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It's the MTF advantage, stupid

Shashin

Well-known member
Clients don't care about MTF. They care about the image. It is funny, about 100 years ago only 4x5 was the acceptable format for journalism "because of its quality" and the smaller formats were just rejected out of hand. If an art is simply based on technical criteria, then it is no longer art. Edward Weston was rejected for an exhibition by the Royal Photographic Society because his work did not have enough "shadow detail."

But you MTF argument is false. A smaller format at a given aperture will actually have better MTF over the image simply because of greater DoF. Unless you are simply photographing flat planes, then MTF is not a reason for buying anything. Also, MTF is dependent on pixel pitch, so an RX1R will have exactly the same MTF as many 40MP MFD sensors like those from Phase One, Pentax, and Leica.

I buy cameras I enjoy using. That is about as complicated as it gets.
 

edouard

Member
But you MTF argument is false. A smaller format at a given aperture will actually have better MTF over the image simply because of greater DoF. Unless you are simply photographing flat planes, then MTF is not a reason for buying anything. Also, MTF is dependent on pixel pitch, so an RX1R will have exactly the same MTF as many 40MP MFD sensors like those from Phase One, Pentax, and Leica.

I buy cameras I enjoy using. That is about as complicated as it gets.
Me too, but LOL ... maybe if you don't like technicalities (and the laws of optics) you shouldn't talk about technicalities you don't understand ;-)
 

Shashin

Well-known member
Me too, but LOL ... maybe if you don't like technicalities (and the laws of optics) you shouldn't talk about technicalities you don't understand ;-)
Well, perhaps you should not talk about professions you have never worked in. As far as understanding the technical aspects of photography, perhaps amateurs are not the best people to ask. ;-)
 

Grayhand

Well-known member
eduardo, I am with you on a lot of points about MF-cameras and backs.
And I do my choices more and more based on feeling rather than logic.
I had customers running circles around me with their 35mm dslr,
but still coming back and ask me to teach them to take artistic photos of their models.
So I just become more and more obnoxious with my choice of camera and format.

But please, do not become patronizing, it do this discussion no service.
And I been hanging around this forum for some time now, and a small tip is to select those you try to patronize cartefully.
Sashin is a bad candidate for that type of treatment.

But anyway, bring it on, the audience is impatience for some action :watch:
Ray
 

edouard

Member
Well, perhaps you should not talk about professions you have never worked in. As far as understanding the technical aspects of photography, perhaps amateurs are not the best people to ask. ;-)
The authority argument!? LOL

Professional photographers are people earning money with their photography... it doesn't mean they know all the technicalities. They generally don't even care about those un-artistic technicalities!

Great painters don't know (and care) about the chemistry in their colors! Whereas a chemist amateur painter might know a lot about that! ;-)
 
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Shashin

Well-known member
The authority argument!? LOL

Professional photographers are people earning money with their photography... it doesn't mean they know all the technicalities. They generally don't even care about those un-artistic technicalities!

Great painters don't know (and care) about the chemistry in their colors! Whereas a chemist amateur painter could know a lot about that! ;-)
Man, you are going nowhere with this.

So, the great painter that is ignorant of the chemistry of paint has been successful in his field. But you are saying the amateur, that has details of a process that the painter is ignorant of, can show the success of the painter is really a product of chemistry. Interesting hypothesis. It is chemistry that makes van Gogh great then?

Perhaps it really shows that the amateur does not understand the significance of the underlying process.

BTW, you brought up professional photography as your "appeal to authority."
 
V

Vivek

Guest
Edouard, I found your title for this thread not offensive but comical because it is flawed.

Shashin was correct to point out the obvious directly. MTF of smaller format lenses (the good ones) are much higher than the ones used for the medium format lenses where the requirements are a lot lower.

Give it a rest.
 

edouard

Member
Edouard, I found your title for this thread not offensive but comical because it is flawed.

Shashin was correct to point out the obvious directly. MTF of smaller format lenses (the good ones) are much higher than the ones used for the medium format lenses where the requirements are a lot lower.

Give it a rest.
that's what I said in

The problem is that in order to have a larger image circle, lenses need to be bigger (larger + with a longer focal to keep the same fov) and are more difficult to build. So what you gain by the shift to lower spatial frequency advantage you might loose by the lense being less sharp (per millimeters on the projected image). If the lense is not too bad, you gain more from the former than loose with the latter!
yes smaller lens generally have better MTF but this can't compensate the shift to lower spatial frequencies you get with using a larger format!
You just get more total cycles/details/points as the projected image is larger.

