Canon – Page 5 – Addicted2light

Battle of the 50s: Contax 60 vs Minolta vs Olympus vs Pentax Takumars

Posted on 8 December 201224 December 2014 by Gianluca Bevacqua

The 50mm focal is one of the ones I like the most. Besides, it’s really hard to get a bad 50mm, because the manufacturers have found fool-proof recipes since the dawn of time. So even an old lens should perform splendidly, and the biggest differences with more modern designs should be lack of autofocus and a (sometimes just slightly) less effective coating.

This were my assumptions; below you may find my findings. All the lenses have been shot on a Canon 5D Mark II, full format. With the two Pentax Takumar the same adapter ring has been used to avoid possible adapter-related issues.

The contestants

Contax-Yashica Zeiss 60mm f/2,8 Makro S-Planar

A terrific all around lens that goes straight to 1:1. There is also a C-Planar variant, with the same optic, that reaches only 1:2 but it’s a bit more compact. Quite heavy but manageable, for a while has been practically glued to my Canon. It hits the mirror slightly at infinity, at least with the cheap chinese adapter I use. You can find its “solo” test here: Contax 60mm f/2,8 Makro S-Planar.

Minolta Rokkor 50mm f/1,7 MD

Minolta Rokkor MD 50mm f/1,7

I remember fondly Minolta optics from when I used to photography with an SRT-101, so I grabbed this one for the price of more or less 5 coffees. It’s plenty sharp, even if it is not the sharpest of this group, and it has a subtle, Leica-like (well, for the money) way to render the colors of a scene that I like very much.

Olympus OM Zuiko Auto-S MC “Japan” 50mm f/1,8

Another lens, like the Minolta, that you can have for a song. I paid for the adapter the same price I paid for the lens… Very similar to the Minolta in the way it renders a scene, with slightly different tonalities, but way sharper, especially at the borders. Really light and compact.

Pentax Takumar 50mm f/1,4

Pentax Super-Takumar 50mm f/1,4

This is the rare-ish first version, with 8 optical elements and without the radioactive one. The legend goes that Pentax created this lens to establish its own name against Zeiss, and that it sold it at a loss for a year before replacing the model quietly with the next contestant, the Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, that cost less to produce. It touches the mirror of the Canon 5D Mark II, in its returning phase, only when set at infinity. With some, supposedly better, adapter does not focus to infinity; not a problem with a cheap chinese one. You can find its “solo” test here: Pentax Super-Takumar 50mm f/1,4 (8 elements design).

Update: Just something I noted in real life pictures but I forgot to add: the Super-Takumar (8-elements) has a lot more depth of field and each stop than the S-M-C Takumar (7-elements). Focused at infinity at f/1.4, for example, the Super-Takumar will render objects at 15-20 meters soft but sharp enough, while the 7-elements will render the same objects really blurry. The difference is definitely here, and it’s striking. I have to yet measure this for the S-M-C, but the Super-Takumar at f/1.4 and at close distance (2-3 meters) has a depth or field of maybe 4-5 millimeters!

Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm f/1,4

This is the 7 elements design that replaced the more costly Super-Takumar. The construction quality looks the same, but often, due the presence of a radioactive element in the optical scheme that degrades the ~~balsam cementing the lenses~~ glass itself, you’ll find this lens sporting a slightly (or not so slightly) yellow color. It’s said that it suffices to expose the lens to the light of the sun for a few weeks to get rid of that. The lens tested does not presents this phenomenon, but still the color balance of the pictures it produces is noticeably warmer than the 8 elements version. Unlike it’s ancestor it does NOT interfere with the mirror of the 5D Mark II.

Pentax M Macro 50mm f/4

Pentax M macro 50mm f/4

It should have the same optical scheme of the old, m-42 screw, macro Takumars, just in the K mount. It’s almost the same size of a normal 50mm, but goes to 1:2 and, thanks to the deeply recessed front element, does not need a hood. To use it on a full frame Canon (probably not on an aps-c, but I haven’t tried) you’ll need to cut or file down the rear lever of the automatic aperture and the lip that protects it, otherwise it will scratch the mirror or damage the camera; the metal is pretty soft, and with a Dremel-like tool it’s a matter of maybe 10 seconds. The test pictures of this lens have been shot another day, so the slight differences in color and crop.

