Hi All. I've just returned from two weeks of intensive shooting with my new P45 and Mamiya 645 AFD II in the Tetons and Yellowstone. The P45 and the Mamiya AFD II were a joy to use, and tho I've only been able to complete a quick look at my take (I didn't get home until late last night), I'm very happy with the results. Here's a brief summary of my thoughts on these tools, for those who are still considering whether to make the plunge.

First, everything worked flawlessly. Using a digital back is simplicity itself and really no different, as far as useability goes, from using a 35mm DSLR. Even tho the Mamiya is one of the lightest MF options out there, it's stilll pretty heavy, and that's definitely a consideratiion on long hikes.

Second, with all of the talk about superior dynamic range on MFDBs, I was somewhat dismayed to see that the P45 has very little mid-tone to highlight latitude. Specifically, in my testing, the P45 only provides about 2.3 stops between midtone and a bright highlight. If you put a highlight at anything more than 2.3 stops over midtone, it'll be blown. This doesn't mean that the P45 doesn't have tremendous dynamic range - it just means that most of that dynamic range is in the shadows. Which is why P45 shadow tonality is so spectacular. And unlike with the current crop of DSLRs, you can brighten the shadows if need be by a significant amount without suffering noise and posterization. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my P45+ (hopefully shipping soon) will have a new tone curve which yields a little more highlight headroom. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else on their experiences with P45 highlight dynamic range, and whether the P45+ does anything about this.

Third, all the talk about short batter life on MFDBs and the Mamiya 645 turned out to be a non-issue. I had two batteries with me for the P45, and typically one battery lasted for a full days shooting. I had also heard that the Mamiya 645 was a real battery hog so I brought along three battery holders for the body. Each holder uses six AA batteries. I went almost one and a half weeks before I exhausted my first set of batteries. These results included lots of cold morning shooting. Bottom line - for my kind of shooting (primarily landscapes), battery life is a none issue.

Fourth, take lots and lots of storage with you on these kinds of long duration trips. I took along my aging laptop with about 56 gigs of spare space on the hard drive. I also took along my Epson P2000 with about 30 gigs of spare storage, and a separate 200 gig external drive. I filled up my laptop and the Epson (duplicate images). After that, I had to juggle things to make sure I always had two copies of each file stored somewhere. My laptop was also woefully underpowered as far as opening these huge files, so all I was able to do was view previews in Lightroom. My next purchase is definitely going to be a new Mac Book laptop with 4 gigs of RAM, the fastest processor I can get, and as much hard drive space as possible, with two ruggedized external drives for storage. Since the current crop of Mac Books currently only support up to 2 gigs of RAM, I'm going to have to wait for the new models to be introduced (rumored third quarter). I really think 4 gigs of RAM is mandatory.

I'll leave it at this for now. I'm especially looking for feedback on my highlight dynamic range findings for the P45, and whether I can expect anything different for the P45+.

Regards,
Mort54

Edit: My most used, and favorite, lens on this trip was the 55-110, with the 150 coming in a close second. The 35 and 300 saw only occasional use, but for certain compositions and perspectives, were indispensible. One other point - I took the back off of the body every night and inspected the sensor for dust. Only on the first day did I find two minor dust spots, and my Rocket Blower took care of them. Compared to DSLRs, cleaning a MFDB sensor is a piece of cake.

The current Macbook Pro 17" 2.33GHz supports up to 3GB RAM. See http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

SO why 3GB and not 4GB? See http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=321

How do you know the next generation will take 4GB?

Thanks a lot for the field report, few people write these and even fewer seem to use the P45 for landscape work.

What you write about the DR is interesting, especially since nobody had mentioned this behaviour before.

The relationship between default curve and apparent DR is obvious, but some people still seem to compare shadow noise between cameras without taking into consideration the curve used by the camera.

Considering a given DR, it is obvious that a back with a contrasty curve will have cleaner shadows compared to a different back whose default curve is less contrasty. Put it otherwise, comparing shadow noise alone is meaningless.

Regards,
Bernard

I don't get it, these sensors are usually linearized, pretty much, the curves are applied by the profile, or am I wrong ?

Edmund

MORT:

Add me to the list of landscape photogs using the same setup as you - after photographing great waterfalls in Arkansas for a month (to complete a new waterfall picture book project that is due out soon) I just spent a week shooting with David Muench in Monument Valley. No issues with the batteries either - mine have always lasted quite a while. I'm a happy camper and also waiting for the plus back to show up - I shot some star trail waterfall photos and while I got some good images while being limited to 30-minute exposures, I'm looking forward to the 60-minute exposure I will be able to shoot with the plus back...

