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Xenon 1.9/40 on Robot,first photos fuji superia 200
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 6:10 am    Post subject: Xenon 1.9/40 on Robot,first photos fuji superia 200 Reply with quote
Well, the mini-lab automatic scanner choked on 24 x 24, and they would have charged 5.50 euros per frame for manual scanning - no go. So I did a quick scan with Epson 4990 flatbed, strips of 8 frames as a single 8-bit TIFF at 2400 bpi, not the best way for IQ but fast and sufficient for my very hasty test shots. I had used Fuji Superia 200, "sunny sixteen" under wildly varying conditions and focus by guestimate, all shots at f/8. Most shots were just crap, of course. However, here are some of the more decent ones, downsampled and very slightly sharpened for display, minimal contrast adjustments despite the conditions, converted to B&W because I didn't want to struggle with the colors.










I rescanned one frame individually at 4800 dpi and made slightly more accurate adjustments trying to retain some texture on the dark tree trunk.



The results are quite decent, I was more disappointed with the first roll of film I put through my Contax 139 with 1.7/50 Planar. Besides, the square format seems quite nice for these urban views.

Veijo


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
What DOF has take# 3? It seems virtually endless!

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
First impressions are good resolution, lowish contrast and as Orio says surprising dof!

I do like the square format.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
What DOF has take# 3? It seems virtually endless!

I don't remember for sure, but the lens was probably set to something like 10 or 20 m, in which case the DOF region would start at about 3.5 - 4 m and extend to infinity. Supposing the camera was exactly horizontal and doing some math, I'd set the near edge of the visible area to about 6 m from the camera. The hyperfocal distance indicated on the lens at f/8 is 5 m. This seems a lot of DOF, but it is slightly shallower than that of my old Sony DSC-F505 digicam at the same FOV and the maximum aperture of f/2.8!

Veijo


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:43 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
Richard_D wrote:
First impressions are good resolution, lowish contrast and as Orio says surprising dof!

The illumination was rather low contrast, no direct sunlight, there were some thin to medium clouds, and most of the scenes were in the shadows anyway. Also my scanning is rather suspect, and I don't know about the film, either, it cannot be very high contrast given the intended use, lots of leeway up and down. Anyway, it makes the photos look different
Quote:
I do like the square format.

So do I,

Veijo


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
vilva wrote:
Richard_D wrote:
I do like the square format.

So do I

So do I.

Veijo, I'm curious as to why many of the pictures appear to lean to the left. Were you conscious of this when you took the shots? I'm wondering if there might be a little problem with the viewfinder.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
peterqd wrote:
Veijo, I'm curious as to why many of the pictures appear to lean to the left. Were you conscious of this when you took the shots? I'm wondering if there might be a little problem with the viewfinder.

Well, the viewfinder is pretty small so it is difficult to get things just so even if one tries, and I wasn't really trying - I was trying to get the roll done as quickly as possible, in various ways with various targets, 35 shots in less than half an hour. I was testing the mechanics of the camera and the quality of the lens, not really photographing.

Veijo


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
vilva wrote:
peterqd wrote:
Veijo, I'm curious as to why many of the pictures appear to lean to the left. Were you conscious of this when you took the shots? I'm wondering if there might be a little problem with the viewfinder.

Well, the viewfinder is pretty small so it is difficult to get things just so even if one tries, and I wasn't really trying - I was trying to get the roll done as quickly as possible, in various ways with various targets, 35 shots in less than half an hour. I was testing the mechanics of the camera and the quality of the lens, not really photographing.

Veijo


Ah I see, well you did well to set the lens and fire off that many shots so quickly. Pardon me for being picky, it's just that my wife's P&S digicam manages to produce pictures that lean, no matter how careful you are, and because I use it so little I can never remember which way to lean to counteract it.


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote
peterqd wrote:
it's just that my wife's P&S digicam manages to produce pictures that lean, no matter how careful you are, and because I use it so little I can never remember which way to lean to counteract it.