Side notes

The test has been conducted with the Canon 5D Mark II on a tripod, using a 10 seconds self timer, focusing with Live View @ 10x zoom and the help of a 22x Peak loupe. The crops have no sharpening whatsoever, with the exception of the standard amount of 25% that Adobe Camera Raw applies as a baseline.

This test confirmed what I already suspected, that practically every 50mm out there is a gem and a bargain at the same time, but that due differences in design and in the way an old lens may have “lived” till today some lenses are better suited than others for specific purposes, while others are better all along.

As a side note: the Minolta is incompatible with Canon bodies; its flange-to-film (or sensor) distance is too short to focus at infinity without using an adapter with an optical element. Because such additional optical element can lower the lens quality I followed another road, and adapted the lens in a DIY fashion replacing the original flange with an m42 / Eos ring glued to the lens base and recalibrating the infinity stop. Not the prettiest solution, but works like a charm.

Last, the differences in color that you may see are because I left intentionally the camera in daylight white balance, to show the “personality” of each lens. You can alway narrow down the differences using the automatic white balance, but still some nuances remain, so it’s better to know first if you like them or not. And the borders crop haven’t been brightened, so you can judge how much each lens vignettes on full format (the crops come from the extreme top left border).

On this note, the Super-Multi-Takumar has NOT yellowed; its lenses are perfectly clear, and has been recently cleaned due a mild case of fungus. Still, like you can see, it’s the warmer of the bunch.

Bokeh

Speaking of bokeh, they are all pretty good. I’d rate them more or less this way:

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar, Super-Multi-Takumar, Minolta MD

2 – Contax (second only because sometimes its bokeh becomes busy), Olympus, Pentax Macro (not much bokeh due the small aperture, but nice and smooth despite the iris having only 5 blades)

The results

Now let’s see how they perform. You’ll find first the 100% crops for each aperture, than my evaluations differentiated for center, borders and mean sharpness. If you want, you can download the image below – it weights 2.8 Mb – with all the crops for all the lenses tested here; just right-click on it and choose “Save as…”:

@ f/1,4 – f/1,8

Minolta 50mm MD at full aperture Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm at full aperture Pentax Super-Takumar 50mm 8 elements at full aperture Pentax S-M-C Takumar 50mm at full aperture

center

Both Takumars look the same, maybe the Super-Takumar a tiny bit sharper; the Olympus is a touch more contrasty but sports the same resolution; the Minolta comes last.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar, Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, Olympus*

2 – Minolta

borders

The Olympus has better contrast but less resolution than the Super-Takumar.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Olympus*

3 – Minolta

4 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

mean

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Olympus*

3 – Minolta, Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

*The Olympus at f/1,8 has been compared against both the f/1,4 and the f/2 crops, lacking an f/2 stop.

@ f/2

Minolta 50mm MD at f/2 Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm at full aperture Pentax Super-Takumar 8 elements 50mm at f/2 Pentax S-M-C Takumar 7 elements at f/2

center

The Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar is only an hair better than the 8 elements Super-Takumar; the Minolta is last, but just slightly worse than the Olympus.

1 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

2 – Pentax Super-Takumar

3 – Olympus*

4 – Minolta

borders

The Olympus has better contrast but less resolution than the Super-Takumar, again.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Olympus*

3 – Minolta

4 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

mean

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, Olympus*

3 – Minolta

*The Olympus at f/1,8 has been compared against both the f/1,4 and the f/2 crops, lacking an f/2 stop.

@ f/2,8

Contax-Yashica Zeiss 60mm Makro S-Planar at full aperture Minolta MD 50mm Rokkor at f/2.8 Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm at f/2,8 Pentax Super-Takumar 8 elements 50mm at f/2.8 Pentax S-M-C Takumar 50mm at f/2,8 7 elements

center

The Contax starts straight ahead, just behind the two Takumars look almost identical (the Super-Multi-Coated a bit more contrasty); the Olympus has better contrast than at f/1,8 but less resolution!

