I friend of mine works for a camera shop, so I get to use photographic equipment for the weekend etc.
The weekend just gone I had the use of an Olympus E20 digital camera (£1250 worth).
Having loaded the images into the Mac and doing some minor touching up in Photoshop, I printed them out at 600dpi, which is twice what I would normaly print out at, but after first printing them out at 300 dpi and noticing pixilation and dots etc I thought I'd better up the output.
These prints were only 10x8 and the quality was very poor indeed considering that for the price of this plastic excuse for a camera you can buy a brand new Mamiya RZ67 pro 2 film camera or even a second hand Hasselblad 500cm with standard lens and WLF and a couple of spare backs. Both these options are a zillion leagues better than this plastic Olympus thing, I here from my friend that works at the camera shop that the Nikon D1, Fuji S1 and even the new £6000 Contax N are also crap quality compaired to even to a modest second hand Nikon FM2.
I think that digital chip technolodgy has about 3 years to go before it can even come close to Ektachrome or 50 asa Fujichrome celuloid film.
In the meantime, just who are these so-called professional SLR's aimed at ? co's all the pro's I know won't touch them, and yes this is after they have tried them out.
Beethoven.
You seem to have reached some sweeping conclusions on the basis of a weekend's testing. With respect, I'd like to suggest the following...
quote:Originally posted by Beethoven:
The weekend just gone I had the use of an Olympus E20 digital camera (£1250 worth).
Having loaded the images into the Mac and doing some minor touching up in Photoshop, I printed them out at 600dpi, which is twice what I would normaly print out at, but after first printing them out at 300 dpi and noticing pixilation and dots etc I thought I'd better up the output.
You don't say how you were printing them, or at what resolution the printer was running, or how you chose to "up the output", but presumably it was on some kind of inkjet, and presumably at a (print) resolution of 720/1440/2880 dpi. I've covered this topic before on this list, and I don't want to bore folks with it again, but briefly; my experience is that you will get the best results from a printer (any printer) when the printer resolution is directly divisible by the image resolution. "upping the output" to 600 dpi will make no difference if you're printing at 720/1440 /2880dpi - except of course, to very likely make it worse. Changing the image resolution to 360dpi would certainly have made a difference, as would dropping it to 180 dpi. You also benefit from significantly larger print sizes at these lower image resolutions. Please don't take my word for it (as if!) - just try it.
quote:
These prints were only 10x8 and the quality was very poor indeed considering that for the price of this plastic excuse for a camera you can buy a brand new Mamiya RZ67 pro 2 film camera or even a second hand Hasselblad 500cm with standard lens and WLF and a couple of spare backs. Both these options are a zillion leagues better than this plastic Olympus thing,
Again, with respect, if you're getting pixellated images from a 5MP camera at a print size of 10x8 then something is seriously wrong with the camera, your pictures or your workflow. I have colleagues using the E10 and E20 professionally, comfortably producing A3 prints on Fuji Frontier and Durst Lambda printers (ie on photo paper).
Also as I'm sure you'll agree, a " brand new Mamiya RZ67 pro 2 film camera" is a very different proposition from an Olympus E20 - though I'm not sure about your pricing; an RZ67 Pro2 outfit (body, back, wlf, 110mm) is currently around £1650 + VAT, though there are many, many of them availablle second-hand from professional dealers.
quote:
I here from my friend that works at the camera shop that the Nikon D1, Fuji S1 and even the new £6000 Contax N are also crap quality compaired to even to a modest second hand Nikon FM2.
Again, with all respect to you and your friend at the camera shop, the Nikon D1 (now discontinued) was a first-generation professional digital SLR which during it's 18-month (or so) life completely changed the face of digital photography amongst (particularly) photojournalists and other "former 35mm jockeys" . Inevitably there were some problems initially (Magenta cast etc..) but on balance, the advantages outweighed any difficulties, and this hasn't stopped the camera being incredibly successful, with professional photographers routinely printing D1 images up to 20x30 and beyond (see Forums info below). The Fuji S1 built on Nikon's original idea and developed it further (albeit in a "consumer SLR body) thoroughly nailing the price/performance ratio fair and square. The Nikon D1X and D1H take the original idea to a new level, with the D1X eating into RZ territory. The eagerly-awaited Contax-N was finally announced at PMA recently (6 million pixel full-frame Phillips chip in a Contax body) but as there has been no independent testing, no hands-on reports, and to the best of my knowledge, no sample images released by Contax, to write it off as "crap" is at best, premature.