Tim Ernst in Arkansas

if you work in C1, a profile will be attached...you will never see the "raw" file.....i guess this is similar in LR where some "settings" are applied....so either way the raw file is only see through whatever "glasses" you look at it......

and either way a file from a 1DsmkII will have less information then a file from a P20......

about shadow noise: i think that everybody looks for different things in files....everybody has different needs.....there are people singing the praises of noise reduction software and i think all NR software result are more or less horrible....i love the "grain" the 5D produces at 3200.....i love the way the P30 looks at 800....i hate the muddy/watercolor look of all NR software......

if one looks at a B&W print (analogue) from 4x5 neg, you can see the infinite detail in the shadows....because it is analoge.....a P45 or P30 does a pretty good job, the canons make a mess....this is actually one area that the P+ series is supposed to improve on.....even cleaner shadows...i can't wait to do a test....

Hi Tim. I've had your site bookmarked for some time and enjoy reading your Cloudland Journal. In fact, I visited it this morning and looked over your Monument Valley pics and loved them all. You do nice work. I'm especially envious of your Yellowstone gallery. I've been going there every year since 1984 and have yet to get wildlife shots as nice as the ones you captured. I've been trying to talk myself into a winter shoot for quite awhile now and seeing your shots just reinforces that. Maybe this winter.... Anyway, thanks for your reply.

Hi Graham. Actually I don't know they'll go to 4 GB in the next version, although from the tech sites I read, it sounds like the next Mac Book will definitely go to Intel's Santa Rosa chipset, and I believe that will support the higher RAM space. While the Mac Book Pro may already support 3 GB, I'm only looking for a travel notebook, and since I'm weighed down enough already, my preference leans toward the smaller and lighter Mac Book. Thanks for the reply.

Hi Bernard. I had posted before asking about P45 dynamic range, and especially about the highlight end of the dynamic range. I got a number of qualitative replies (typically "P45 dynamic range is great"), but nobody provided any quantitative replies. Anyway, I finally did my own testing to arrive at the 2.3 stops number, and subsequently confirmed it in actual real world shooting. It turns out that most white puffy clouds typically top out around 3 to 3.5 stops over midtone foliage, so I found myself using split graduated neutral density filters a lot during my landscapes. I'd love Phase One to adjust the curve in the P45+ to support three stops from midtones to max highlights, since that would eliminate most of the need for the split NDs (at least for many landscape scenes). I'm also suspicious about split NDs degrading sharpness to some extent (I figure anything you put in front of the lens can only hurt sharpness). Ironically, my Nikon D200 typically provides three stops of latitude between midtones and highlights, and the new Canon 1D III has a mode that supports 3.5 stops (while sacrificing some shadow dynamic range).

Sorry, I meant to edit my original post and mistakenly hit reply.

Mort – Thank you for your very timely information.. I too shoot landscape with a Mamiya AFD II but use a P30 (loaner – waiting for my Plus back). I’m headed up to Canyonlands next week and will be camping and shooting there for about 3-4 days. It appears from your post that I should be okay with my two batteries for the back and maybe an extra set for the body.

Interested in what type lens you’re using. I go anywhere from a 35 up to 300 for landscape. I also agree that the files of the P30 compared to my 1Ds II are huge!

The Canon is crying as it already know I’m not taking it on this trip – just the Mamiya and P30.

BTW I use a Dell XPS M1210 dual core w/2Gig (could go up to 4) while I'm on the road without any problems so far. And no, I'm not attempting to get into any discussion of PC vs Mac

Don

You are most probably right, but I was speaking about the result after application of the default curve belonging to the default profile.

Regards,
Bernard

i am pretty sure that the new macbooks support 3gb ram....prices are way down on the 2gb chips....and the extra 1gb really makes a difference for CS3 and such....

Thanks Graham. I'll look into it. I need something better than what I have for a trip toward the end of summer. Right now Apple is only advertising 2 GB for the Mac Books, but I just heard that Corsair is now offering 2 GB notebook memory cards, so if the existing Mac Books will support them, that would yield the 3 GB number you mentioned.

