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How To Get 39 Megapixels From a 53-Year-Old Camera
G3ckoG33k writes "An article at The Register Hardware describes how Hasselblad film cameras dating back to 1957 can be given a new life using a digital back to get images at a super resolution of 39 megapixels. From the article: 'The CFV-39 digital back allows you to get those cameras out from the last century and use the V-System cameras with their beautiful glass once again, it simply fits in place of where the roll film used to be. Hasselblads have never been inexpensive, but talk about a return on investment. Here is a manufacturer looking after a fiercely loyal user-base and along with it offering what could be seen as the ultimate green camera system.' Oh, by the way most pictures taken during the Apollo space program in the 1960s were taken with Hasselblad." Hasselblad's been making digital backs for quite a while now, but this one's very impressive in speed (and cost — "only" about $14,000) compared to earlier models.
There's still one out there. Or maybe it reentered already. Ouch!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
There's a product to fit any budget. I am doing something wrong here.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
In two years from now (according to Moore's law) my 50 dollar cell phone will take 50 megapixel shots.
might just take 14,000 dollars to send out the picture to a friend but what the heck I can afford it!
Film. You know, that cellulose acetate image capture and storage medium that uses silver halides? You might remember it from "last century".
Why not just shoot a $4 roll of film, and scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner at a mere 2400DPI for a fat 30 megapixel image, plus you have an in-camera archival backup slide, which can later be drum-scanned at an even higher resolution if needed?
And you don't even need batteries.
Unfortunately, Hasselblad is trying to do away with "old cameras" by integrating everything into a single body with their next generation medium format. For the last decade everything was modular, with the digital back attaching to the body, but now they're integrating those two parts. Still, it's an expensive proposition, starting at $20k I believe, and with the way the economy is going and the direction of art buyers demanding more video rather than megapixels and renderings, I can't justify spending that kind of money for extra sharpness and shallower DoF.
But if you have $20k just laying around, by all means, buy one. My Canon 1Ds is handling the bulk of my business, and a lot of magazines still take 8 megapixel images (if they even care at all).
It's nice to see a capability like this being added to such an old design. Personally I'd like to see a camera manufacturer or third party come out with digital versions of old manual focus SLR greats like the K1000, or produce reasonably priced digital backs for them.
I've got news for Mr. Santayana: we're doomed to repeat the past no matter what. That's what it is to be alive.
Lenses start at about $3k each and they're fixed focal length (so don't expect to only need one for everything you shoot - these are point and shoots or consumer SLRs with superzooms). Spend $2500 on a body, probably $20k on lenses, another five figures on lighting equipment and support and suddenly $14k is pretty reasonable.
How much are you gonna pay for processing?
That camera does 12 shots per roll of 120. So, $8 per roll with processing means $0.67 per shot - not including the price of the scanner.
So that's $0.67 per film frame compared to pennies per digital frame.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
be? Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
Jpeg is okay, but it puts it's pictures into 32x32 blocks which doesn't always make sense (made more sense in the days of 640x480 pics) and jpeg2000 never seems to be implemented anywhere for some reason, especially the browser level.
There have been digital backs for Hasselblads before. But it's not really such a great deal: you're connecting an expensive digital back to an optical system that wasn't designed for digital image capture, and a heavy mirror box, film crank, and viewfinder that you don't need with modern digital sensors. Oh, and for all that trouble, your lenses don't even work the way you're used to since the sensor is rectangular and smaller than medium format film. And at the rate sensor technologies improve, you can expect that this thing is obsolete in a couple of years.
High-end camera vendors have lossless formats generically called RAW. Usually they're TIFF-based with some extended proprietary information about the camera settings.
DNG is an usual standard today for medium-format equipment. Jpeg is absolute crap for today's cameras - most sensors today will register the image with full 14 bit or bigger depth, so if you use a 8-bit format like jpeg, you're discarding a huge amount of information.
