The Great Gear Test: Sharpness, Part Two

So, today I got down to details.  I made prints of the most comparable shots I took with the 1Ds3 and D800E, in what I'd call plausible landscape conditions:  ISO 100, f/11.  And I made some prints.  I had a few printer problems along the way (paper feed, weird.)  But in the end I made three pairs of 15x10 prints to compare sharpness. 

• Full-frame:  This works out to about 491 ppi for the D800E, 374 ppi for the Canon 1Ds3.  I didn't expect to see tangible differences here, and I didn't.
• Big print enlargement:  Here I printed out sections of the print correspoding more or less to printing the whole image at about 26x17.5".  (277 ppi Nikon, 214 ppi Canon).  Here, I expected I would see some difference, and there is just enough difference that I can reliably pick out the Nikon image from the Canon blind.  It's not a huge difference, but there are prints of mine for which there would be a quality difference as a result of using one camera or another.  
• Larger print enlargement:  Here I printed out sections of the print corresponding more or less to printing the whole image at 45x30".  (164 ppi Nikon, 126 ppi Canon).  Here I expected I would see a large difference, as I'm used to thinking of 150 ppi as a "magic breakpoint" in image quality.  For my eyes, I'd say differences were apparent but not large, but in some places in the image, particularly some tree bark, the difference in microcontrast was signficant at viewing distances up to about 36".   

In short, the answer to one of my two big gear test questions is answered.  The answer was, for print sizes I make, and for shooting conditions and settings that are plausible for my work, does the Nikon D800E beat the Canon 1Ds3?  Can you see it in prints?  Yeah, you can.  Probably not small prints, prints less than 15" on the long side.

This is more or less what my usual rules of thumb would have told me, but it's nice to see the theory applies to real life. 

The Great Gear Test: Sharpness

I'll have a few examples to share coming up, but I wanted to give you the headline result.  Even when using other gear and settings that would cause some loss of sharpness (e.g., a landscape-practical f/11 aperture, and manufacturer 24-70 zooms), the increased resolution of the D800E shows over the 1Ds3, at least in fairly and equivalently handled images and modest pixel-peeping.

I want to take this one step further, though, and that's going to have to await my rebuild of my digital darkroom (we just had some built-in stuff removed, and I've got some tables for the printer, etc. on order) -- I'd like to know just how big you have to make a print before the differences become apparent.

That, I think, will be a very interesting question.  Any predictions? 

The Great Gear Test: Notes on Color Rendition

In a first test I made largely to see how easy it would be to take comparable images, I did throw a color-checker card into the scene, and in daylight, after finding basically comparable exposures and then adjusting the remaining .11 EV difference via exposure.

Executive Summary:  The 1Ds3 and D800E, using RAW/LR 4.3, produced excellent and almost identical results on a color checker card.

Test: I made a number of exposures on each camera and picked two very close together (.11 EV separation.) It was very easy to bring the neutral line into close proximity with simple white balance and exposure adjustments. Once that was done, the vast majority of the patches also aligned quite well.

The patches that did show a difference in A/B comparisons were:

Patch 8:  "Purplish Blue":  Very subtle, the 1Ds3 result is slightly bluer, the D800E slightly purpler

Patch 11: "Yellow Green":  D800E slightly warmer

Patch 17: "Magenta":  D800E slightly more saturated

Theories that these could be explained by differences of warmth, red value or exposure seem belied by the other patches, which are pretty dead on, including the skin tones--where differences in red and exposure are often enormously visible.

It's difficult to tell if this represents very subtle differences in the camera profiles, my particular models of camera, or what, but the key thing to note here is that the differences here are quite minor.  From having watched folks play X-Rite's color game and Blendoku, I would guess that many photographers would find at least one of those three differences imperceptable and the other two barely perceptable.  These differences would be lost in the noise of white balance adjustment of a natural scene.  

That having been said, if you're in the business of fine art reproduction under controlled lighting, and you forced me to make a choice, I'd probably give the Nikon the nod.  

Doing the Unthinkable: The Great Gear Test: 1Ds3 vs. D800E

So, I have long been critical of the endless, usually pointless "Canon vs. Nikon" debates...

Click to read more ...

Tree Trunks, Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

Tree Trunks, Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

(click through for a tasty big version)

I came across this scene quite unexpectedly while scouting phase of my "Tidepools and Trails" last Winter, these trees are on a bluff overlooping the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve's famous tidepools.  

Soft foggy light created some beautiful forms, and while my initial vision of this image included a bit more of the beautiful green foliage above these trunks, and a color rendition, but as I worked with the image I came to find that the rhythmic trunk patterns, and the syncopated branch patterns really were the essence of this image.

The 18" wide prints with a bit of warm toning are looking particularly delightful, although I'm still in the process of completely optimizing this print on paper.

This is also this month's Print of the Month offer--check my montly newsletter for details, or drop me a note.

Branches, Zion

Branches, ZionI've been having a terrific time working with my images from Utah, in particular, I've gone in an unusual direction, at least for me, with this post-storm image from Zion National Park.  I was immediately taken with the graceful way the branches splayed and echoed the far canyon ridges, I went back to this location and worked it on three occasions, but something really came together on this day of often dull light.

Zion is generally a place of color, and so it was even on this day, but the colors really detracted from the feeling of the image.  Over some time, I settled on a warm monochrome, and found that simple prints onto a Japanese mulberry paper produced the best expression of what I felt that day.

Those of you on my newsletter will already know this, but this is the April Print of the Month, and is available in two sizes (on A4 paper, or one much larger size, probably about 18" on the long side).  Contact me for details.