Photoshop...).



 
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Paul2660

Well-known member
The issue with night photography, at least working with star movements, is you really don't want to leave the back or camera open for 1 long exposure and instead your results will be greatly improved with stacking.

Stacking with MFD, is really next to impossible, (I can't say for sure if the Pentax 645z has an intervalometer), but Phase doesn't and Mamiya doesn't, so if you want to stack, you have to manually hit the release each time, and even with the 150/250, you will have gaps. Gaps can be fixed, (one way is to try the method I describe on this forum in the stacking article), there are others. Leaving open for 1 exposure costs you a lot faint stars. And if you work with the moon, which adds so much to the shot, you will be at F 6.3 to F8 and lose even more faint stars. This is just one person's opinion.

But even worse, if you stack, you need a fast lens, and there really is not a fast MF lens, i.e. good F2.8 wide lens by any company that I am aware other than the Mamiya 150mm F2.8, but that's way way to long for most night work. The average wide, say Mamiya 35mm F 3.5 wide open is next to terrible in the corners, enough so that your Phase 150 image will be cropped down to a 35mm sized image from a D810. The 35mm cameras, have some excellent wide and fast lenses.

Back to the crop, actually for some it's a big deal. Net it's 30% less capture space. Sure if you are in Death Valley or a lot of places out west, you can easily accommodate the crop, in fact it may work in your favor, just like a cropped 35mm sensor works for wildlife work. However in Arkansas and the Ozarks, I am not that often working vistas but even when I am, I will need the 28 Rodie to get the full shot. And when I working a creek, I only bring the 28 and 40, as the 60 and up won't work in most situations.

That's not to say, if Phase One came out with a trade in on the 260 to 250 that was not a total financial loss for me, that I would not consider it. I still need to shoot one with my setup, and see for myself and that's harder than most seem to realize, as getting a demo for me has been impossible. Phase is selling plenty of these backs to new users or upgrades from P45+ where they offer as much as 24K for trade in. Only time will tell if they decide to offer a more reasonable trade in to other backs, or if the market demands it. What a lot of people forget is Phase is selling a huge number of these backs in Asia probably more than 1/2 of their sales right now as that market is wide open. One of the reason's that the 50c was so cheap in Japan for a while.

As it sits right now:

Full frame, more resolution, needs more light, can't work well in low light if a faster shutter speed is required. May get to 15 minutes (260) with all the right conditions. Battery life is much shorter especially if you use Live View and or zero Latency or both. Back will heat up in 85 degree normal summertime shots and thus noise levels increase. Most times you need to bracket a series due to possibility of shadow noise issues. No real ability to push iso unless you use sensor plus, and STILL a huge debate on what the base iso really is 35/IQ180 or 100, and 50/160-260 or 100.

Cropped sensor, less resolution by 10MP (I can live with that), has great shadow recovery as much as 2.75 stops maybe more. Noise is less destructive more grain like and much less stuck pixels. Highlights may be a bit more tricky but now you can expose for hightlights and push shadows with ease. True step-able iso settings, up to 6400 (however from what I have seen of 6400 it not all that good for large prints), but if you do move from 100 to 200, you are stepping up the chip and changing the reads. Live View that works as any other CMOS back, and in fact possibly better as it seems to work exceptionally well in low light unlike NIkon or Canon. Don't forgot Alpa's post from over a year ago where they showed a 250 at night in full darkness and they still have a totally usable LiveView, I have yet to see anything like this from Canon or Nikon.

No doubt for a first time buyer, there is a lot more to consider now.

Paul
 
Stacking with MFD, is really next to impossible, (I can't say for sure if the Pentax 645z has an intervalometer), but Phase doesn't and Mamiya doesn't, so if you want to stack, you have to manually hit the release each time, and even with the 150/250, you will have gaps.
Actually you can disable long exposure NR (darkframe NR) on the IQ150/IQ250 with virtually no impact on image quality. I usually shoot 15 minutes for each frame and stack. The gap between each frame can be as short as about 1 second and purely automatic if you use the Alpa FPS and disable darkframe NR at the same time.

However in Arkansas and the Ozarks, I am not that often working vistas but even when I am, I will need the 28 Rodie to get the full shot.
You could do stitching by movements with a cropped sensor and still achieve the same angle of view as fullframe :) If you really needed anything wider in a single exposure then you have the Canon 11-24mm f/4 L + 5DSR or 17 TS-E + IQ280/IQ260, which is one less justification to carry a technical camera with movements...
 

jerome_m

Member
Stacking with MFD, is really next to impossible, (I can't say for sure if the Pentax 645z has an intervalometer), but Phase doesn't and Mamiya doesn't, so if you want to stack, you have to manually hit the release each time
H cameras have a built-in intervalometer.

