[Ed Hurst]

Ah, well, now you are talking about what resolution is required to render sharp, small details close-up. That's a key question, but doesn't change the principle of printing huge and viewing close-up (as well as viewing the whole image). :-)

[photoptimist]

Actually on this specific point, I may have a different preference from yours. I love to make huge prints and take them in from the viewing distance that large prints require. But, once I have absorbed the overall impact, I love to walk close to the print and study/enjoy details; I will often walk around the picture doing that, returning to the wider view then going close again for more detail. By doing that, I feel I inhabit the scene. So for that reason, I want to achieve images that will print large but retain loads of detail close up as well. Unless it's an impressionistic sort of shot of course...

Indeed!

There was a local photographer (Japanese Garden Photography for Sale | William Corey Gallery) with a very large banquet camera that made 8"x20" negatives. He created the most amazing floor-to-ceiling-sized prints of Japanese gardens that one could almost walk into.

On a more practical level, if one is selling large photos in art fairs from a 10ft x 10ft booth, the prospective customer is often forced to see the picture at shorter than optimal viewing distances and they will notice any softness or pixelation effects.

[Canada_Rockies]

I have printed a 20x30 metallic print from a K10-D (10 Mpx). It was between a reception counter and a wall with a 4 ft /1.3 m maximum viewing distance in a real estate office.The print was well received, and looks sharp from close up. The owner's son took it home - he liked it that much.

I hope later this year when a small health problem is resolved to retake the picture with the K-3 and compare them. The health problem makes climbing a rough trail through 2000 ft / 700 m elevation gain and back with camera, lunch (it takes about two hours to climb, more to come down safely, not very long at all if one starts down unsafely) and tripod.

I'll upload the image in a bit.

---------- Post added 2016-08-25 at 19:35 ----------

[interested_observer]

As others have posted, just getting a good camera is just one small part of capturing great images to hang on your wall.

• If you are going to the expense of getting a serious camera body, you are also going to need some serious lenses. The lenses collect and focus the light on the sensor - and are just as if not more important than the body. Using the right lens is also just as important. The quality of the lens affects the image just as much as the sensor capturing the light. You can use a wide angle lens to try to collect the view to put on the sensor, but there are also other techniques that you can use - such as stitching that actually adds pixels to the final image. Stitching as the name implies is taking multiple images (like a panorama) and then digitally "scotch taping" them together. This get around distortion issues that wide angle lenses may introduce, and actually provides additional resolution.

• As you posted there is the post processing to get the image ready for printing. Depending on how large you want to print you may want to employ some additional up-sampling techniques, to support taking a regular image and printing it very large.

• Then there is the entire "black art and science of printing". Various types of images are displayed better on specific types of media - paper, canvas and metal. There is an entire range of types of paper - some displaying and printing better than others (acid free archival paper, along with types of finishes such as matte, rag, luster, pearl, etc.). Also, the types of printing - some techniques are better than others for various types of images. This also goes along with inks. Printing large just amplifys all of this.

• If you are going to go to all of this trouble, ebay photo is probably not the best printer. Another site did a review of a lot of the printers and came up with Aspen Photo as the best printer

• The Best Online Print Service | The Wirecutter

[pres589]

... first camera and you're considering a 645Z? If I had to do it all over again today, and I wanted to learn how to really handle a camera, I'd get a K200D, an 18-55 WR, some wide manual prime like the Samyang 16 f2.0, and an M 50 1.7. You've got wide, general purpose + foul weather, and short-telephoto with that kit. If you can learn how to make what you see in your mind come out of that kit, you'll be in a good place to grow from.

[noelpolar]

my first car was a ferrari this will be my first camera .

Maybe a Leica S for you ...... https://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=1082939&A=details&Q=

[Rondec]

I think a K1 would be fine, particularly if you figure out how to use the pixel shift feature. Resolution is only one feature and by that standard, the Canon is really good. Dynamic range -- how much detail is in the shadow areas -- is another and by that standard the K-1 or the 645z would be significantly better.

A lot does depend on what you are shooting. I think we are all assuming you are shooting landscapes, but if you are shooting rock concerts than a Canon may be a decent option.

[Bob L]

.....Resolution is only one feature and by that standard, the Canon is really good. Dynamic range -- how much detail is in the shadow areas -- is another and by that standard the K-1 or the 645z would be significantly better.

A lot does depend on what you are shooting. I think we are all assuming you are shooting landscapes, but if you are shooting rock concerts than a Canon may be a decent option.

