[Winder]

It will take some breakthroughs in optics to design pocket cameras that deliver medium-format quality.

I'm not sure that will ever happen. Cell phone cameras might exceed the IQ of MF one day, but focal length, sensor size, subject distance all effect how the captured image will look, and the larger the print the greater the difference.

[Parry]

Get away from the old Bayer sensor and make M4/3 's and APS-C sensors that are:

1. Three times better in low light;

2. Resolve reds better;

3. That use electronic shutters rather than these old mechanical clunkers.

[jon404]

@Digitalis -- sounds fascinating... and expensive. What is the cost per print? Put up with me... I haven't developed film since the mid-1970s, and I'm imagining you scraping little bits of metal off a platinum coin, and then making some kind of paste to smear on the paper. Would also appreciate a link to a good source of info about your process. The ability to fix an image that will stay for hundreds of years -- that's special.

@Winder -- years ago, I had a small Olympus SW-1020 waterproof camera. The lens was fixed in the camera body behind a glass window... it did not move outwards... and that camera had a 3X zoom. They could do that because the sensor was so small. Now bear with me, but if you could make a 50 MP sensor in that small size, you might -- might! -- be able to use software to artificially enhance shadow details in what would be a huge medium-format image. You would have to skate around the reality that far, far fewer photons fall on your teeny sensor compared to a 'real' one.

I'm assuming a much more powerful camera processor -- that can create greatly enhanced images on the fly. My Pentax cameras already do that on a primitive level, with the Auto settings for highlights and shadows, and of course white balance. As long as that image, like one made in Green mode, looks close to what I saw with my eyes, I accept the camera image as real. Am just imagining further developments here!

[Nesster]

I cant' say i'm looking forward to teaching the wet plate process...who wants to handle the potassium cyanide?



Because I know how to make a pure platinum print - most platinum prints don't contain much elemental platinum in them, they are mostly palladium. Palladium, is cheaper and difficult to separate from platinum. The reason why most platinum prints have such a steep contrast curve is because of this impurity, palladium also gives a warm tone to the images which I do not want. Pure platinum prints are dead neutral, silver halide prints are basically green and white - you need to put the prints in a selenium bath to neutralize that green cast, which also has the practical upshot of increasing the archival properties of the print.

Platinum prints are well known for their inherent immunity to the kinds of degradation silver halide prints go through and if they are displayed properly there isn't any reason why they won't last hundreds - if not thousands of years. Platinum prints also fetch high prices because of their excellent archival properties, and also because of the skill and expense of the raw materials required to make them.

Or, you can just say: Because I can.

My hat's off to you for doing this; there's a Penumbra (?) foundation in NYC that teaches these types of processes that someday I'll take a class or two at.,

[jogiba]

I'm not sure that will ever happen. Cell phone cameras might exceed the IQ of MF one day, but focal length, sensor size, subject distance all effect how the captured image will look, and the larger the print the greater the difference.

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/76-non-pentax-cameras-canon-nikon-etc/255...0-display.html

[RobA_Oz]

I'm not sure that will ever happen. Cell phone cameras might exceed the IQ of MF one day, but focal length, sensor size, subject distance all effect how the captured image will look, and the larger the print the greater the difference.

Resolution is one thing, but the laws of physics, while eternally added to, ultimately determine the limits here, so I'm sure it won't happen.

You can play with an image as much as you like, and of course with the Q for example you can simulate narrow depth of field, but every time you do so, you remove it further from reality. That's fine, insofar as it goes, if that's what you want, but the more widespread it becomes the further humanity retreats into fantasy, and I doubt that's a trend to be encouraged. If you need further explanation, refer to just about every magazine cover today, especially those concerned with selling a "lifestyle".

[Digitalis]

Digitalis -- sounds fascinating... and expensive. What is the cost per print? Put up with me... I haven't developed film since the mid-1970s, and I'm imagining you scraping little bits of metal off a platinum coin, and then making some kind of paste to smear on the paper. Would also appreciate a link to a good source of info about your process. The ability to fix an image that will stay for hundreds of years -- that's special.

A 16X20 platinum print will cost you about $4,500. Hardly anyone can print at that size because platinum prints are nearly always a contact print, traditionally the negative is placed in an open frame along with a sheet of printing paper, and exposed to ultraviolet light (usually from the sun) - 8X10 format and larger formats can be used to do this, however I own an enlarger with an ultraviolet light source and an appropriate super-apochromat lens to print my works, so I can go far beyond the standard paper sizes if I wish. Unfortunately the purified platinum emulsion I keep separated into two separate restrainer / activator, solutions because mixing up the two parts and leaving them exposed to the air for a few days can lead to violent detonation. The emulsion itself is quite thin and has a distinct blue colour due to the precursor compounds that get broken up when exposed to ultraviolet that leads to elemental platinum forming in the fibers of the printing paper- instead of just the surface of the paper like you get with gelatin silver prints.