If Phase 1 or Pentax cameras don't have an intervalometer but use a somewhat standard remote socket, remote cords with built-in intervalometer function of Chinese origin can be had for little money.
 

jerome_m

Member
By panning you would get spherical information, which would be less than ideal when you stitch a very wide angle of view in the 4:3 or 3:2 format. You would get rather soft corners in the output image if you force a rectilinear stitch out of the spherical information.
You get exactly the same loss in the corners by panning or by shifting, because the loss is a mathematical consequence of the projection method.
 
You get exactly the same loss in the corners by panning or by shifting, because the loss is a mathematical consequence of the projection method.
You get sharp corners by shifting if you have a wide angle lens with sharp corners. You will never have sharp corners by panning if you try to stitch in 4:3 for very wide angle of view due to mathematical pixel resampling and stretching.
 

Paul2660

Well-known member
H cameras have a built-in intervalometer.

If Phase 1 or Pentax cameras don't have an intervalometer but use a somewhat standard remote socket, remote cords with built-in intervalometer function of Chinese origin can be had for little money.
Many cameras have a built in intervalometer but they don't have timer. So you can only use the built in intervaometer to 30 seconds which in most stacking situations for night time is not long enough. Most exposures will be between 1 minute and 2 min 30 seconds in the ISO 400 to 800 range. Not being familar with Hasselblad I don't know it has the timer also. Nikon and Canon and Somy and Fuji all have intervlometer functions but no timer for bulb. However Magic Lantern on Canon adds this.

Pail
 

Paul2660

Well-known member
Void

My Nikon 14-24 can get me there in a single frame but without movements. I prefer movements. Nikon is a bit weak on such glass IMO.

I also doubt the Canon 11-24 will stand up to the new Canon sensors at 11mm without some loss in the corners and vignetting but even it still won't allow movements. I also am assuming it will have the same issues with filters due to the front elements as the Nikon does and will have flare issues from the curvature of the front element.

Still yet to be seen until this lens ships. It won't be a great lens for night work as it is not a fast wide at F4 base.

Paul
 
Many cameras have a built in intervalometer but they don't have timer. So you can only use the built in intervaometer to 30 seconds which in most stacking situations for night time is not long enough. Most exposures will be between 1 minute and 2 min 30 seconds in the ISO 400 to 800 range. Not being familar with Hasselblad I don't know it has the timer also. Nikon and Canon and Somy and Fuji all have intervlometer functions but no timer for bulb. However Magic Lantern on Canon adds this.

Pail
You might want to check the manual for Alpa 12 FPS. If I remember correctly it would be possible to automate a timed sequence with each frame in the multi-minute territory (with gaps no longer than 1-2 seconds).
 
Void

My Nikon 14-24 can get me there in a single frame but without movements. I prefer movements. Nikon is a bit weak on such glass IMO.

I also doubt the Canon 11-24 will stand up to the new Canon sensors at 11mm without some loss in the corners and vignetting but even it still won't allow movements. I also am assuming it will have the same issues with filters due to the front elements as the Nikon does and will have flare issues from the curvature of the front element.

Still yet to be seen until this lens ships. It won't be a great lens for night work as it is not a fast wide at F4 base.

Paul
Well, we share the same opinion: we want the widest and we want movements at the same time!

Widest solutions with movements:

17TSE + IQ250: 13mm single exposure, 11mm stitch (very limited movements; very limited choices for filters; soft corners)
23HR + P45+: 16mm single exposure, 14mm stitch (limited movements; no live view; less DR)
17TSE + 5DSR: 17mm single exposure, 11mm stitch (very limited choices for filters; soft corners; less DR)
23HR + IQ250: 17mm single exposure, 14mm stitch (possible rippling artifacts in the sky in extreme post-processing)
32HR + IQ260: 21mm single exposure, 14mm stitch (limited choices for filters if you use the centerfilter; delicate lens; possible tiling artifacts in the sky; less DR)

No solution can be perfect. You would have to give up something anyway :D I myself found that the 23HR + IQ250 combo has the least compromise.
 
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Landscapelover

Senior Subscriber Member


By panning you would get spherical information, which would be less than ideal when you stitch a very wide angle of view in the 4:3 or 3:2 format. You would get rather soft corners in the output image if you force a rectilinear stitch out of the spherical information. If you fail to find the correct nodal point you also risk getting parallax.
I have to admit I am just an amateur landscape photographer. My standard may be lower for the soft edge etc.
Practically for landscape photography, I am not sure it's right about the statement you can't do panning with tech cam. I do it all the time and it's as easy as the DSLR. This image (minimal crop at the upper and lower edges) is almost 360 degrees with IQ260 and Cambo+40mm HR. It would be insanely big if I printed. I have a small home.
 
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