1 – Contax

2 – Pentax Super-Takumar, Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

3 – Olympus

4 – Minolta

borders

The Contax is a touch more contrasty than the Super-Takumar.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar, Contax

2 – Olympus

3 – Minolta

4 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

mean

1 – Contax

2 – Pentax Super-Takumar

3 – Olympus

4 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

5 – Minolta

@ f/4

Contax S-Planar 60mm at f/4 Minolta Rokkor MD 50mm at f/4 Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm at f/4 Pentax Super-Takumar 8 elements at f/4 Pentax SMC Takumar at f/4 Pentax M Macro 50mm f/4 at full aperture

center

The Contax is a touch more contrasty than the Super-Takumar, again; the Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar is not far behind the Minolta.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar, Contax

2 – Minolta

3 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

4 – Pentax macro

5 – Olympus

borders

Pentax macro and Contax are behind the Super-Takumar, but at a distance.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Pentax macro, Contax

3 – Minolta

4 – Olympus

5 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

mean

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Contax

3 – Minolta, Pentax macro

4 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

5 – Olympus

@ f/5,6

Contax Zeiss Makro Planar 60mm at 5,6 Minolta Rokkor MD 50mm at 5.6 Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm at f/5,6 Pentax Super Takumar 8 elements design at 5,6 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar 50mm at 5,6 Pentax M macro at f/5,6

center

Contax first, tied just behind the two Takumars and the Minolta; just a bit worse the Pentax macro.

1 – Contax

2 – Pentax Super-Takumar, Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, Minolta

3 – Pentax macro

4 – Olympus

borders

The Pentax macro continues to show a uniform behavior at all stops.

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Pentax macro

3 – Contax

4 – Olympus

5 – Minolta

6 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

mean

1 – Pentax Super-Takumar

2 – Contax

3 – Pentax macro

4 – Minolta

5 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

@ f/8

Contax S-Planar macro 60mm at f/8 Minolta MD 50mm at f8 Olympus OM Zuiko at f8 Pentax Super Takumar 8 elements at f/8 Pentax SMC Takumar at f8 Pentax M macro 50mm at f/8

center

The f/8 crop with the Pentax Super-Takumar has been shot another day.

1 – Contax

2 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

3 – Pentax macro

4 – Minolta

5 – Olympus

borders

The f/8 crop with the Pentax Super-Takumar has been shot another day.

1 – Pentax macro

2 – Olympus

3 – Contax

4 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, Minolta

mean

1 – Contax, Pentax macro

2 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

3 – Olympus

4 – Minolta

After f/8 the diffraction starts to kick in, so let’s just jump to f/16 and see how this lenses perform at a stop fairly useful for depth of field extension purposes.

@ f/16

Contax-Yashica Makro Planar s-planar 60/2,8 at f/16 Minolta Rokkor MD 50mm at f/16 Olympus Zuiko OM 50mm at f/16 Pentax Super-Takumar 8 elements design 50mm at f/16 Pentax Super-Multi-Coated S-M-C Takumar 50mm at f/16 Pentax M macro 50mm at f16

center

The Olympus suffers a bit at the intermediate apertures, but it’s great at full aperture and at full closure. Go figure…

1 – Olympus

2 – Pentax macro, Pentax Super-Takumar

3 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, Contax

4 – Minolta

borders

The Minolta is far behind the Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar.

1 – Olympus

2 – Pentax macro

3 – Contax

4 – Pentax Super-Takumar

5 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

6 – Minolta

mean

1 – Olympus

2 – Pentax macro

3 – Contax

4 – Pentax Super-Takumar

5 – Pentax Super-Multi-Coated Takumar

6 – Minolta

Conclusions

I’d say that, even though all the lenses tested here are all spectacularly good, we can make some statements.