Here is an example of one of my platinum prints:


I use a brush to give each image a unique border, Each image is produced in a limited edition of 10 prints due to the fact that the estar base the film emulsion rests on is attacked by exposure to UV. To limit damage to the negative, I limit the number of prints I make from it. I do get reproductions made of each image, these reproductions are created from a scanned image and printed using a monochrome inkjet printing process known as piezography which uses elemental carbon to form the image - Carbon should be as chemically inert and robust as platinum itself.

[Winder]

https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/76-non-pentax-cameras-canon-nikon-etc/255...0-display.html

The technology is cool and all, but that doesn't change anything. There is a reason why 20" x 24" Polaroids look so damn amazing.
20×24 Studio Last time i checked it was $100 every time you released the shutter.

Sensor technology is pretty amazing itself, but it doesn't change how focal length, subject distance and sensor size interact to create the final image. Smaller sensors will get better and better, but they won't change the laws of physics.

[Digitalis]

Smaller sensors will get better and better, but they won't change the laws of physics.

I agree 1" sensor cannot compete with the DOF obtainable from a 4X5 camera - however that also works in reverse. There is also the simple fact that the smaller a format gets the bigger the strain on lens quality and bokeh.

[jon404]

Agree about the permanence of carbon -- drawings I make with graphite 'lead' pencil will last forever, if I draw on a rock instead of paper...

[jogiba]

The technology is cool and all, but that doesn't change anything. There is a reason why 20" x 24" Polaroids look so damn amazing.
20×24 Studio Last time i checked it was $100 every time you released the shutter.

Sensor technology is pretty amazing itself, but it doesn't change how focal length, subject distance and sensor size interact to create the final image. Smaller sensors will get better and better, but they won't change the laws of physics.

So the Camera Industry is in The Dumper because there are no 20x24 Polaroid cameras available for the consumer market ? The mirrorless cameras in many smartphones is better than most point and shoot cameras consumers had just a few years ago so the camera companies need to scale back production of stand alone cameras.
Flickr Search: nokia 808
Flickr Search: nokia 1020
Flickr Search: iPhone

[Parry]

The answer is probably reduce product lines and production volumes to just the good stuff.

Move to mirrorless as it's cheaper to manufacture than SLR.

[Digitalis]

The answer is probably reduce product lines and production volumes to just the good stuff.

in other words: consolidate

Move to mirrorless as it's cheaper to manufacture than SLR.

So you think building an entirely new lens line up would be cheaper than continuing with existing designs?

[Rondec]

@Digitalis -- sounds fascinating... and expensive. What is the cost per print? Put up with me... I haven't developed film since the mid-1970s, and I'm imagining you scraping little bits of metal off a platinum coin, and then making some kind of paste to smear on the paper. Would also appreciate a link to a good source of info about your process. The ability to fix an image that will stay for hundreds of years -- that's special.

@Winder -- years ago, I had a small Olympus SW-1020 waterproof camera. The lens was fixed in the camera body behind a glass window... it did not move outwards... and that camera had a 3X zoom. They could do that because the sensor was so small. Now bear with me, but if you could make a 50 MP sensor in that small size, you might -- might! -- be able to use software to artificially enhance shadow details in what would be a huge medium-format image. You would have to skate around the reality that far, far fewer photons fall on your teeny sensor compared to a 'real' one.

I'm assuming a much more powerful camera processor -- that can create greatly enhanced images on the fly. My Pentax cameras already do that on a primitive level, with the Auto settings for highlights and shadows, and of course white balance. As long as that image, like one made in Green mode, looks close to what I saw with my eyes, I accept the camera image as real. Am just imagining further developments here!

I just don't buy that you can truly achieve decent image quality with that type of pixel density. 24 megapixel APS-C/50 megapixel full frame are probably the max that I can comfortably hand hold in anything but great light. People have this impression that technology can just over come all hurdles. You can get noiseless photos at high iso on a tiny sensor, you just need the right technology. You can have 50 megapixels on a tiny sensor with good resolution. The reality is that there is always a trade off. When Sony went from 16 megapixels to 24 megapixels (K5 to K3) you traded some dynamic range (smaller pixels get full quicker) for more resolution.

On the other hand, as has been stated several times in this thread, if you never print and only post photos to facebook/instagram, then nobody cares about quality of your images anyway.

[Parry]

in other words: consolidate



So you think building an entirely new lens line up would be cheaper than continuing with existing designs?

No just cut out all the junk and improve QC on the smaller volumes. Consolidate to high quality.

If the market's shrinking it's shrinking to pro's and extremely keen amateurs.