What happens to the majority of the pictures that we take? Do they end up on the Internet, do they get buried on our hard drives, or do they get printed? If they do, what size do we print them and where do we show them? Finally, how this effects the shooting equipment we use?
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| Piazza del Campo at dawn (Nikon D3x Stitched) |
Personally, my answer is simple - I print, and I print big. So, recently I started considering what smaller, portable camera alternatives there might be (if any) to shoot Landscape and Fine Art images and print them large without carrying a huge, heavy DSLR or digital Medium Format system: I wanted to see where the market is today and where it is going.
THE OLD DAYS AND THE NEW
In the old age of film, things were simple: photos were taken to be printed. Amateurs would get small prints of whole rolls and then decide which ones to keep in their albums and eventually which ones to enlarge and hung on their walls; professionals would examine their negatives, either directly or by making contact prints, and print only those photos they deemed worth in the sizes they needed for a job or a portfolio.
In the old age of film, things were simple: photos were taken to be printed. Amateurs would get small prints of whole rolls and then decide which ones to keep in their albums and eventually which ones to enlarge and hung on their walls; professionals would examine their negatives, either directly or by making contact prints, and print only those photos they deemed worth in the sizes they needed for a job or a portfolio.
Today, most of us use digital cameras; amateurs and pro alike look at their images on screen, choose the ones they like and edit them (more or less often and more or less intensely according to their needing and abilities) before considering them ready for publishing or displaying.
Amateurs display their images online, where Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, Zenfolio, PBase and the like became the modern, instantly public version of our old home albums. Advanced amateurs, besides using the above online albums as well, might have blogs, dedicated personal websites and online portfolios, and post in photography forums and online communities. Professional photographers use dedicated websites both as their portfolios and to share & sell their images to their clients in digital form; they generally have blogs and use social websites as a sharing platforms for professional purposes as well, in order to build an all-round Internet presence.
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| Rolls (Nikon D3) |
SO, WHAT HAPPENED TO PRINTS?
Today, consumers and amateurs generally print a minimal percentage of their images and when they do so they print in small to medium sizes, using either lower end services or a budget home printer. So-called prosumers and advanced amateurs, on the other end, love to look at their images on paper: they either use higher end printing facilities or they print at home using high end equipment, fine art paper and various calibrating / profiling devices. They might be printing a small percentage of their images, but they like to print large to very large and aim for a very high quality level.
Professional photographers that do need to print - not all of us do - have very different requirements, according to the different fields they work in: in my case, I print to sell FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY, so my goal is to print to the highest possible quality with today's technology in order to provide my customers with the best possible artwork. I do my printing on my own, in-house one by one, and I print up to very large sizes: therefore, I use what in my opinion are the highest quality printers and the highest quality paper available to me (Epson Pro 4900 / 7900 and Hahnemuhle).
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| False Kiva Cave (Silvestri Bicam / Flexi, P1 P65+ Stitched) |
DISPLAYING OUR IMAGES
We can summarise what written above saying that, independently by their profession, their photographical skills, the category they would fall into as photographers and so on, people display their images basically in three different ways:
1. Online: mostly on social platforms, eventually on photograph sharing websites / personal sites / blogs;
2. Online as above; plus, small to medium sizes prints (up to A4, max A3 or 11" x 17"), printed generally by printing services (online or brick & mortar stores / malls), or with low budget printers at home;
3. Online as above; plus, high quality prints up to large sizes (up to A1 or 24" x 30" and larger), printed either in-house or using high-quality, advanced printing facilities.
GETTING TO NUMBER 3: THE CLASSIC PROGRESSION
Since the start of the digital era, progressing from Number One above to Number Three meant also having to progress (so to speak) from smaller, lighter, less expensive cameras to DSLR and digital Medium Format, with progressive increases in size, weight, bulk and - exponentially so - in financial investment. More, once in Number Three territory, to squeeze the last bit of image quality out of your gear meant to lose a lot of the benefits of modern technology as far as speed, flexibility and user-friendliness goes. Believe me, I know; I used technical cameras (Silvestri & Linhof) with digital backs for more than two years, and while I loved the slow, manual process I certainly did not love their bulk and weight that much, especially when hiking!