– For general use the winners are indisputably the Pentax Super-Takumar 8 elements design and the Contax-Yashica Zeiss Makro S-Planar. They both yield superb resolution and are made to last, even though given the difference in maximum aperture and in maximum magnification they have different strengths.

– For macro use you can’t choose wrong. Yes, the Contax is better, faster and goes down to 1:1; but it costs and weighs a lot more than the Pentax. More, to view the differences in real life pictures you’ll have to split pixels, so I call this a draw.

– For traditional landscape use, i.e. all sharp as a tack, you can’t go wrong with the Super-Takumar (again), the little Olympus or one of the two macro, Contax (again) or Pentax. The choice will be more of a matter of gut / price / look that anything else.

– For a lens to be used mostly for portraits on an aps-c body each and one of them will be excellent; it all will ends up to personal preferences in the rendering and / or in the possibility to snap up a bargain.

– For low light use the Super-Takumar is the best bet, but the S-M-C Takumar, the Minolta or the Olympus will be all excellent choices as well. Keep in mind that in real life pictures those differences so striking in the test charts will be almost invisible, especially using the camera hand held and in poor light.

How to scan films using a digital camera

Posted on 29 November 201217 July 2014 by Gianluca Bevacqua

If you’ve not read this previous post so far give it a skim:

Best film scanner: Canon 5D Mark II vs Drum Scanner vs Epson v700

You will see what level of (very high) quality you can expect using a digital camera as a scanner, as long as you setup everything nice and properly aligned – don’t worry, it’s really simple!

The setup

The nice thing about this technique is that you will be able to extract all the information on the film even with a low-res digital camera, as long as you can increase the reproduction ratio and get used to join multiple files in one, like when doing a panoramic image. For the details please take a look at the previous post linked above.

The setup, like I said, is really really simple: you will have to put you camera vertically on top of the film – taped on a slide viewer – using a metal lens hood that act as spacer / camera support / light screen. Then you’ll use the Live View to focus on the film grain, and the self timer set at 2 seconds or a soft shutter release to avoid vibrations.

The setup

Like I said the secret is taking multiple shots of each film frame, and joining them in a panoramic software.

How many shots will depend of:

> the reproduction ratio you (and your lens) will use

> how much detailed the picture is

> the resolution of your camera

> the sensor size of your camera (full frame, aps-c)

Generally I use a 1:2 enlargement ratio on medium and large format film and a 3:1 ratio on 35mm and I get more or less this results:

– 35mm = 4 / 6 shots
– 4,5×6 = 3 / 6 shots
– 6×6 / 6×7 = 6 / 8 shots
– 4×5″ / 13x18cm = 20 / 30 shots

How to take the multiple shots…

Multiple shots

…and the resulting image

The resulting image

The shooting session lasts generally 15-30 seconds for each complete picture; how much time the computer will need to join the shots will depends by the computer processor power and amount of ram, other that by the number of shots to be joined. But for you to have a rough estimation: my 2011 iMac, with 24Gb of ram, generally takes 30-50 seconds to join 6 shots and up to 10 minutes to join 30 shots.

Using an higher reproduction ratio is more time consuming (you’ll need more shots to cover the same area), but as a result you will be able to get the most detail from the film. Just check this few examples, in which the Canon setup is used at various reproduction ratios and compared against a well respected flatbed scanner, the Epson v700:

Epson v700 scan Canon multirow scan

Epson v700 sharpened scan Canon unsharpened scan

Epson sharpened scan Canon unsharpened scan Canon unsharpened scan 3:1 ratio

The tips

This is all for the general guide, now some tips:

Focus

– don’t try to focus at full aperture; even an excellent lens like the Zeiss Makro Planar has its problems, and all your pictures will look like mush. Close the lens a couple of stops from the maximum aperture to focus (remember, set the Live View to compensate automatically for the light loss if you want to see anything at all!)

– if possible focus on the film grain, not on the details; this way you will be sure to extract all the information there is on film, and it is easier; if you don’t seem able to see the grain just look at a dark out of focus area, the grain will pop out!