But your right the title is kind of misleading, it should be the shift to lower spatial frequency advantage or the MTF shift advantage
 

edouard

Member
p.s. here I was talking about raw MTF curves: cycles vs % transmission, not the MTF curves - transmission at 2 or 3 fixed cycles vs distance from center - provided by constructors. If all your image details are larger = there is a shift to lower spatial frequencies, where transmission is higher ...

I can see that I'm not a good explainer, nor a good MF PR guy ;-) But all this is nonetheless true and represents an interesting subject
 
Having just returned from a fishing trip where I had my RZ Pro IID, Linhof Techno, IQ160 and an olympus TG-1, I can say I got at least 1 lovely image with each camera. They all served different purposes at different times.

I don't feel any need to justify MF. Too tired now, I may post some examples from the trip tomorrow.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
... I don't feel any need to justify MF. ...
+1

I love MF film. I know I'd love MF digital too, if I could afford to play with it. At the moment, it's simply too expensive to play with, and I don't want to get serious enough to try to figure a way for it to pay for itself.

But justifying any particular format or camera type or photographic endeavor is always just foolishness. I was lambasted for showing some pinhole/zone plate photos recently, but ultimately I couldn't give a damn. I like them, and a sizable community of other folks seem to as well. If others do not, well, that's fine too. But I'm not going to try to defend them.

Life's too short.

G
 

Frederic

Member
The I want gets in the way as well. Sometimes the business side just has to take a back seat to I want to have this regardless if it makes little sense. I have that argument with myself often. It's like having a devil on one shoulder and a angel on the other side and the debate rages on. Lol

Sometimes that little **** wins the battle.:D

You need to realize your in Dante's inferno here. Lol
There's the business side indeed, but even as professionals we should take our enjoyment into account too.

I'm in a situation where the D800 is more than enough to answer my clients needs. Buying a tech cam + DB was totally irrational from a business point of view.
On the other hand I'm also the one behind the camera and feel I deserve working with tools that give me pleasure and satisfaction. This is really the only justification I had to come up with :angel:
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Thanks for the post.

As Doug P mentioned ... the redundant "this is as good as that" gets old. The "low defense" is due to it being a waste of time continually trying. It never ends well, and no one alters their opinion.

Personally, I'm less concerned with the IQ differences between formats, even though I subscribe to the notion that there are visible differences ... and more concerned about the "good enough" syndrome so prevalent today. As such, I am speaking not as a fellow photographer but as a client. In my career in advertising I have been responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars in photography and cinematography, worked with photographers from all walks of life and levels of experience, in down economies and up economies.

The constant "good enough" references to professional photographers is a red herring ... the spread of talent, applications, experience, tech knowledge and resultant gear needs is just as great as with enthusiasts ... there is no one standard of professional photography, and a wide range of levels and standards with-in each category of professional photography.

The whole "it's good enough" for clients today is also misleading. Most photographers do not have a clue about their clients, or how to sell them ... some do as they are told, and bitch about it later. A majority of photographers are crappy salespeople, where some are extremely good at it, or have a rep. Far too many photographers know their business, but not that of their clients ... so they can't relate what they want to do to reasons for the client to buy better work, and it all devolves to pricing as the criteria. From what I can tell, that is epidemic today.

"Good enough" may work for some for awhile, but that doesn't mean "all". IMO, "Good Enough" is a creative disease ... it can start with the quality of the images, but like a cancer spread to the qualities of the imagery. In my career in advertising, I've seen that happen over and over and over in all sorts of creative efforts. The first signs of failure is often a decrease in craftsmanship, as opposed to a relentless push for even a little bit better.

Just a few thoughts on the subject ...

- Marc
 

Stan ROX

Member
I don't know ... I'm feeling quite not very comfortable as I have the feeling I was the one forcing edouard into this...

However, I just posted two pictures in the "Artful Pictures..." section. Both of them are not exactly safe for work - nothing too extreme of course - but you may want to take a look and guess which one is done with either a Hasselblad or a Nikon System.

Please guys: I don't want to start any discussion about the need of MFD nor the replacement of a H with a N. I just wanted to share MY decision and why I did so.

I fully understand, that there are a million reasons why a MFD is still better in some cases than a DSLR (and vice versa) as like for Fashion <-> Sports.

S.
 
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