Hi Don. I just edited my original post with lens information, but to recap, I took the 35, 55-110, 150 and 300 on this trip. The 80 stayed at home. The 55-110 was my most used and favorite lens, with the 150 a close second. The 35 and 300 saw only a little use, but for what I used them for, they were definitely necessary, so I'm glad I brought them along.

The 55-110 is also my favorite lens on my P45, I do shoot landscape a lot with that combination. Also the 55-110 make a great panorama lens. I used that lens to shoot a 7 shot images at 110mm and it came out prefect. I used the manual version and it only have 2 optical center. It also a sharp lens.

Mort,

Since the Mamiya has a nifty bracketing mode why not use it instead of split ND's and layer up the resulting differently exposeed files in PShop?

Paul

concerning "High-lights", DR and "High-lights Recovery":

I had the possibility this last weekend to go out and shoot some landscapes in Australia with a photographer using the eMotion 75.

Although the red "warning" was almsot constantly on, showing blown-out high-lights in the clouds, we were able to recover them easily whith the Brumbaer tools. When I say "easily", I mean that we have been able to recover up to 2,5 f-stops, if not more.

The comment from this photographer about this high-light recovery included in the Brumbaer tools, to Stefan Hess:

"Your highlight recovery is nothing short of sensational! Stephan, your re-mapping method, is nothing short of a miracle, as I stated before. I'll tell everyone".

Best regards,
Thierry

I can vouch for that. I recently did a shoot in which I got a small blown out highlight on some skin (not pure white but blown out in one channel) and processing in Captureshop gave me a blown out look, so I tried converting with Brumbaer and it looked very natural and with all the detail back in there.

It's not as if I had simply overexposed the scene - there was a high dynamic range and some shadows were going to black. There were people in the shot so I couldn't use HDR either.

I understand that Exposure will have this feature built in. Looking forward to that. Any news on the release date?

For the Phase backs. I have made a lot of profiles already for Capture One.

I'd very happy to make people a profile that has better highlight gradation, if that's what they want. Profile editing is what I do these days.

I'll need sample imagery to do the testing. Can people please send me some of the relevant Raw files via www.yousendit.com, and indicate which profile they were using to postprocess in C1, and which parts of the image they would like to see detail in ?

Edmund

Dear Graham,

we are right now starting to look for beta-testers out in the market. Beta-testing of the Exposure will start this summer (Europe), with plans to have a beta-version to be released by autumn.

If you are interested to be one of our beta-tester, then let me know with a PM, and I shall include you to the list of candidates.

And yes, it shall include Stefan's "highlight Recovery".

Best,
Thierry

edmund, you do not understand the highlight recovery. its not a profile. HR is done with the raw data and with mapping the info of the not-blown-out two ( or one ) channels, not with a soft curve at its top. many treads about this now here in LL if you are interested how it works,,,,,

Yes, yes, I know that you people have this wonderful highlight recovery feature in your software which is unique, thanks to the pioneering work by Brumbaer. I am not saying anything bad about it, to the contrary - but what it does is save blown highlights if I understand rightly.

However, the issue which is being discussed here by people "stuck with" Phase backs and Capture One applies to normally exposed shots where all the information is present:

There is always the issue of how the gradation captured by the back (14 bits) is mapped onto the final printed or screen image which has a much more restricted display range. This is done via a tone curve, or rather a profile in color. And as a linear image is flat, the tone curve will be S shaped, and will accentuate certain regions which are of interest to the photographer.

It would seem that the existing Phase profiles are not perfect for everybody. Which is to be expected - you cannot make a tone curve that will please everyone, that is why there are so many film emulsions and why people rework imagery in Photoshop with tone masks.

In the past I have made tone curves that were useful for portraits by lifting the darker tones, filling in the shadows but thereby compressing the highlight information. These have been used a lot by the Leica community; they were intended for portraits.

Now I'm suggesting I make some profiles -for the Phase backs- which would compress the shadows and leave more space for the highlight information.

Of course you are free to do similar things for the Sinar backs with the software that you have licensed, or ask me to do them for you. My peculiarity is that I have done this a lot, and that I have assembled a custom software suite which allows me to generate and edit profiles that can be used by camera and software manufacturers without paying royalties to any third party.


Edmund

I am another new P45 user and primarily do landscape type work. I chose the Contax camera over the Mamiya and Hasselblad. So far I am very happy with the camera and lenses, it works great, feels great and personally I prefer its looks to the others. The last couple of years I used the Canon 1ds Mark II.