– focus independently each frame; even if they are on the same strip of film they will require more often than not an adjustment in focus

– for maximum sharpness tape the film to the viewer, tensioning the film itself a bit to ensure maximum flatness; use painter’s paper masking tape, the one that leaves no residues

Exposure

– if your computer is powerful enough shoot in raw; you will benefit not only from more detail, but also from extended dynamic range and better gray / colors

– close the lens a couple more stops from the one you used to focus – till f/8 or better f/11 – to take the shot. This way you will hit the best spot of your lens and avoid vignetting related issues

– take a custom white balance on the viewer surface, without the film. This way the colors will be almost perfect without the need to mess with the curves later in Photoshop or Gimp

– shot in manual mode, to have the same exposure and density on all sections

– “expose to the right”, i.e. overexpose until the histogram for all the colors almost touches the right side of its window; this will ensure that you will have less noise as possible and that you will exploit the entire dynamic range your camera is capable of. Be careful to not overexpose too much – another good motive to shoot in raw

Setup

– shot in some kind of order (clockwise, counterclockwise, whatever), to avoid forget same part of the film frame; after a while it will became routine, and you will become very fast

– to avoid scratching the negatives put them down with the shiny side up – it’s called “protective layer” for a reason; having the opaque side – the emulsion – in contact with the viewer surface will avoid the formation of Newton rings too

– if the picture you’re about to “scan” has got few details – vast areas of sky, water or out-of-focus zones – take closer knit shots to help the panoramic software identifying some meaningful “anchors” to use in the merge

– if you don’t have a slide viewer, but you’re comfortable around electricity, you can easily adapt to the same use an old scanner transparency adapter or build one of your own (plenty of DIY projects like this on the web)

The software

What panoramic software you want to use is your choice, there are hundred of them out there. The only important thing is that it has to let you join the files in a “matrix” fashion, not only in rows. Here some of the one I tried or use, and a few notes for each one:

– Adobe Photoshop function Photomerge: really good 90% of the times. Use the “reposition” option, because you are not shooting a panorama, so there is no parallax error to take care of. Its biggest downside is the lack of the possibility of manual corrections; on the bright side it is still one of the fastest panoramic software I ever used, and it was able to “digest” without a hitch even 110 files at once.

– ArcSoft Panorama Maker 5: really good for those 10% of the times in which Photomerge goes nuts. Its biggest drawback is the impossibility to maintain the 16 bit in the output tif. Quite cheap (13,99€ on the Mac App Store).

– Kolor Autopano Pro 3: as good as PhotoShop CS6 or slightly better. A lot slower, though. On the other hand it can batch process entire folders of files recognizing automatically which files to merge in which panorama. Not so costly, just 99€.

– PhotoStitch: this one comes free with every Canon digital camera. It would be really good, except that has a strong tendency to crash if used with 6 files or more (at least with Canon 5D mark II files, could also be some kind of incompatibility, I don’t know). Same problem of Panorama Maker, meaning that it doesn’t support a 16 bit output. Better, it supports 16 bit on paper, but the resulting tif files will be an ugly mess.

– Hugin: free and extremely complete. For the same reason a bit complex and intimidating at first, even if it’s present a sort of “assistant” that it’s supposed to guide you. Excellent for general panoramic photography, I found it a bit of an overkill for just join a few shots like in the technique discussed here.

Best film scanner: Canon 5D Mark II vs Drum scanner vs Epson V700

Posted on 23 November 20128 December 2013 by Gianluca Bevacqua

If you shoot film and you don’t are much into chemicals, or don’t have a basement in which to keep a gigantic 5×7″ enlarger, you’ll soon end up with the need of a way to import those beautiful pictures you’ve taken on the computer. What? Why I didn’t say straight on “you will need a scanner”? After all it’s not 1987 anymore, and scanners are common like toaster ovens.

Well, I didn’t say “a scanner” because this it’s not the only way you can digitalize those pictures. Indeed, turned out, even though it’s the first, and often, only way most people will think of, it is the most inefficient and time consuming. And it can loose a lot, i mean A LOT, of the quality of the original slide or negative.