Try with some Chianti on the picture taker. Razz
Sometimes it works - sometimes it makes it worse! Laughing

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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Richard_D wrote:
First impressions are good resolution

The nominal maximum scanning resolution of the Epson 4990 is 4800 dpi, but I've seen tests which indicate that the real resolution is something like 2300 dpi. Taking this into account, I downscaled the 4800 dpi scan to a final image height of 2142 pixels, which represents an 8x enlargement at 300 dpi and would correspond to a resolution of 2267 dpi, so the resulting image is like a crop from a 6.88 Mpixel photo, which will give some kind of a lower limit estimate of the image quality obtainable with the Xenon.

The image is available at http://galactinus.net/vilva/retro/robot_files/ro2_2b_2142.jpg

I don't remember what shutter speed I was using, but some image details indicate that it must have been pretty slow, which also may affect the resolution. Most of the target area has only low contrast detail, which means that the film has lowish resolution and even with a very sharp lens the combined resolution is probably below 40 lp/mm, which is further limited by the scanner resolution. The total resolution is certainly below 25 lp/mm as combining (rather optimistically) a lens resolution of 100 lp/mm, a film resolution of 80 lp/mm and a scanner resolution of 45 lp/mm will give a system resolution of 22 lp/mm only Shocked. Even if the real resolution of the scanner were equal to the nominal 4800 dpi, we would get a system resolution of just 30 lp/mm, which at 3 pixels/lp would give an image height of 2160 pixels or 1440 pixels at the 2 pixels/lp which I used for the scanner resolution estimates.

Veijo


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
vilva wrote:

The nominal maximum scanning resolution of the Epson 4990 is 4800 dpi, but I've seen tests which indicate that the real resolution is something like 2300 dpi.


Really? I have the lesser model (the 4490), which also features a nominal optical resolution of 4800 pixels. Since I usually scan for web only (if I want a print, I get it from the film directly), 4800 are an awful lot for that, so i was used to scan my negs and slides at half the value (2400).
However, I was not really happy with the quality, so I tried instead to scan at the full nominal of 4800, and resize to 50%.
The output quality was visibily better: clearer, with a much better rendition of the finest details. So there must be a difference and an advantage in scanning at 4800 - whatever that is -, I must believe my eyes.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 4:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
Orio wrote:
vilva wrote:

The nominal maximum scanning resolution of the Epson 4990 is 4800 dpi, but I've seen tests which indicate that the real resolution is something like 2300 dpi.


Really? I have the lesser model (the 4490), which also features a nominal optical resolution of 4800 pixels. Since I usually scan for web only (if I want a print, I get it from the film directly), 4800 are an awful lot for that, so i was used to scan my negs and slides at half the value (2400).
However, I was not really happy with the quality, so I tried instead to scan at the full nominal of 4800, and resize to 50%.
The output quality was visibily better: clearer, with a much better rendition of the finest details. So there must be a difference and an advantage in scanning at 4800 - whatever that is -, I must believe my eyes.
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There certainly is an advantage, but it tells nothing about the ppi value. I don't have a link to the original test, but here are some other comments:

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/BB/viewtopic.php?p=1144&sid=46173a9f745eb5df1566f5464637d14c

http://www.photo-i.co.uk/BB/viewtopic.php?t=403&sid=1399a9f5dcd574ef2ae0e1311fbe2ac7

http://www.phototakers.com/forum/archive/trying-to-salvage-wedding-photos-hp-3310-anygood-54776.htm

It seems the real resolution figures are somewhere between 1600 and 2400 ppi -- when scanning at 4800 ppi. Of course this doesn't change the fact that the results at 4800 ppi are somewhat better than those at 2400 ppi.

Veijo

PS. found more:

http://www.olegnovikov.com/technical/epson4990/epson4990.shtml

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/archive/index.php/t-20331.html

Last edited by vilva on Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:23 pm; edited 1 time in total


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
This cam will be a challenge to master, Veijo. But somehow I think that it is in good hands. Wink


PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 5:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote
LucisPictor wrote:
This cam will be a challenge to master, Veijo. But somehow I think that it is in good hands. Wink


No problems with the camera, it is very easy to handle, one of the easiest I've ever had. I've also got a pretty accurate range finder and a Gossen Lunasix exposure meter in case I want to do things accurately. However, I'll try get along without crutches as much as possible -- it is a part of the fun and also a part of the "Resistance" Smile

Veijo
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