Two problems. The sensor is barely what could be called "medium format". The article says these sensors are 36.7 x 49 mm. That's basically twice the size of the standard 35 mm frame (36 x 24 mm). Even 6x4.5 is bigger than that.
The other problem is bigger - price. For $14K you could get several medium format film cameras and lenses (e.g Hasselblad/Zeiss, Mamiya, Fuji, Bronica, etc), a very good film scanner (e.g Hasselblad Flextight X5), a big server to store your scans on, plus a fridge full of film.
You'd only go the digital route if you need fast turn-around. For everything else, I'd rather go the film option, thanks.
Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
Just for curiosity's sake, the review says RAW results are about 50 MB/shot. I expected the back to come with a hard drive to be honest, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
That said, do you really think someone who pays $14,000 for a digital back for their 'blad is really going to shoot lossy? Because I certainly don't. (Especially because of all the postprocessing flexibility you get with RAW images you don't with others. Forget about just the lossy/nonlossy bit.)
This digital back would not create lossy, 8-bit JPEG. It would store some sort of raw format (DNG?), either uncompressed or using lossless compression (e.g LZ/LZW), and with 16-bit components.
It is called raw, but the other reply is otherwise incorrect. Some older DSLRs (early 2000s) used to have a TIFF option, but that isn't the same thing, just a lossless version of the processed image. RAW output is the data read off the sensor, and is pre-bayer, and other processing (usually with some lossless compression applied). Meta-data is also included, like focal length, and exposure settings.
She's got a purty mouth... worthy of a Hasselblad!
Lossless = RAW format. The bonus of this lossless format is that it takes everything that the sensor saw with no adjustment. All DSLRs have the feature and with temporarily modded firmware, P&S cameras can do it too (like Canons, for example).
schmuck
they don't care about the user base
they care about sales
if Hasselbad could sell itself to Lenovo and become a seller of rebranded chinese digital cameras, and make more money, they would do it in a flash, like any other company in the world, all they care about is money
Oh gosh. I wish Leica would do something simiilar for their R4 series....
JPEG2000 never took off because it has problems with it's wavelet compression, details just blur out. Have a read: http://x264dev.multimedia.cx/?p=317
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/JPEG_JFIF_and_2000_Comparison.png
They've been doing this ever since the first digital backs came out in 1992. You put the back on your 'blad (or, generally speaking, any MF cam you can mount your back on to - I've seen hacks putting them onto Rollei TLRs), connect a cable to PC sync port in the lens (where the shutter is) and you're good to go. If you need to trigger strobes, most backs have their own PC sync. Ta-da.
Seriously, you can put a MF back on a shoebox with a pinhole in it and you'll get a picture, just short the PC sync cable to fire it. Soooo not news.
But apparently they're still too bloody expensive.
For the same price you could get a nice full-frame 35mm DSLR, and some good glass. I'd wager it would be a wee bit more usable too.
Sent from my PDP-11
It would store some sort of raw format (DNG?),
Hasselblad's got its own raw format called 3FR, actually.
Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
Lossless RAW is the only way anyone will shoot with such a camera and back, but it's not a problem. A 64 GB CF card would hold over a thousand images, and medium format is used for shooting landscapes, not action. The cameras are big, heavy, used on a tripod and taking photographs with one is normally a process of minutes to hours of setup followed by a handful of shots.
There are a few photographers that use medium format for portraits, but it's rare. And even then you're talking about dozens of shots, not thousands.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I'd like to see a hack of old movie cameras. If someone would replace the film cartridge area with a cheap, off-the-shelf elctronic video system, that would be awesome.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Don't believe me? Measure it yourself...
you had me at #!
I routinely shoot the other way around: old Pentax and Nikon lenses on my DSLR (Canon Digital Rebel series), with suitable lens adapters. The best adapters are the M42 to EOS adapters, which let you use Pentax screwmount lenses. The digital imaging doesn't cut you any slack, a crummy lens makes crummy pictures, while a good lens makes good pictures. Plus all that old-fashioned lens flare, cool bokeh, and more. Fun.