So, isn't there anything we can ask for or expect from camera makers to escape this curse, enabling us to make large prints with smaller, lighter and more affordable equipment? Back in the film days, when there was a very direct equivalence between negative size and print size / print quality, the answer to this question was a clear "No"; fortunately today, with digital, this equivalence - while still valid to a certain extent - is much less set in stone than it once was.
Recently, in 35mm camera territory, the 36 Mp Nikon D800E set the bar very high in terms of resolution and image quality, putting at the same time lot of stress on digital Medium Format; while it is true that an 80 Mp digital back still has much higher resolution than a 36 Mp D800E, it is also true that to make a 24" x 30" print one needs just 41.4 Mp to print natively at 240 dpi without interpolation, which is very close to the D800E's resolution; if you print it at 200 dpi, 28.8 Mp would be enough for a 24" x 30" print. A D800E is small, light and costs about 10 times less than a 80 Mp digital back alone (without a camera!), so naturally one start wondering whether it's worth to move to digital medium format at all. There certainly is a difference in the files; it is certainly better to print a down-sampled file than one at its native maximum resolution; you certainly have more editing room with a 80 Mp file; and so on. All true, but on the other hand the law of diminishing returns starts hitting hard, those differences are becoming harder and harder to see in prints, and one's back is much happier carrying less weight, which is important as well in the long run. Plus, you can always stitch images with the D800E getting back into MF file size territory and get back a lot of what you gave up by going to 35mm in the first place... In the end, I sold my Aptus 12R 80 Mp, and am now very happy with my D800E.
The next natural step to ask oneself is whether this progress applies (or can apply, or will ever apply) also moving down from 35mm DSLR to large sensor compacts. It would be great, of course, to lose some more weight and bulk without giving up image quality: so, where are we in respect to compact cameras and point Number Three above?
COMPACT CAMERAS & NUMBER THREE
Short answer, we are still far from getting to Number Three proper using compact cameras. However, the good news are that in the last couple of years we got much closer than we have ever been. Various camera makers, for different reasons, started introducing to the market high-quality compact cameras sporting fantastic optics and large, high-resolution sensors that squeezed very high IQ into very small cameras, enabling professional photographers and advanced amateurs that like to print big to travel light without giving up image quality and too many square inches of final print's size. These cameras are:
- The Sigma DP1 Merrill, Sigma DP2 Merrill and now the Sigma DP3 Merrill: with lenses respectively 28mm, 45mm and 75mm equivalent, they all sport the same APS-sized 46 Mp Foveon sensor with resolution comparing to that of a 30+ Mp Bayer sensors. 30+ Mp equals to prints up to 19" x 28.5" at 240 dpi or 22" x 33" (A1) at 200 dpi;
- The Sony DSC-RX1: with a 35mm lens and a 24 Mp full-frame sensor, prints easily up to 17" x 25" at 240 dpi or 20" x 30" at 200 dpi;
Barely making the cut as far as resolution goes:
- The new Nikon COOLPIX A (28mm equivalent lens), the new Fujifilm X100S and the Leica X2 (35mm equivalent lens): at 16 Mp, they easily print up to 13" x 20" at 240 dpi, or 16" x 24" at 200 dpi.
The Sigma cameras are especially interesting in that they make up a very nice small system, with their three focal lengths of 28, 45 and 75 mm equivalent covering a lot of ground in a Landscape / Fine Art photographer's kit. The other three cameras above, on the other end, are alone in their respective manufacturer's line-up and with their 28mm (the Nikon) or 35mm lenses (the Sony, Leica & the Fuji) are more in the tradition of "single-focal street-shooters" rather than being part of a "compact cameras system" - at least for now.
Resolution, however, is not the only feature we need to be able to use these compact cameras as Landscape / Fine Art big-print machines. Besides Mp, in such a camera I'd love to see:
- A high-performance lens, sharp corner-to-corner and with as controlled chromatic aberrations and distortion as possible;
- No detail-blurring Optical Low-Pass filter (AA filter) on the sensor to increase acutance;
- 14bit RAW files;
- Filter thread on the lens;
- Tripod mount, aligned with the centre of the lens;
- Possibility to trigger remotely, electronically or via cable, and / or self-timer release;
All the cameras mentioned above have some trick up their sleeves when it comes to image quality and capturing fine details, while all of them miss something. Let's see where each camera stands relatively to the points above:
- Sigma DP1, DP2 & DP3 Merrill - PROS:
Foveon sensor recording colour information at each pixel (rather than using a Bayer filter and interpolate the missing colours) with consequent increase in effective resolution and colour information; no Optical Low-Pass filter needed; built-in lenses specially developed for the sensor; lenses have a filter thread; cameras have a tripod mount perfectly aligned with the centre of the lens; cameras have self-timer release.