I have both the 5DSR and 645Z and I'd say that the 50Mp is all that they really have in common. The 5DSR is fine in good light but "rock concerts"....no way (assuming night time or anything that might be termed subdued lighting).

The 5DSR setup is very portable, about 1/2 the weight, about 1/2 the price, lenses around 1/3 of the price....but it really stops being a useful implement at iso 800 for all practical purposes.

Bob

[Rondec]

I have both the 5DSR and 645Z and I'd say that the 50Mp is all that they really have in common. The 5DSR is fine in good light but "rock concerts"....no way (assuming night time or anything that might be termed subdued lighting).

The 5DSR setup is very portable, about 1/2 the weight, about 1/2 the price, lenses around 1/3 of the price....but it really stops being a useful implement at iso 800 for all practical purposes.

Bob

I guess I was meaning more from the lenses available to it -- both from an auto focus and length/aperture standpoint. The 645z will kill it in high iso situations, but it doesn't exactly have a huge library of lenses to choose from.

[Bob L]

I guess I was meaning more from the lenses available to it -- both from an auto focus and length/aperture standpoint. The 645z will kill it in high iso situations, but it doesn't exactly have a huge library of lenses to choose from.

Without doubt the 645Z is stifled (for some genre) by the availability of modern lenses whilst the 5DSR has everything from 11-800mm readily available.

[K5_Ltd_User]

Simple,


Depends on what you shoot.
MF has a tendancy to be limited as far as ISO and AF goes (so I heard; the 645z tested by me was on a static subject in a well light shop) .
Also it goes for the lens compatibility (if you want let' s say a smaller body, as a backup) .
645 is a affordable MF. A guy from drtv said it was the 'poor man' s option' ; I don' t shoot award winning photos and I don' t shoot MF, but I doubt it.


Good luck!

[Kolor-Pikker]

Maybe a Leica S for you ...... Leica S (Typ 007) Medium Format DSLR Camera (Body Only) 10804

Super-desirable camera I'll admit, but less featured than the Z, more expensive and prone to repairs. Are the lenses really worth the trouble? One of these days Leica should simply admit that their cameras stopped being very good once they entered the digital age and make lenses in various mounts for others. No one ever really bought a Leica for the camera anyway.

I guess I was meaning more from the lenses available to it -- both from an auto focus and length/aperture standpoint. The 645z will kill it in high iso situations, but it doesn't exactly have a huge library of lenses to choose from.

How many lenses does one need though? The Z doesn't exactly fill the same usage niche as your typical DSLR. If I paid $8,500 for 51 million really big pixels, I'll sure as heck shoot stopped down on a tripod more often to make sure they get used, although being able to use it like a regular camera is what drew me to this system too.

Three lenses are all most people really need. If I had a really good wide and long zoom plus a fast portrait lens, that'd be one good setup. Or a nice wide prime with shift, a nice fast 45mm prime and a long zoom. In fact, a solid stabilized long zoom akin to your typical 70-200 is what Pentax is missing most, and the lack thereof is probably the reason people are complaining.

[noelpolar]

Super-desirable camera I'll admit, but less featured than the Z, more expensive and prone to repairs. Are the lenses really worth the trouble?

Pretty well much sums up a Ferrari..... hence the suggestion.

[normhead]

I can see your reasoning here, but you aren't talking about simply looking close up. You have to be able to see the whole image too. The 300 dpi is the golden statistic for printing but viewed properly how many would know the difference between 300 and 200 dpi without being told which was which?

My understanding is that Canon printers do their finest work at 300 DPI, and Epson and HPI printers need 360dpi, but the reason you use the 300 DPI is to jumpstart that super high res print mode. I've seen nothing to suggest that if you expand a file from 100 Dpi to 300 DPI and then print it, people can tell the difference between that an a print from a file that was a true 300 DPI. There have been some tests that suggest people can't tell the difference between 72 DPI, 100 DPI and 150 DPI when comparing actual prints. My guess is the difference between 200 DPI and 300 DPI is even smaller.

Anyway , take some time to look at other features.

A 645z has an same size of 8256 x 6192
A K-1 is 7,360 x4,912
A K-3 is 6000 x 4000

The interesting thing about that is the relative small jump in the pixels sizes as you go from 24 MP to 36 MP to 51 MP.
The big jumps in IQ happen way down when cameras were 4 to 6 mp. A higher resolution camera could make a huge difference.... however the pay off for adding an extra 12 MP to a K-3 like base model is small compared to adding 6 MP and going from 4 to 10 MP. The law of diminishing returns has seriously set in.