But now there is a much better alternative…

Let’s cut to the chase: I’m proposing here to use a digital camera of high pixel count – full format / dx format doesn’t really matter – mated with a good macro lens to scan the film using multiple shots, like in a panorama. “A good macro lens” that it’s like saying “a macro lens” because, with the possible exception of some russian misassembled lemon, they all range from really good to exceptionally good. And if you have a bellows you can use, instead, an enlarger lens (an Apo-Ronar, for example, will put you back of only 60 / 70 euros).

But what about the quality you say? That it’s what this post is for!

First a brief overview of the contenders:

– Flatbed scanner: Epson V700

The film-holder height has been calibrated. I did not use fluid mounting, but I taped the films to the film-holder and / or used a glass to keep the films flat; so fluid mounting should only make a difference in terms of absence of dust, appearance of the grain clumps and, possibly, slight better tonality

– Drum scanner: Dainippon Screen DT-S 1045Ai

The films has been professionally scanned by an external service

– Camera + lenses: Canon Eos 5D Mark II + Contax Zeiss 60mm f/2,8 Makro Planar (for medium and large format); Canon Eos 5D Mark II + Nikon Nikkor 35mm f/2 O non-Ai version inverted (for 35mm films)

Given that the Canon 5D Mark II it’s the challenger we will compare it separately against each of the opponents.

So let’s check first how this setup fares compared to the Epson V700, an excellent flatbed per se (still a flatbed though).

Those are all 100% crops. First the “usual difference” between the output of the two systems: those crops belongs to a 4,5x6cm negative shot with an ultra-sharp Fuji GS 645, on a sturdy tripod and with a soft release. The Epson crop has been sharpened, the Canon one NOT (no kidding).

Epson 700v crop

Canon 5d marl II and Contax 60/2,8 Makro Planar

Yes, the Epson (or any other flatbed scanner, for that matter) here looks like an old man who is in desperate need of new glasses…

And now the best possible case (I saw the Epson behave so well only in rare occasions, like once or twice in a blue moon). Those crops have been shot on an Hasselblad 500c/m with mirror up, the standard 80mm f/2,8 Planar, tripod etc.

Epson 700V crop 02 Canon 5d marl II and Contax 60/2,8 Makro Planar crop 02

Yep, you just witnessed the death of flatbed scanners as film-scanners. So buy the cheapest all-in-one or LIDE model you can get, just for bills and invoices, and be done.

But surely a drum scanner, a thing that costs more than many cars, whose scansions cost you 60 / 200 euros a pop, will put the Canon setup to shame. Let’s see. Those were shot on a Linhof Technika 13x18cm with a Symmar-S 240mm f/5,6. The drum image has been sharpened by the photo service, the Canon one is unsharpened:

Drum scanner Dainippon pre sharpened

Canon 5d marl II and Contax 60/2,8 Makro Planar crop 03

No, I’ve not made a mistake. Actually, I made one when I loaded the files in Photoshop. I gave both the same name – putting them in different folders – to make a sort of “blind test”. Well, I saw immediately that there was no contest, even though I made all the tests anyway. Boy oh boy I was up for a surprise…

This surprise came when I was saving the files: I used “Save as…” because I wanted to change back their names to something meaningful, and then I discovered that the file I was absolutely sure was of the Dainippon drum scanner, because obviously superior, was in fact the one shot with the Canon! I even double checked the exif, because I cannot believe my eyes.

The amazing thing is that I did NOT used the lens at 1:1 or, like I do on 35mm film, at 2:1 or 3:1 magnification. So, in exceptional cases of extremely sharp negatives – say ultra sharp lenses and microfilm like films – I would be able to pull out even higher resolution!

And, just to clear any doubt you may have, here the two crops above after a good dose of sharpening:

Drum scanner Dainippon with more sharpening Canon 5d marl II and Contax 60/2,8 Makro Planar sharpened

To put things in perspective: those crops are from a 660Mb greyscale file; seeing it like this on a monitor it’s like peeping at a print of 5,20 x 3,70 meters. At 240dpi I could still print it as large as 2,30 x 1,65 meters!