- Sigma DP1, DP2 & DP3 Merrill - CONS:
No remote control / cable release; RAWs are 12bit; RAWs are proprietary, and you cannot use any of the major RAW converters to develop them; no EVF.
- Sony RX-1 - PROS:
Lens specially developed by Zeiss for the sensor; lens has a filter thread; camera has a tripod mount perfectly aligned with the centre of the lens; camera has both a traditional screw-in cable release and self-timer release.
- Sony RX-1 - CONS:
Traditional Bayer sensor WITH an Optical Low-Pass filter; EVF is extra ($450 US).
- FujiFilm X100s - PROS:
Fuji X-Trans sensor with a different arrangement from Bayer reduces Moire and slightly increase colour resolution; no Optical Low-Pass filter needed; lens specially developed for the sensor; camera has a tripod mount aligned with the centre of the lens; camera has both a traditional screw-in cable release and self-timer release; RAWs are 14bit; camera has a built-in viewfinder, both optical and EVF.
- FujiFilm X100s - CONS:
Lens need optional filter thread adapter ($76 US extra); RAW files are proprietary and though support is increasing RAW converters still have problems with the X-Trans demosaicing algorithm.
- Nikon Coolpix A PROS:
No Optical Low-Pass filter; lens specially developed for the sensor; camera has a tripod mount but I couldn't see whether is aligned with the centre of the lens or not; camera has self-timer release; RAWs are 14bit.
- Nikon Coolpix A CONS:
No cable release; infrared remote control extra ($17 US); lens need optional filter thread adapter ($99 US extra);
What about interchangeable lens compact cameras? Wouldn't they be good enough to print large? Well, as far as resolution goes, the newly announced Leica M and the Sony NEX-7 are good candidates with their 24 Mp, together with the 18 Mp Leica M9 & Leica M-E (however precise framing & focus distance can be limiting factors with these last two cameras). Also viable alternatives are the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujifilm X-E1 and (barely) the last 16 Mp additions to the Micro 4/3 lines. However, for reasons of space and clarity, I had to leave interchangeable lens compact cameras out of this article - they will eventually be the topic for a future one.
I already reviewed the Sigma DP1 & DP2 Merrill (see HERE), compared them to the Sony Nex-7 (see HERE), and reviewed the Sony Nex-7 as well in its street-shooter capacity (see HERE). I will add my user review of the DP3 Merrill as soon as I get it (it should be here by the end of the month) and have some time to play with it. In time, I hope to be able to put the Sony RX-1 and the Coolpix A through my field testing routine as well; however, as I am doing this on my own dime, I cannot review cameras as fast as I would like (see below how you can help!).
Since the start of the digital era, progressing from Number One above to Number Three meant also having to progress (so to speak) from smaller, lighter, less expensive cameras to DSLR and digital Medium Format, with progressive increases in size, weight, bulk and - exponentially so - in financial investment. More, once in Number Three territory, to squeeze the last bit of image quality out of your gear meant to lose a lot of the benefits of modern technology as far as speed, flexibility and user-friendliness goes. Believe me, I know; I used technical cameras (Silvestri & Linhof) with digital backs for more than two years, and while I loved the slow, manual process I certainly did not love their bulk and weight that much, especially when hiking!
 |
| Sunrise at Mesa Arch, III (Silvestri Bicam / Flexi, P1 P65+ Stitched) |
So, isn't there anything we can ask for or expect from camera makers to escape this curse, enabling us to make large prints with smaller, lighter and more affordable equipment? Back in the film days, when there was a very direct equivalence between negative size and print size / print quality, the answer to this question was a clear "No"; fortunately today, with digital, this equivalence - while still valid to a certain extent - is much less set in stone than it once was.