The Nikon adapters aren't as solid. Maybe it's the fault of my cheap Ebay adapter. Nikon made some amazing lenses in the F2/F3 era.
Forget automation, of course: stop down metering, manual focus.
...laura
Your analogy is flawed. It would be much more appropriate to say "Throw away your Ferrari and buy a Tesla Roadster, and see if you think it was worth it."
Does it also distort the shadows in images like those of the Apollo mission?
Step 1: Find old camera
Step 2: Retrofit camera with digital backing
Step 3: Stick now-retrofitted camera into someone's love-hole.
Step 4: ??
Step 5: Profit!
be? Loss-less would be ideal but would run even modern data cards down to nothing in meantime.
According to TFA
"Each image is approx 50MB in its RAW form from the card - or transferred, which equates to a 117 TIFF file (8-bit) when unpacked and saved. So the supplied 2GB CF cards could hold just over 30 images when in the field. "
And much bigger CF cards are available if you want them. Newegg sell ones up to 128GB!
Really the only reasons to shoot lossy on any DSLR now is either because you are shooting thousands of photos per trip, because you are too cheap to buy a decent sized card, because of write speed issues or because you can't be bothered doing the post-processing. I doubt any of these will apply to the type of photographers who use medium format cameras.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
My dad is a photographer (doing archival work for museums and the like) who uses a Hasselblad. I can verify that at least one of the older models came with a 40GB hard drive attached to the camera, and I think the newer model that he got uses a hard drive as well.
While it would depend a lot on what the photographer is doing, he also tethers his camera to his PC most of the time (since he only shoots stationary things in controlled environments), and the images get saved directly to the computer rather than getting stored anywhere on the camera, so the hard drive space isn't really an issue.
The reason Hasselblads (and pro level Leicas, Nikons, and Canons) are expensive is because the shutter and film advance were designed to work reliably for tens of thousands of pictures, and they could be refurbished when necessary. High-end amateur cameras are capable of taking just as high quality pictures. The lenses are every bit as good as pro lenses, but the camera will wear out if used constantly and they were intended to be replaced when worn out. Digital is an entirely different system; adding a digital back to a film camera just doesn't make sense to me.
It looks like it may soon be time to get the RB67 out of the closet... The back is pricy, and it's 'only' 22 megapixel, but maybe the next generation will be denser & more affordable (I hope)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/660579-REG/Mamiya_322_022_DM_22_DM_Series_Digital.html#specifications
Adapter plate for RB67
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/567945-REG/Mamiya_310_246_310_246_RB67_Adapter_HX_702.html
Yea, anyone dropping $14k on a back can surely afford to drop $80 on a 32gb CF card (600'ish photos between offloads).
while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
Having to control all camera options with the same dial is a big deal, because it leads to mode errors: you turn the dial thinking that you're going to change the aperture, but instead it changes the shutter speed, so then you have to turn it back to the aperture you were at, change the mode to shutter speed mode, and do it again. In the meantime, you missed your shot.
The higher-end DSLRs have more than one control dial and are therefore less prone to this issue. However, the problem is that DSLRs allow per-shot ISO changes, so they really should have three control dials: one for shutter speed, one for aperture, and one for ISO (or in P mode, one for exposure compensation, one for program shift and one for ISO shift).
The problem there is that the low-end DSLRs have really bad, small, dim viewfinders that don't allow good judgement of critical focus. The viewfinders are small and dim compared to old manual focus 35mm film SLRs because the frame size on common DSLRs is smaller, which means that there's less light compared to a 35mm frame. Also, because of the autofocus systems use a significant fraction of the light, they have to use a focus screen that's not as good for manual focus as what existed on old manual-focus only DSLRs.
To make it worse, the manual focus rings on autofocus lenses tend to be bad compared to old manual focus lenses. This is usually because autofocus systems work best if the lens focus system has a very short travel from infinity to closest focus, but that makes it very bad for precise manual focus. Newer lenses with electronic focus rings can probably be made to have nicer focus action than the old manual lenses, though.