So consider the following scenario.

IN photography there are many things that contribute to the appearance of detail, the biggest of which is contrast. ( I wish I saved a few of my trashed images from the last few days for some examples.) Without proper contrast images look flat and for the most part un-interesting. A 24 MP image with good contrast will look sharp, a huge file with low contrast will look flat. Understanding how light can be used to take images is more of the issue to producing sharp highly detail images than the difference between 24 MP and 51 MP will.

If you have the funds, definitely go for a 645z....
But there are a couple of problems with the plan.... if you aren't getting sharp, detailed images with a 16-24 MP camera, you aren't going to get sharp, detailed looking images with a 645z.

The slower burst rate of the 645z means you be investing a lot more in each individual image.

Thinking you can learn lighting etc. on-line, it's not impossible, but it is improbable. The best way to learn photography is to find someone who does what you want to do and learn from them. And that needs to start before you buy your gear.

If you want to learn from someone shooting extremely high res, find some one doing it and learn from them.

From the old days
https://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/38-photographic-technique/203024-who-took...hotograph.html

A high resolution (walk right into your photos kind of guy)
What cameras does Andreas Gursky use? - Quora

Gurzky uses a process that uses two cameras and my understanding is his files are well north of 120 MB. But he also does a lot of work to induce a 3D effect. So while IMHO the 645z is the best reasonably affordable off the shelf camera for this type of work, it's far from a best of class.

And my worry reading your post would be your assumption, that you will be able to produce the work you intend to produce. Photography is like anything else. I can buy the same tennis racket Andre Agassi used but It will never enable me to hit like Andre Agassi. In some ways your post would suggest you believe it would. Honestly, cameras are just as much like that as tennis rackets. Good technique works on any racquet. Poor technique wastes even the best rackets.

A camera is not a whole lot different. Go over to the K-1 thread, and you will see a lot of great images, many of the best photographers shooting Pentax have bought one, but they were already very good photographers before they bought the camera. You will not find one photographer who sucked shooting a K-3 who has suddenly become very proficient buying a K-1.

You will also see many low contrast, bland photos where the photographer has posted the image, only because he thinks it might be special, just because it's the best he's ever done and it was taken with a K-1. However, there are people shooting point and shoots producing better images. And there are folks who shot DSLRs for half a century who still don't produce top notch work.

I am uneasy with your presumption that your ability to produce the kind of image you want even if you buy a 645z. There are many long time hobbyist on the forum who will never be more than the producers of bland images totally lacking in pop and detail no matter what system they buy.

You are hoping you are on of the ones with a gift for composition and lighting... but, it's not a given.

So with all those qualifications, if you understand them, if you have the money go for a 645z and learn to shoot for a single frame and be really patient. Some of us love a challenge like figuring out how to coax great images out of a piece of technology but it is a demanding exercise. But I'd be happier recommending a 645z to you if you could see something that shows you have the ability to exploit it.

The fact that you think you can learn on-line what others take 3 year courses to learn, doesn't mean you can.

With it's heavy lenses, slow burst rate, and huge file sizes there are a lot of cameras that are more fun than a 645z. And while it may be the best for what you wish to accomplish, it may not suit your temperament.

The bigger the camera, the more patience required to achieve and kind of acceptable result with it. And with any photography, the right moment is more important than the right gear. Are you going to have the time and patience to seek out that moment? If you haven't started doing it already with what you have, it's unlikely buying bigger heavier harder to use equipment is going to make things easier for you.

In any case, if you really want to go for it, 645z all the way. It will give you more of what you want. But, it won't make you better than a guy who knows what he's doing shooting a Pentax K-5, or even a K-x.

You could end up with some amazing images, or you could end up with the highest resolution, blandest, most uninteresting images ever taken.

And if I buy Andre Agassi's tennis racket, I might win the U.S. Open.

It's a gamble, and the odds are stacked against you.... do you feel lucky?

[K5_Ltd_User]

Hello,


OP when you realise photography (art, awards winning kind) doesn' t depend soully on the gear, and you want to get rid of the gear for a fraction of what you payed, hit me up. I am very curious about MF photography.


Aside from that, buy yourself a film or a cheap dslr camera, go to a photo/ arts school, learn, become an apprentice and after that- invest. Even if you are talented visually, you need to learn technique.



Enjoy the hobby!