Recently, in 35mm camera territory, the 36 Mp Nikon D800E set the bar very high in terms of resolution and image quality, putting at the same time lot of stress on digital Medium Format; while it is true that an 80 Mp digital back still has much higher resolution than a 36 Mp D800E, it is also true that to make a 24" x 30" print one needs just 41.4 Mp to print natively at 240 dpi without interpolation, which is very close to the D800E's resolution; if you print it at 200 dpi, 28.8 Mp would be enough for a 24" x 30" print. A D800E is small, light and costs about 10 times less than a 80 Mp digital back alone (without a camera!), so naturally one start wondering whether it's worth to move to digital medium format at all. There certainly is a difference in the files; it is certainly better to print a down-sampled file than one at its native maximum resolution; you certainly have more editing room with a 80 Mp file; and so on. All true, but on the other hand the law of diminishing returns starts hitting hard, those differences are becoming harder and harder to see in prints, and one's back is much happier carrying less weight, which is important as well in the long run. Plus, you can always stitch images with the D800E getting back into MF file size territory and get back a lot of what you gave up by going to 35mm in the first place... In the end, I sold my Aptus 12R 80 Mp, and am now very happy with my D800E.
 |
| Torc Waterfall, Nikon D800E Stitched |
The next natural step to ask oneself is whether this progress applies (or can apply, or will ever apply) also moving down from 35mm DSLR to large sensor compacts. It would be great, of course, to lose some more weight and bulk without giving up image quality: so, where are we in respect to compact cameras and point Number Three above?
 |
| Ponte dei Sospiri (Sigma DP2 Merrill) |
COMPACT CAMERAS & NUMBER THREE
Short answer, we are still far from getting to Number Three proper using compact cameras. However, the good news are that in the last couple of years we got much closer than we have ever been. Various camera makers, for different reasons, started introducing to the market high-quality compact cameras sporting fantastic optics and large, high-resolution sensors that squeezed very high IQ into very small cameras, enabling professional photographers and advanced amateurs that like to print big to travel light without giving up image quality and too many square inches of final print's size. These cameras are:
- The Sigma DP1 Merrill, Sigma DP2 Merrill and now the Sigma DP3 Merrill: with lenses respectively 28mm, 45mm and 75mm equivalent, they all sport the same APS-sized 46 Mp Foveon sensor with resolution comparing to that of a 30+ Mp Bayer sensors. 30+ Mp equals to prints up to 19" x 28.5" at 240 dpi or 22" x 33" (A1) at 200 dpi;
- The Sony DSC-RX1: with a 35mm lens and a 24 Mp full-frame sensor, prints easily up to 17" x 25" at 240 dpi or 20" x 30" at 200 dpi;
Barely making the cut as far as resolution goes:
- The new Nikon COOLPIX A (28mm equivalent lens), the new Fujifilm X100S and the Leica X2 (35mm equivalent lens): at 16 Mp, they easily print up to 13" x 20" at 240 dpi, or 16" x 24" at 200 dpi.
The Sigma cameras are especially interesting in that they make up a very nice small system, with their three focal lengths of 28, 45 and 75 mm equivalent covering a lot of ground in a Landscape / Fine Art photographer's kit. The other three cameras above, on the other end, are alone in their respective manufacturer's line-up and with their 28mm (the Nikon) or 35mm lenses (the Sony, Leica & the Fuji) are more in the tradition of "single-focal street-shooters" rather than being part of a "compact cameras system" - at least for now.
Resolution, however, is not the only feature we need to be able to use these compact cameras as Landscape / Fine Art big-print machines. Besides Mp, in such a camera I'd love to see:
- A high-performance lens, sharp corner-to-corner and with as controlled chromatic aberrations and distortion as possible;
- No detail-blurring Optical Low-Pass filter (AA filter) on the sensor to increase acutance;
- 14bit RAW files;
- Filter thread on the lens;
- Tripod mount, aligned with the centre of the lens;
- Possibility to trigger remotely, electronically or via cable, and / or self-timer release;
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| Golden Gondolas (Sigma DP1 Merrill) |
All the cameras mentioned above have some trick up their sleeves when it comes to image quality and capturing fine details, while all of them miss something. Let's see where each camera stands relatively to the points above:
- Sigma DP1, DP2 & DP3 Merrill - PROS:
Foveon sensor recording colour information at each pixel (rather than using a Bayer filter and interpolate the missing colours) with consequent increase in effective resolution and colour information; no Optical Low-Pass filter needed; built-in lenses specially developed for the sensor; lenses have a filter thread; cameras have a tripod mount perfectly aligned with the centre of the lens; cameras have self-timer release.