Without going into too much detail, my search for a back took several months but at the end of the day the decision was made between Hasselblad and Phase One. That Hasselblad and Phase One are the only manufacturers selling their backs in Canada was a factor. Leaf used to have a dealer here but no more and Sinar, while they have a dealer the dealer doesn’t sell their digital backs due to an exclusive arrangement with Phase One. I would love to have had access to the emotion 75 and Aptus 75.

Mort, I enjoyed reading your field report. I haven’t done any quantitative testing with my back and your results surprised me. I have not noticed the limited latitude in the mid to highlights as you have.

I have been happy so far with the DR coming out of the Phase One. It’s certainly a big improvement to me from my Canon 1ds II files. With the Canon I frequently got clipping in both the highlights and shadows and had to bracket quite a bit, but with the P45 I definitely capture a wider range of tones and I don’t have to bracket so drastically – not scientific but my experience so far. Watching my exposures, and careful processing I am noticing a wider range including holding more tone in the highlights as well as significant more detail in the shadows. Using the highlight recovery tools in Lightroom has been wonderful. I do agree with you about hoping the 45+ will bring more headroom to the highlights though. Hopefully, by the time I get the 45+ I’ll be able to open the files in Lightroom.

I started off using C1 but now use Lightroom to process my files. C1 is a great program but the current version seems a little old next to Lightroom. I agree with a lot of people who think C1 creates a slightly better file and by that I mean there is a certain quality to the file, more fine detail in the midtones and shadows that I can’t seem to reproduce outside of C1. But, in my opinion, Lightroom processes the file better, has more control and is a joy to use. I am hoping when the update comes out for Lightroom I’ll be able to get closer to regaining the detail C1 gets. Mind you, I am also looking forward to seeing what Phase One brings out in C1 4.

While I am using Lightroom to process my files I am still using iView as my DAM and don’t see that changing anytime soon. I am adjusting and reevaluating my workflow but Lightroom isn’t a substitute for iView yet.

When I was shooting film, I used Lee gradated filters all the time. I haven’t used them since I went digital but now I am thinking of keeping the ND filters with me just as an option if the light warrants using them. I must do a test to see if and how much of a loss of detail there is.

Like you, the battery issue in the back seems to be over-dramatised. I am not going through the battery as fast as I was lead to believe. Same goes with the battery in the camera, it’s lasting longer than expected too.

Regards,
Clive Barber

Hi Clive. Regarding the limited highlight latitude I described in my initial post, it is probably not at issue after all, i.e. the limited latitude is a fact, but I've found it usually has no practical consequences. I've processed a number of images now in which I simply exposed for the hightlights, to make sure they were just below clipping, and let everything else fall where it may. These were compositions in which I couldn't really use the spit NDs. With bright highlights, this typically results in underexposed midtones. In raw conversion in Lightroom or ACR 4.1, I just brightened the midtones to get them back to where I want them, and the results are simply beautiful. You can brighten underexposed midtones and shadows from the P45 by a huge amount and not suffer any obvious consequences (at least I haven't seen any so far, tho if I brightened the files by three or four stops, I'm sure I'd start seeing some artifacts). In the brightened areas, I don't see any noise or posterization. So based on this, in the future I will simply expose for the highlights, let the other tones fall where they may, and then brighten in post processing (I'm sure most long time MFDB users already know this, but since I'm a new user, it's something I'm just learning). I'm sure there'll be exceptions to this, but for now, the P45 shadow captures are just so good that brightening them in post processing doesn't seem to be an issue.

By the way, it may just be my imagination, but I used ACR 4.1 last night on some of my files and I think I'm getting even higher quality raw conversions than I get with Lightroom, which I already prefer to Capture ONE.

i haven't noticed any loss in the highlights with my P30....i do the same thing as i did with my P20...expose for the highlights and open up the shadows.....this works even better with the P30 then with the P20.....
i also use LR exclusively now and love the results...waiting impatientily for LR1.1 after downloading CR 4.1...
there are some stats about the P+ series that i noticed...i don't know if this has anything to do with all this but the antiblooming is up 2 (!) full stops from the regular P series.....i really don't judge anything by its stats so i will wait to see if this actually makes a difference....

