We’ve been spoiled by cameras like the A7r or the D800. It’s not anymore a matter of “good enough”. But once in a while we should try to remember from were we came, taking a reality check.
For example: how good is really something like medium format slide film, for ages considered THE professional standard – unless you shot on 4×5″ and up, obviously.
It happened to me just a few days ago that checking a shot made with the Olympus OM-D E-M10 and the cheap kit zoom Olympus 14-42 mk II, besides at its worst focal length (42mm), something triggered my memory.
So I went back in time in the Lightroom catalogue and found some comparable shots taken more or less in the same place, just a few years ago with one of the best cameras I’ve had the pleasure to use: the Fujica GS645 first model, the one with the bellows, that shots 4.5x6cm images on 120 film.
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10
The film pics were made with the camera mounted on a huge Arca B1 ball-head screwed on an exceedingly heavy tripod (it was the setup I used for 5×7″ cameras as well) and shot on Fujichrome Velvia, one of the highest resolving films ever; and the 75mm f/3.5 lens of the Fujica GS645 is absolutely one of the sharpest I’ve shot with. The film has been scanned at 8000dpi. In practice this is the best you can get using film. You can go bigger in terms of format, but in terms of sheer detail per area this is more or less it, that’s it without going to outrageously expensive solutions like using an Hasselblad Super Achromat or stuff like that. By the way, don’t look at the colors from the films shots; they are unprocessed, raw scans.
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10
Please note that both the film and the Olympus shots have been sharpened for print (this is why they look a tad over-sharpened on screen) and resized; the amount of sharpening needed is wildly different between film and digital, so I had to sharpen each “to taste”, otherwise the film shots would have appeared soft and blurry. What you see are crops of a “virtual” 1m x 75cm print.
Fuji GS645
(Yep, that’s a tripod leg. One of the perks of using a rangefinder) 🙂
Olympus E-M10
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10
To my eyes the detail the Olympus with the kit zoom – shot handheld for good measure tanks to IBIS! – manages to extract from the scene is simply comparable or sometimes even better. I repeat: this with the kit zoom, handheld. If I’d used the Panasonic 25/1.7, for example, the results would have been even more skewed in favor of the little E-M10.
It’s really true, we’re living in a golden age for photography (in terms of sheer technical possibilities, at least); but sometimes we have to be remembered of this!
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10
Fuji GS645
Olympus E-M10