- Sigma DP1, DP2 & DP3 Merrill - CONS:
No remote control / cable release; RAWs are 12bit; RAWs are proprietary, and you cannot use any of the major RAW converters to develop them; no EVF.
- Sony RX-1 - PROS:
Lens specially developed by Zeiss for the sensor; lens has a filter thread; camera has a tripod mount perfectly aligned with the centre of the lens; camera has both a traditional screw-in cable release and self-timer release.
- Sony RX-1 - CONS:
Traditional Bayer sensor WITH an Optical Low-Pass filter; EVF is extra ($450 US).
- FujiFilm X100s - PROS:
Fuji X-Trans sensor with a different arrangement from Bayer reduces Moire and slightly increase colour resolution; no Optical Low-Pass filter needed; lens specially developed for the sensor; camera has a tripod mount aligned with the centre of the lens; camera has both a traditional screw-in cable release and self-timer release; RAWs are 14bit; camera has a built-in viewfinder, both optical and EVF.
- FujiFilm X100s - CONS:
Lens need optional filter thread adapter ($76 US extra); RAW files are proprietary and though support is increasing RAW converters still have problems with the X-Trans demosaicing algorithm.
- Nikon Coolpix A PROS:
No Optical Low-Pass filter; lens specially developed for the sensor; camera has a tripod mount but I couldn't see whether is aligned with the centre of the lens or not; camera has self-timer release; RAWs are 14bit.
- Nikon Coolpix A CONS:
No cable release; infrared remote control extra ($17 US); lens need optional filter thread adapter ($99 US extra);
- Leica X2 PROS:
(Probably) no Optical Low-Pass filter; lens specially developed for the sensor; camera has self-timer release;
- Leica X2 CONS:
No cable release; tripod mount not aligned with the centre of the lens; no cable release / remote control; no use of filter possible; RAWs bit depth unknown; very low resolution LCD, EVF is extra ($200 US for Olympus, $500+ for the Leica branded one);
(Probably) no Optical Low-Pass filter; lens specially developed for the sensor; camera has self-timer release;
- Leica X2 CONS:
No cable release; tripod mount not aligned with the centre of the lens; no cable release / remote control; no use of filter possible; RAWs bit depth unknown; very low resolution LCD, EVF is extra ($200 US for Olympus, $500+ for the Leica branded one);
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| Door Nr. 60 (FujiFilm X-Pro1) |
What about interchangeable lens compact cameras? Wouldn't they be good enough to print large? Well, as far as resolution goes, the newly announced Leica M and the Sony NEX-7 are good candidates with their 24 Mp, together with the 18 Mp Leica M9 & Leica M-E (however precise framing & focus distance can be limiting factors with these last two cameras). Also viable alternatives are the Fujifilm X-Pro 1 and the Fujifilm X-E1 and (barely) the last 16 Mp additions to the Micro 4/3 lines. However, for reasons of space and clarity, I had to leave interchangeable lens compact cameras out of this article - they will eventually be the topic for a future one.
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| S. Giorgio Maggiore at dusk (Sony Nex-7) |
So what can we ask camera makers for the future on the high-end compact cameras front? Basically, to keep going in this direction! Besides fixing what is missing in this generation of compacts, I would love to see a Sony RX-whatevernumber with a wide angle lens (18-21mm) and one with a 85-90mm lens; a Sigma DPwhatevernumber with a 18-21mm lens; a Nikon Coolpix A/b/cwhatever... you got the idea. I think that the idea of coupling a high-resolution sensor (24 Mp and up) with a dedicated, fixed-focal, high-performance optic has incredible potential and is worth developing; the market seems to have responded very well; so keep 'em coming, and we'll keep buying 'em.
This is it for today! Thank you for reading so far, and stay tuned for more...
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