Are you adequate?
Digital cameras still rely on high quality front end optics. I don't care how dense your CCD is, you need quality optics up front. Just like the Hubble's mirror was 1 1 millionth of a flea's foot out of whack.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/04/16/review_camera_hasselblad_cfv_39_digital_back/print.html
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
On my old K1000, the front ring on the lens is focus, back ring is D.O.F / F-stop, Mostly-Single-Function rotary dial on the top for shutter speed
The Panasonic DMC-L1, which is identical to the Leica Digilux 3 except for firmware tweaks, has a shutter speed dial on top and has several lenses with aperture dial. It's only 7.5 MP but those pixels are nice and "fat" - add some sharpening in post-processing and 100% crops are perfectly acceptable. The camera can often be had cheap on eBay in good used condition. As part of the four-thirds family of cameras, it has a crop factor of 2x compared to full-frame 35mm film. If you want a retro feel in an affordable price range (here's glaring at you, Leica M9) this is your camera. The "kit" lens is a sweet Leica-designed 14-50mm/2.8-3.5 with built-in image stabilization. Also available is a 25mm/1.4 which is tack sharp wide open, and a 14-150mm/3.5-5.6 that is the best so-called "superzoom" lens ever made. All of these have aperture rings. Add the Olympus 25mm/2.8 "pancake" lens - no aperture ring (have to use the dial on they body) but slender as a supermodel - and you transform the camera into a great street shooter that will intimidate no one. In my opinion, this is the earliest dSLR that will qualify for "classic" status in years to come. Oh, and it has built-in bounce flash; why don't ALL manufacturers think of that??
--
.nosig
And the viewfinder is god-awful. Pass.
Panasonic did spend a few years making pretty unique prosumer cameras like the L1, but they only really broke into the market recently with their all-electronic Micro Four Thirds cameras. These don't address GP's problems, but as somebody who's found himself in the same situation (feeling really unhappy with Nikon DSLRs compared to my old Minolta manual focus cameras), they are very much worth looking into.
I like my Panasonic G1 much better than I liked any DSLR--smaller, lighter, smaller lenses, relatively large and bright electronic viewfinder with good resolution, very accurate autofocus (not prone to the front/back focus problems that plague SLR systems), live histogram on the viewfinder for perfect exposure every time, tilt-swivel LCD for odd angle shooting and use on tripods, magnified live view for really accurate manual focus, ability to take most legacy manual focus lenses through mount adapters. The smaller 4/3 sensor means that you're shooting at a relatively narrow aperture range all the time, so there's actually less need to control the aperture: with a kit zoom, you nearly always just want to shoot wide open, and work the exposure compensation with the live histogram; with a prime lens, I just set an aperture from 2.0 to 5.6 according to the situation, and mostly worry about composition.
Are you adequate?
Phsjt. I use medium format for street, and Hasselblad's have become quite popular as street cameras too. For portraiture and model shoots it's the gold standard, don't be fooled by the hacks in ANTM..
What you're describing sounds more like large format cameras, mainly used (besides press camera models) for landscapes and shooting only several sheets of film.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Sure, Hasselblad might have been used for the US space program... but Nikon inherited that mantle.
There's a Nikon camera on the moon *right now* - because one of the lunar astronauts accidentally left it behind.
Although that's not the only Nikon in space: NASA has used Nikon cameras on the Space Shuttle for 30 years (yes, it is that old) - and currently uses the D3s on the Space Shuttle and International Space Station. According to the press release, there are 35 lenses in orbit right now.
Wow! Fomapan. Now, that's a name I have not heard in a long time...
I used to live on that stuff. I didn't know they still make it. Export it, even.
AccountKiller
Should also note that most professional shops will only accept RAW images, as they allow for much more flexibility for manual fine-tuning and processing with Adobe Camera Raw or programs like Bibble. For most standard workflows that don't require insane precision or tweaking, JPEG is fine. When I shot exclusively RAW, it took hours longer to process and finish a shoot than doing the processing with JPEG with no discernible loss in quality.
Or, you know, I could just keeping shooting film and get at least 50MP, and not have to blow $14K.
I really happy if Nikon can produce Digital Back CCD for Nikon F4, the best Nikon SLR camera I ever use. Or, the new DSLR based on Nikon F4 body. Really love the buttons and switches.
It's always a little cool and crushing to see someone actually doing the things I talk about. I've actually been thinking that It needs to be a generic 35mm digital back. There ought to be plenty of room for a substantial battery and memory/processing with those two big spaces either side of the area of exposure.
Here's to people who actually follow through on those nifty ideas which seem to float around looking for a patch of fertile motivation.
ivan
Like to brew? Want to talk about it? Brattlebrew: groups.yahoo.com/group/brattlebrew
This is the anwser. And replace the Hasselblad with a $100 YashicaMat (the lens is *better* than the standard Zeiss 80/2.8 for the Hasselblad) and you are even better off. There's no reason to stop at 39MP, scan it to 100 if you want. That's what I do .
The problem is not the lens alone but the sensor dye size : Megapixel myth
So basically you need both , a big lensd and a big dye size, for the same amount of megapixel you get less noise. Naturally increasing megapixel , dye size *and* lens is the bets of the world.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
Film. You know, that cellulose acetate image capture and storage medium that uses silver halides? You might remember it from "last century". Why not just shoot a $4 roll of film, and scan it on a $200 flatbed scanner at a mere 2400DPI for a fat 30 megapixel image, plus you have an in-camera archival backup slide, which can later be drum-scanned at an even higher resolution if needed? And you don't even need batteries.
You obviously aren't a professional photographer, you sound more like jackass wannabe MBA from outside the field doing a functional decomposition to estimate the costs when you don't know what the fuck you're actually doing. It really costs about $1/shot using film. A real pro, such as a national geographic photographer, will take 30K shots on one excursion; and that 35mm, not medium format. Even when you run the numbers for 35MM digital still wins. And medium format is a shitload more expensive. In fact since you're posting this kind of bullshit, you probably don't even know what the fuck medium format is. Try wikipedia.
Nothing to see here, move along PLEASE!
Oh come on, its just another image capture system for professional photographers.
The rest of us have to make do with smaller sensor systems or use film. And for small scale use, it'll be a long time before medium format digital capture makes economic sense, unless you have more money than sense!
I have a nice kodak from the late 40's with zeiss glass inside. Very nice camera. Problem with these old cameras are that they use a mechanical shutter. Unfortunately the aging hits the reliability of the whole shutter mechanism where it may start to stick or the metal spring system either starts to retain memory or wear out resulting in the shutter speed changing.
I do photogrammetry work, including digital image processing and radiometric calibration. Digital camera backs can easily record ~10-11 bits real resolution per channel. The glass needs to be good enough to pass light though and be generally symmetric. A decent geometric and radiometric calibration and noise model can be applied to pull out very high quality, even with sub 1k cameras today. Its amazing how much can be done in software and there's a bit of headroom to do it.
This thread sure brings back memories. I spent a couple of summers in the 60s as an assistant to the Chicago schools photographer. I loved shooting the Graphlex 4x5s but the high volume darkroom work was a serious PITA.. I am not aware of any 4x5 digital backs but marrying one of those old cameras to the digital world would certainly be fun.