On a personal note, I can vouch for the quality of the Phillips chip as I have one in my SinarBack, albeit a cooled system, unlike the uncooled chip in the Contax; whatever, it will be interesting to see the quality of the images it produces when a production model becomes available.
quote:
I think that digital chip technolodgy has about 3 years to go before it can even come close to Ektachrome or 50 asa Fujichrome celuloid film.
Sorry, but that point was reached long ago (far longer than 3 years ago, BTW) it has simply been very expensive...
quote:
In the meantime, just who are these so-called professional SLR's aimed at ? co's all the pro's I know won't touch them, and yes this is after they have tried them out.
Initially they were aimed at photojournalists, but gradually other professional photographers came to see the advantages as well; I'll admit, I'm a complete digital SLR convert, after sneeriing at them long ago 'cos they were "only jumped up 35mm cameras". Since I bought my first Dig.SLR a year ago, I've hardly used my high-end back; easy handling, zoom lenses, and terriffic quality all add up to an irresistable package. If the guys you know won't touch them, then all I can say is that the more fool them. Perhaps they've had bad demonstrations (it's almost staggeringly difficult to get a decent demo from any dealer, even in London), perhaps they just didn't really know how to use the cameras properly (there's a very steep learning curve with most of them), perhaps they're just anti the whole idea, or perhaps their clients are? Whatever, it's their decision; it wasn't mine.
If you'd like more opinions of Digital SLRs, take a look at the Forums on Rob Galbraith's site http://www.robgalbraith.com/
and the message boards of D1Scussion at http://www.anima.de/cgi/lyris.en.pl?visit=d1scussion&id=150133083
(you can read the messages without subscribing)
There's also an interesting qualitative comparison between the Coolpix 5000 and the D1X at http://bermangraphics.com/coolpix/5000-d1x.htm
Sorry if this post is a bit long; hopefully it's interesting.
Best regards.
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Peter Millard
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peter@petermillard.com
Hi Beethoven,
I have an Olympus E10, the 4 megapixel version of the E20. You say it is plastic, in fact the camera is mostly alloy with just a few plastic attachments. With respect to your printing problems I can only assume that you have either a duff camera or printer as I can get prints upto A3 on my Epson printer. At present film has the edge over Digital when you need large high quality prints, however for smaller ie upto A3 the difference is not so great now, which is why a lot of social and photo journalists use them. I also have 2 Mamiya 645 medium format cameras which a great for large prints (A2 and above) but below that I always use the E10 or my C2020. To say that the E20, D1 and the Contax are crap is a bit over the top and really questions the abilities of the user.
I totally agree with Peter here, especially with regard to printÃng anything over 300dpi .
cheers
Steve Allen
Peter's right, we've been round this loop several times here. I've an Olympus C303Z (3.34Mpixels) that will print to 10x8 with no visible pixellation (image is 2048x1536) on an Epson 750, or on a print-room dye-sublimation printer. A colleague has a Nikon D1 that he regularly prints to A3 with no problems.
So there must be something very wrong with either your camera, or your processing, or your printer. Or maybe you'd not set it to the highest resolution?
Sorry about my delay to this post. Thanks everyone for very informative responces.
Believe me I am trying so hard to become a convert, having already converted from PC's to Apple Macs recently I am very much into moving with the times.
So far I am only half a convert in that stuff I shoot on my RZ I usually have the best shots scanned onto CD at huge file sizes by Keishi Labs in London for £35 plus vat each, very expensive, but the best you can get.
I then spend about 7 hours touching up tini flaws on models skin etc, then print out of my Epson A3 printer myself and the results are just as good as any Cyberchrome hand prints that I have ever seen.
Once I hired a digital back for the RZ, I woudn't buy one as they currently cost £8000 new. The results from this was just as bad as the Olympus E20, in fact the chip is the same size and when meduim format chips do fill the whole frame my lenses will become three times the focal leangth (or thereabouts).
I know exactly what I am doing with digital stuff and the E20 wasn't faulty, nor is my printer, I'm just a perfectionist and at the moment I don't think any self respecting photographer (even digital) could put his hand on heart and say "yes this E20 is just as good as film" trust me is isn't, not even close.