Like I said going up with the reproduction ratio you can extract even more detail. See for yourself. All the following 100% unsharpened crops came from a 6x6cm negative shot like the ones before with an Hasselblad 500c/m with mirror up, the standard 80mm f/2,8 Planar, tripod. The last crop has been resized at the 50% (at 3:1 there is more grain than detail, so keeping a gigantic file is pointless). And please ignore the tonality; this is a shot from a color negative, and I’m struggling a bit to find a suitable curve:

complete image

Epson 700V Canon + Contax Makro Planar Canon + Nikkor 35 inverted

I showed here only few examples, but I tested this thoroughly with many images, colors and black and white, slides and negatives, and I consistently found the same results.

Even the tonalities of the films were much better preserved with the Canon than with the scanners. And, as an added bonus, including the picture borders or importing into the computer some odd format shots – 6×17, for example – it’s a breeze.

Summing up: forget about scanners. Yes, if you have 3.000 euros laying around and you need to scan 100 shots a week by all means buy a Coolscan or an Imacon – but in this case for the sake of your own sanity go digital and lose film! Instead, if you need just to scan your best shots follow my advice and use this system.

Stay tuned: in the next post we will get in the specific of how to get the job done.

Review: Core Image Fun House raw converter

Posted on 30 June 20128 December 2013 by Gianluca Bevacqua

Today we’ll talk about an Apple Aperture little brother: Core Image Fun House. A little brother that is also free!

In a previous post, the Raw Converters Mega Test, I wrote about a Photoshop sharpening technique called 4 rounds sharpening. It consists in the application of 4 different rounds (as the name suggests) of smart sharpening and unsharp mask, each with different values, to be able to sharpen both the micro and the macro contrast. It works like a charm, but requires Photoshop and it is a bit time consuming. Even if you make an action of it, still takes a few seconds for each image even on a fast computer, not to mention on a slow one.

But here came the good news for Mac users. There is this little program that comes with Xcode 4.2.1 (not with the last version, but you can install both at the same time without problems): Core Image Fun House. You have to do a free registration as developers with Apple, and then you can download the program here (use the search box to find the 4.2.1 version):

https://developer.apple.com/downloads/

The installer put it in the “/Developer/Applications/Graphics Tools” folder of your hard disk. But if you are not interested in compiling software you may also delete all the Xcode bunch and keep only this software (and maybe some of the others not graphic-related but still useful apps, like AULab, FileMerge, IconComposer or Repeat After Me), moving it in the Applications folder.

It can be used as a full featured raw converter. Think of it as the little brother of Apple Aperture: like this one it works through stacks, and each stack can be used more than once.

Core Image Fun House stacks

It’s obviously a lot less refined in respect to Aperture but, hey, it’s free! To see how it works as a raw converter please check the crops in the Raw Converters Mega Test here. It is every bit as good as the comparison winners, given that they are in fact based on the same Core Image technology: Preview / Aperture and Rawker. The only difference is that the sharpening settings are more extended with this one compared to Apple Preview, so if you want you may jump a passage and do everything in one software.

Aside from some nice graphic effects, like the CMYK halftone filter, the best I found till now, or the possibility to add text to an image, things that may came in handy doing posters, brochure, covers and so on, it has two kind of sharpening: a normal unsharp masks and a “sharpen luminance”. This one will do the trick. The bad news: Core Image Fun House doesn’t provide a zoom, so you cannot check what you’re doing with the sharpening. The good news: use it at the maximum value (2.0) and you’re set. At this value it sharpens the images with the same accuracy of the 4 routes sharpening routine discussed above, but: it doesn’t require Photoshop and it is nearly instantaneous.