[quote=Mort54,Jun 4 2007, 12:41 PM]
Hi All. I've just returned from two weeks of intensive shooting with my new P45 and Mamiya 645 AFD II in the Tetons and Yellowstone. The P45 and the Mamiya AFD II were a joy to use, and tho I've only been able to complete a quick look at my take (I didn't get home until late last night), I'm very happy with the results. Here's a brief summary of my thoughts on these tools, for those who are still considering whether to make the plunge.


Second, with all of the talk about superior dynamic range on MFDBs, I was somewhat dismayed to see that the P45 has very little mid-tone to highlight latitude. Specifically, in my testing, the P45 only provides about 2.3 stops between midtone and a bright highlight. If you put a highlight at anything more than 2.3 stops over midtone, it'll be blown. This doesn't mean that the P45 doesn't have tremendous dynamic range - it just means that most of that dynamic range is in the shadows. Which is why P45 shadow tonality is so spectacular. And unlike with the current crop of DSLRs, you can brighten the shadows if need be by a significant amount without suffering noise and posterization. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my P45+ (hopefully shipping soon) will have a new tone curve which yields a little more highlight headroom. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else on their experiences with P45 highlight dynamic range, and whether the P45+ does anything about this.


Regards,
Mort54

Mort:
The conventional "wisdom" here on metering with digital capture has been to "expose to the right" by setting an exposure that is as far to the right on the histogram without the highlights touching the right end of the histogram. I am personally finding this to be a flawed approach as it often leads to blown highlights. I often THINK I am not up against the right side of the histogram, but when I open up the files, there are blown highlights. Perhaps it is too difficult to see the small amount of highlight info off the scale, particularly on these LCDs in the sun. Blocked shadows I can deal with and accept. They were always a part of my life shooting transparency film and making Cibachrome prints. However, once the highlights are gone, that's it. Moreover, the shadow detail with MFDBs is so good that I can often dig detail out without unacceptable noise.
My practice now is to expose to the right but still leave myself a comfortable margin on the right side of the histogram, and then in appropriate cases with contrasty light and a lot of information down at the shadow end of the histogram, shoot another two or even three exposures at one, two and three stops down. Then, I have plenty of good information to blend if I need to. There are many on this forum with much more experience with digital capture than I have, and I would be interested to hear about their metering strategies in landscape work, and whether they still use ND grad filters.

I have experienced this as well. I think I am right up against the right side with a tiny bit of room to spare and then when I open the file I discover one or more channels blown out. Usually it is not by much but not what I was expecting. Perhaps, as you say, it is because I can't see the histogram properly in the sun. In any event, I am trying to leave a tiny bit more room on the right side than I used to.

This is my way of working which works for me (until someone passes along and learns me a better way to do it )

When I can do only 1 exposure I tend to expose to the right as far as possible. A tiny bit of clipping in most cases means not all channels have been lost but only one or 2 (at least on my back it does). This I don't care about, casts can be resolved by taking or having a reference shot.

Most information will be stored in the highest bits, these are closest to clipping. Not exposing as far as possible means you are not using all of them.

The files taken this way always look best to me.


When being able to take multiple shots. I just take a bunch of bracketed shots and blend them. There I don't care whether highlights get blown or shadows are closed as long as I have enough shots with enough exposure space in between them.

Paul and Howard. Yep, now that I've processed a few images in which I exposed for the highlights (essentially I exposed to the right), I'm finding that all I have to do is open the shadows and underexposed midtones in post and all is well. With my DSLR, image quality usually suffered when I did this, but with the P45, I'm not seeing any degradation (with reasonable brightness adjustments, of course). For special cases, I'll just shoot an extra shot or two and do a little blending in post, but I'm no longer concerned about the highlight headroom issue I raised at the beginning of this thread.

As for the histogram and clipping highlights, I've been a little confused on this myself. The Phase histogram consists of the luminance histogram, and the individual red, green and blue curves. The curves are really hard to see, so just going by the luminance histogram won't guarantee there isn't any clipping. You need to look at the curves. But still, as you guys have pointed out, sometimes I think I've got margin and in fact don't. So far at least, the blinking highlights screen seems to be pretty reliable, so I usually have that as my default review screen, and then quickly click to the histogram as needed.

i agree the blinking highlight screen sometimes is just easier.....i am amazed with the amount of detail i can pull out of the shadows in LR.....not more then in C1, but with the fill light slider, it really makes it so much easier...

As it happens, you were right about the new Macs. The new Macbook Pros have been announced and they all fit a maximum of 4GB RAM now. They all seem to support dual DVI too. Good news.