I have been to professional demo's in London (Fuji S1) and checked out poster size professional prints that where (supposedly) taken on it and I thought the pixilation was a joke whilst everyone around me was saying how great it looked, I think they were being polite as there where reps hanging around.
Sorry faulks I appriciate your help here but like I said I am not old fasioned, I'm still only 35 yo and I have trannies scanned, touch up on Adobe Photoshop 6 on an Apple G4 so if that isn't digital I don't know what is.
As for digital CCD's, they realy do have about 3 years to go (before they are consumer affordable and as good as 50 asa 120 slide film).
In today's nationals there's an ad for the E10 for £1099. This includes VAT, both auxilary lenses, a UV, mains unit and so on. digitaldepot.co.uk Looks like a bargain to me.
tom.
quote:Originally posted by Beethoven:
Sorry about my delay to this post. Thanks everyone for very informative responces....Once I hired a digital back for the RZ, I woudn't buy one as they currently cost £8000 new. The results from this was just as bad as the Olympus E20, in fact the chip is the same size and when meduim format chips do fill the whole frame my lenses will become three times the focal leangth (or thereabouts).
OK, a couple of issues here; don't know which back you hired (Imacon, PhaseOne, Sinarback, Leaf, Colorcrisp, Megavision, Jenoptik Eyelike?) but any of these high-end backs for an RZ will produce images of vastly superior technical quality to any consumer camera or medium-format film camera if used correctly; if they don't, then with respect, the fault lies not with the digital back.
Secondly, because of the nature of current CCD manufacture, the failure rate in producing physically larger chips is exponentially greater; the largest chip currently available in a camera back is the 38mm square Kodak chip used in the DCS-Pro back and the PhaseOne H20, and it is significantly smaller than the film format the cameras it fits were designed to support. This is an issue with all digital camera backs, and one which really needs addressing by the manufacturers; the problem is that most photographers, faced with paying between £8K and £20K for a high-end digital back then baulk at shelling out any more for a specific body to use it on. Generally speaking we prefer to keep the cameras and lenses we already own, adding shorter lenses as needed for digital use. There are other options, notably the Horsman Digiflex and Compactcam, which allow the use of digital backs with regular Nikkor lenses, but these are not ideal solutions, and are generally expensive.
quote:
I know exactly what I am doing with digital stuff and the E20 wasn't faulty, nor is my printer, I'm just a perfectionist and at the moment I don't think any self respecting photographer (even digital) could put his hand on heart and say "yes this E20 is just as good as film" trust me is isn't, not even close.
With hand on heart, if you are getting pixellated inkjet prints at any size up to A3+ then, there is something seriously awry with your workflow; it simply should not happen...
quote:
I have been to professional demo's in London (Fuji S1) and checked out poster size professional prints that where (supposedly) taken on it and I thought the pixilation was a joke whilst everyone around me was saying how great it looked, I think they were being polite as there where reps hanging around.
Yep, the S1 was I think, "oversold" by Fuji, and those big prints (still on display at Calumet in Drummond St. BTW) just emphasise what it can't do, not what it can; when I need to shoot stuff that repro's at poster size, I wouldn't dream of using mine, but for everything else up to A3 (repro) it's absolutely brilliant - and a tenth the price of my SinarBack. And you know what, if you look around the vast majority of photographs reproduce at A3 or less (DPS in a magazine) - usually a lot less.
quote:
Sorry faulks I appriciate your help here but like I said I am not old fasioned, I'm still only 35 yo and I have trannies scanned, touch up on Adobe Photoshop 6 on an Apple G4 so if that isn't digital I don't know what is.
Half-digital? Seriously, if you want to make 6 ft x 4 ft fine-art prints and you're happy with what you have right now, then stick with it; the longer you stay out of the digital capture loop the more you'll get for your money in a few years time. Your RZ & all your lenses will be worthless by then, of course, as will mine...
quote:
As for digital CCD's, they realy do have about 3 years to go (before they are consumer affordable and as good as 50 asa 120 slide film).
Not sure which particular afordable consumer camera that takes 120 tranny film you were comparing it to but as I said before, the quality of the CCds is already there, they're just expensive - the new Foveon X3 chip looks interesting though (foveon.com) so let's wait and see.
Best
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Peter Millard
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peter@petermillard.com