To save the sharpened files you don’t have to use “Save” or “Save as…” but “Export”, otherwise you will save the photo in a file format specific for the program, that include the original raw file and the settings used for the image. Handy, but I strongly suggest to use a more universal format, at least concurrently. Last quirk: the program does not have a way to set the preferences for an output format, instead it defaults every time to jpg. So you will have to remember to switch to tiff each and every time. Luckily the tiffs are at 16bit. There are also a few interesting filters that the program provides, beside the cited halftone.

Core Image Fun House

You may want to take a look, especially if you don’t have Photoshop or Lightroom, at the following:

– Geometry Adjustment (Crop, Perspective Transform, Straighten)

– Blur (Noise reduction: better than Photoshop, but worst than Lightroom; Zoom blur: nice for special effects)

– Color Adjustment (Color Controls, Exposure, Gamma, Hue, Temperature, Tone, Vibrance, White Point)

– Stylize (Depth of field: you may see an example on the first photo of the post; Highlights and Shadows)

The only downside that I can think of is the fact that the program does not support batch processing, but it is a minor one from my point of view.

Rating:

Review: Raw Converters Mega Test part V

Posted on 31 May 20121 June 2012 by Gianluca Bevacqua

If you haven’t read the first four parts please take a look at them, because there you may see the images unsharpened and sharpened with various tools, and you’ll learn about the specifics of this comparison.

Raw Converters Mega Test part I

Raw Converters Mega Test part II

Raw Converters Mega Test part III

Raw Converters Mega Test part IV

Now that we have seen, in the previous parts, who the winners are it’s time to draw some conclusions.

– Adobe Photoshop CS5 / Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3

Pretty good raw conversion quality with industry leading performance for all the other aspects. Both programs are easily usable in a workflow that includes other softwares as raw converters when it’s mandatory to obtain the maximum quality.

Rating:

www.adobe.com

– Apple Preview

It’s a Mac software, so what can you aspect? It’s easy to use and does the job, and an excellent one. A bit limited for “creative” interpretation of the pictures, but really great as a plain raw converter.

Rating:

www.apple.com

– CaptureOne Pro 6.3.5

Many professionals used to use this program. I, quite frankly, nowadays I don’t see the need. The results are pretty good, but not better than Lightroom, and it costs a lot more doing a lot less. More, the interface is confusing, and it litters the file system with useless proprietary configuration files for each and every image. Too little for too much.

Rating:

www.phaseone.com

– Corel AfterShot Pro 1.0.1

The interface is well studied, but it’s not the 2003 anymore. There are better softwares out there, also free.

Rating:

www.corel.com

– Digital Photo Professional 3.11.4

One may think that Canon should know a trick or two about its own cameras, but if so it is not shown in this software. Good results, but nothing to write home about, and limited conversion options. It may came in handy if you save a dust removal image on the camera, to apply it to the raw files (that you can save again as raw and than open with a better app). At least it’s free.

Rating:

– DXO Optics Pro 7

If your camera / lens combination is supported maybe it’s worth a shot. But try it first because, for example, with the (supported) Fuji X100 both Rawker and Preview do a better job…

Rating:

www.dxo.com

– Gimp / Ufraw 2.6.12

If you are on Linux go for it, but the 8bit limit it is not a good thing. When it will sports a full 16bit support the rating will become a full 4.

Rating:

www.gimp.org

– perfectRaw 0.6

Forget about it; it was a noble attempt, but the years do not pass in vain.

Rating:

www.ojodigital.com

– RawDeveloper 1.9.4

Pretty good results, but it lacks an histogram and it costs too much for what it has to offer.

Rating:

www.iridientdigital.com

– Rawker 2.3.4

The interface could use a radical redesign, but quality wise it’s one of the winners, and it’s fast and it’s free!

Rating:

raifra.fh-friedberg.de

– RawTherapee 4.0.8

Another one of the winners, in various categories, and overall one of the best. Probably the one with the best interface, with the exclusion of Lightroom.

Rating:

rawtherapee.com

– RawPhotoProcessor 4.5 64bit

Great results, but Rawker and Apple Preview do almost always better quality wise and RawTherapee beats it in the usability department. Overall still a good choice for low Iso images.

Rating: