Camera Labs

For the technically inclined (OK, I'm guilty as charged!) this site is a huge resource. I guess few of us buy high end film cameras any more but there is a lot on that site to help inform DSLR and lens buying decisions.

There is a link from Roger Clark's site to another site which compares the performance of a 35mm camera, a Hasselblad 503CW medium format (6 x 6 cm) camera and a DSLR with a full frame sensor. I would have expected the Hasselblad to win hands down. Have a look at the results here.

Health Warning: Put a pillow on the floor so that when your jaw drops you don't hurt yourself!

On another thread I suggested that the Hasselblad was so beautiful "I would want to place it in its own display cabinet with suitable accent lighting rather than get my fingerprints all over it!" If you are fortunate enough to own a Canon 5D (or equivalent) perhaps the Hasselblad should be retired to the display cabinet for other reasons.

I wonder how a modern cropped sensor DSLR would have fared in that shoot-out?

Bob.

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That's a really interesting report, although I'm not sure about the workflow and resizing. But even that aside, I don't think it would make a big difference to the final images they show there.

I'm surprised by what they show though - I, like most, would have expected the medium format to win hands down in resolution, although with more visible film grain. I used to shoot 6x7cm with a Mamiya 7 II and am sure the negatives had lots more detail than the digital I was shooting alongside... I gave up with it though for convenience... maybe I should dig out some scans I had made, although sadly few were at the full resolution of the machine...

Gordon

Well, Gordon: resolution-wise the medium-format film-cam rulez: 50MPix. But what R. N. Clark is saying is that the noise of the film destroys the fine impression and reduces the IQ to something that resembles a 10MPix DSLR.
It sounds quite astonishing, but at least it goes hand in hand with my observation, that noise and resolution on a 10MP DSLR (APS-C and higher) may perhaps be no longer the most important issue in comparison to contrast.
And as the resolution figures with IMATEST are really measured as a contrast-limit, it's easy to see, how bad contrast that occurs under less than optimal real-life conditions can ruin the resolution-tests in a lab!

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
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