Is there anyone here who is a photographer? Every photog will tell you about the amazing qualities of digital You can instantly check your work, driving down your time with a model (or whatever you are shooting) thus upping the quality of your pics (models only go so long) You can check your work and change your settings so you have the shot you need the day after or even sooner. Think of reporting photogs. If I would call my editor and say to her, well you'll might have a good picure as soon as I can develop it, scan it, photoshop it, print it again and get it to you, hell no that won't be accepted! Lighting photogs: How good is it to be able to do really new, inovative and interesting stuff without having to worry about whether or not it is going to work out? Don't get me wrong, I love film, but only because it forces you into specific areas of working, and these areas aren't comfortable anymore for the everyday working photog. Film has become an art form and I love it for it. Then as a final word Hasselblad of course has amazing lenses and that's why you want to change your hasselblad to a digital blad. A move made before but a good move none the less!
Be yourself and aim high!
Did anyone else think the child in the sample pictures had plastic legs?
Too late. The Moon trips were canceled.
Explaining high-end photography to the slashdot crowd is like whispering into a hurricane, but here I go.
A digital back for medium format film is far from new. Most early digital cameras for professionals were based on a digital back for a film camera, including Hasselblad "V" series cameras (to distinguish from the auto-focus 100% made-by-Fuji "H" series cameras). Leaf, PhaseOne and others still make backs for Mamiya 645D "film" cameras (even if almost nobody buys the film back for that camera any more) and there used to be digital backs for Bronica, Rollei and others. Now, only Fuji and Mamiya make medium format interchangeable back cameras. You can also use these digital backs on large format cameras with the correct adaptor plates. $14,000 is cheap for a 39MP digital back, here are the costs for the PhaseOne options: http://www.calumetphoto.com/Digital:+Cameras+Workflow/Digital+Cameras/Phase+One/
I still prefer film, but here's why digital vs. film was resolved in the favor of digital long ago for professionals: About 8 years ago I went to a talk at MacWorld Expo on tethered (meaning medium format backs, before CF cards could store enough, you tethered the camera to a computer via firewire) vs. untethered (meaning 35mm-camera based digital cameras) digital cameras. The fellow shooting a then c. 6MP Nikon said that he spent $20,000/year on film and developing costs. You shot high-end Ektachrome or Fuji professional slide film at about $5-8/roll and had it processed by a very reputable lab at about $20/roll. Even then, digital was cheaper for professionals.
$14,000 for a camera in this day and age, sure, just let me eat/make my financial spinach first.
Not at all. The preferred cameras for professional landscape shooting are large-format view cameras (the seemingly old-fashioned kind with the bellows and the black cloth). They can also be had for cheaper.
A medium format camera like the Hasselblad can take fine landscapes, though.
Are you adequate?
Sure. You've got the camera up against your eye and the shot lined up, and just need to change the white balance. It's as simple as prying a fat finger between your face and the camera to hold down one of all of those buttons that are all next to each other and feel the same with next to no tactile feedback, and then turning the wheel and praying you pressed the right button, because if you didn't, then you're going to have to undo what you just changed and try again.
Are you adequate?
Your mom's no lady.
Did you even read my comment? I mentioned one key problem with that: small, dim viewfinders with bad microcontrast which make it hard to judge critical focus.
There are a bunch of other problems, too:
And as for your snarky suggestion, I actually already use old manual lenses all the time on a digital camera, thank you. However, my choice for this is not a DSLR, but rather a Micro Four Thirds system camera. These cameras, with their all-electronic viewing system, don't have the disadvantages I just mentioned. They will meter with any old lens at shooting aperture without the viewfinder getting dimmer, and you can magnify the viewfinder up to 10x for really accurate manual focus.
Are you adequate?
Lossless is about 50mb each, so a 16gb memory card can store 320 pictures, 32gb 640. Hook a hard drive to it and 1.5tb will get you 30,000 shots.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
He's also bad at math, 2gb CF cards can hold about 43 images. A 128gb CF card will hold almost 3,000 images.
I doubt any of these will apply to the type of photographers who use medium format cameras.
Especially a Hasselblad. Their digitals + an 80mm lense run close to $30,000. Lenses are between $2,000 and $7,000 each.
This is very far from low-end shit here. Spending $14,000 in order to keep using 30+ thousand dollars worth of gear is a serious no brainer.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller