Is there an A3 version of the R300?

[Shooter]

With the R1800 I see not reduced bronzing, but no bronzing at all. It
is not an issue. With the R2400, I haven't seen the output yet, but
understand that there may be some insignificant bronzing visible.


See above re bronzing. It is possible to switch GO off with the R1800,
and then I expect that bronzing may be seen. If you use a swellable
polymer paper, then you will also see a nasty effect from the pigment
held up on the surace.
Both have a wider colour gamut than the 2100. Both will produce
stunning prints on semi and gloss papers. The R2400 is priced at about
the same level as the 2100, the R1800 is less expensive.
If you want dye ink in an A3 printer, then in my opinion the only
machine to seriously consider is the Canon iP9950, which is less
expensive than the R1800.


I disagree.
Read these comments from Vincent Oliver:
"The EPSON Stylus Photo R2400 doesn't compete with traditional wet
chemistry photographs - it doesn't need to as it is streets ahead of
anything I have seen produced in a darkroom".
" As a professional photographer with over 30 years experience and
exhibited at many venues, I can say that the print I produced this
afternoon is better than anything I have ever done in the darkroom. The
print has sharpness, great colour saturation and all the qualities that
I would expect from a wet chemistry photograph, let alone a digital
print. It is stunning. Any photographer who questions the quality or
merit of a digital print compared to a wet chemistry print need only
look at the output from the R1800."
(see http://www.photo-i.co.uk for reviews)

There is plenty of debate elsewhere about film vs digital. I just use
my eyes to judge. 35mm is dead. If you doubt this, then check Ebay for
prices for great cameras like used Nikon F4s. Nobody seriously
compares a "£5000 digi" with 35mm, the debate seems to have shifted to
645 - drum scanned. (I assume you are talking about a Canon 1DS II, as
you can get a 35mm killing D2x for much less than that)

Well Frederick, I am surprised at your reference to Nikon F4's selling at
such low prices on ebay, why is this I ask, one, because the F4 is now an
old lady and second, I would suspect that most are at the end of their
shutter life or have some other problem, I thought as a Pro Photographer you
would have been aware of this.

I have recently received wet prints taken with my F4 and prints taken with a
7mp digital, the wet prints are of a higher quality than the digi no doubt
whatever on this one, I as yourself use eye comparison as this is also
what the customer uses. The f4 and digi were used for background shots and
thank god the wedding was shot the a 6x6 film camera.

I also wonder at the photo you printed in the afternoon and measured against
a digi, I have to wonder what control system you use on your wet system, I
refer here to control strips and the like controlled by the chemical
manufacturer, I use Agfa. If your wet system is not controlled then there
could well be a better print produced by a digi and printed on an Inkjet.

Pro lab processing is a different ball game from home developing.

 

[frederick]

Epson, I



Well Frederick, I am surprised at your reference to Nikon F4's selling at
such low prices on ebay, why is this I ask, one, because the F4 is now an
old lady and second, I would suspect that most are at the end of their
shutter life or have some other problem, I thought as a Pro Photographer you
would have been aware of this.

It applies to all 35mm equipment - regardless of quality or age. Demand
is gone. Only collectors items (Leica, Alpa etc) seem to have retained
value.

I have recently received wet prints taken with my F4 and prints taken with a
7mp digital, the wet prints are of a higher quality than the digi no doubt
whatever on this one, I as yourself use eye comparison as this is also
what the customer uses. The f4 and digi were used for background shots and
thank god the wedding was shot the a 6x6 film camera.

I don't disbelieve you, but there are plenty of successful wedding
photographers now using only digital 6-8mp, Canon 20D, Fuji s3/s3 etc -
not even high-end equipment.

I also wonder at the photo you printed in the afternoon and measured against
a digi, I have to wonder what control system you use on your wet system, I
refer here to control strips and the like controlled by the chemical
manufacturer, I use Agfa. If your wet system is not controlled then there
could well be a better print produced by a digi and printed on an Inkjet.

That article I referenced was not mine!
I assume that Vincent Oliver who wrote the article knows what he is
talking about and it was not a direct comparison - more an impression
that one print from an inkjet looked better than anything that he had
done wet-process in 30 years of professional photography.

 

[Rob]

Shooter wrote:

I have recently received wet prints taken with my F4 and prints taken with a
7mp digital, the wet prints are of a higher quality than the digi no doubt
whatever on this one, I as yourself use eye comparison as this is also
what the customer uses. The f4 and digi were used for background shots and
thank god the wedding was shot the a 6x6 film camera.

I also wonder at the photo you printed in the afternoon and measured against
a digi, I have to wonder what control system you use on your wet system, I
refer here to control strips and the like controlled by the chemical
manufacturer, I use Agfa. If your wet system is not controlled then there
could well be a better print produced by a digi and printed on an Inkjet.

Pro lab processing is a different ball game from home developing.

Digital camera images printed off to an inkjet printer are better than a
film scanned image to an inkjet printer.

I can't see any difference in images digital or scanned, printed off at
a lab to wet paper they are never as sharp. (even 120 scans)

Digital camera images to an inkjet are the sharpest IMO.

rm

 

[Jon O'Brien]

Digital camera images printed off to an inkjet printer are better than
a film scanned image to an inkjet printer.

That depends very much on the scanner, the skill of the scanner operator
and the post-scanning processing the image gets. I don't think you can
generalise on the subject.

I can't see any difference in images digital or scanned, printed off at
a lab to wet paper they are never as sharp. (even 120 scans)

All scanned images require some post-scan sharpening. If they don't get it
then the print is bound to lack sharpness.

Jon.

 

[Rob]

That depends very much on the scanner, the skill of the scanner operator
and the post-scanning processing the image gets. I don't think you can
generalise on the subject.




All scanned images require some post-scan sharpening. If they don't get it
then the print is bound to lack sharpness.

Jon.

Film is a diffused medium for it to work.

rm

 

[Jon O'Brien]

Film is a diffused medium for it to work.

Sorry, I don't understand your point. Can you expand on that a bit,
please?

Jon.

 

[Shooter]

I fail to under stand how scanning has come into this discussion, I never
said the digi prints were scanned, infact they were not but printed on an
upmarket inkjet, they were produced by a different company to the wet
photos.

 

[Shooter]

I am always suspicious of writers who give opinions such as Vincent Oliver,
many have to be taken for what they are, Opinions, even you thought it was
an impression.

 

[frederick]

I am always suspicious of writers who give opinions such as Vincent Oliver,
many have to be taken for what they are, Opinions, even you thought it was
an impression.

"Of course, in the end — and no matter what evidence is brought to bare,
or what arguments are made, the hard-core aficionado of the traditional
photographic print will claim that an inkjet print just isn't a
"photograph". Well, all I can can is, "Get over it""

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/handmade.shtml

 

[Rob]

I fail to under stand how scanning has come into this discussion, I never
said the digi prints were scanned, infact they were not but printed on an
upmarket inkjet, they were produced by a different company to the wet
photos.

Two points which I am in agreement with you.

1. That digital camera images printed to an inkjet printer are sharper
than the same images printed to the wet process. This is by the nature
of the printing processes.

2. One step further in that a scanned image (digitised for printing)
from the F4 (film) is not as sharp as the digital camera image. (What
ever process its printed)

rm

 

[Shooter]

Hi Rob,

Must be my poor manner of explaining, I agree with your two points however
the wet wedding pic's were not scanned at any time they were produced by a
Pro Lab who only do film. the digi shots were sent to another company who
took them straight off the memory card to the printer, no scanning at any
time. Now on the return of the wet pic's it was plain to see they were by
far better in quality than the memory card picks, the memory card pic's were
produced on a 7mp camera and the wet pic's on a 6x6 film camera.

Just one of many differences was the dress detail in the wet photo's, the
digi ones had very poor detail in the dresses. of course I copied the card
before sending just in case anyone raises the point. My point to Frederick
was that the digi shots are not as good as the film ones taken with my F4
with film and again no comparison was made between the digi and the 6x6, it
would have been a waste of time. Ok a point may be that I only use the very
best in Nikon lens, top end only. The digi shots were no even offered to the
customer as part of the package only film shots.

 

[Jon O'Brien]

...the digi shots were sent to another company who took them straight
off the memory card to the printer...

That's almost certainly the problem, then. /Any/ digitally acquired image
needs sharpening before printing, whether it's a scanned negative, slide
or print or an image from a digital camera.

Jon.

 

[Shooter]

I have to disagree Jon, when you sharpen a digital file you can loose detail
and alter colour. I had no problem with the sharpness of the pic's it was
loss of detail in delicate colours, and that was with a top of the range
compact Olympus C70. the pro Digital Lab I use do allsorts of correction
with gear I could not afford so they get the very best out of a file on a
memory card. They send proofs of before and after correction, I might just
add at a price of course which is fair enough as with a wedding you only get
one shot.

 

[Jon O'Brien]

I have to disagree Jon, when you sharpen a digital file you can loose
detail and alter colour.

That depends on how the sharpening is done. If you use Photoshop, convert
the image to Lab mode and sharpen only the lightness channel, the colour
channels are unaffected.

As for losing detail, I've never seen any evidence of that (unless the
image is vastly over-sharpened), nor heard any suggestion that that's the
case. The whole point of sharpening is to make detail easier to see by
emphasising edge transitions. If it lost detail, there would be no point
in doing it.

That all digitally acquired images require some degree of sharpening isn't
my idea, by the way. It's something I've picked up from people with many
years of experience in the field. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that
it's common knowledge.

...the pro Digital Lab I use do allsorts of correction with gear I could
not afford so they get the very best out of a file on a memory card.

My comment was based on you saying:

...the digi shots were sent to another company who took them straight
off the memory card to the printer...

No mention of correction.

Jon.

 

[frederick]

I have to disagree Jon, when you sharpen a digital file you can loose detail
and alter colour. I had no problem with the sharpness of the pic's it was
loss of detail in delicate colours, and that was with a top of the range
compact Olympus C70. the pro Digital Lab I use do allsorts of correction
with gear I could not afford so they get the very best out of a file on a
memory card. They send proofs of before and after correction, I might just
add at a price of course which is fair enough as with a wedding you only get
one shot.

I thought you were using a dslr - not a compact digital.
Would you expect a 38 - 190mm zoom to perform well on your f4?
Apart from this, lack of accutance and resolution loss through
diffraction (which will kick in at f4 for 7mp on a tiny 7.2mm x 5.35mm
sensor) is normal for these cameras. Noise reduction as well as other
in-camera processing to remove/reduce CA and purple fringing will lose
more detail.
I suspect that to use the camera for the best retention of detail, then
shoot (ideally in raw mode if you can be bothered with the hassle) at
lowest iso, in aperture priority mode with aperture set larger than
f4.5. If shooting in RAW mode, then underexpose deliberately by 1/3 stop
or so to reduce the chance of blown highlights (you can adjust exposure
carefully post processing the raw file)
Image editing programs, and tools to convert raw files are available free.
Getting 35mm challenging results from a compact camera is not an easy
task. Forget about the number of pixels defining resolution. The
compact camera is as different a format from your 35mm or a dslr, as
they are different to your medium format gear.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Jon is absolutely correct regarding the need for unsharp masking of
digitally acquired files. They all require it to differing degrees. It
gets somewhat complicated, but it has to do with trying to limit
sampling errors during the acquisition of the image file, and then
correcting for the softness which is created in that earlier process to
return sharpness to the image.

Art

 

[Shooter]

Apart from my own view and experience of film versus digi your view just
confirms that film is in front against digi for such work.

 

[Shooter]

I follow what you are saying, but from using the digi and using the F4 for
the extra shots like the child with ice cream all over it's face at the
reception and many other shots of that nature, my posts have never suggested
that the either the digi or F4 was to be used for the serious stuff.

The Nikon used an 85mm lens and the C70 used it own 38-190mm and took
photos throughout the range, all I am saying and have ever said is that the
Nikon gave me a series of photo's that were better than the digi.
Irrespective of what specs have been written the Nikon won hands down. Again
I refer to my reference to the Canon 1ds/2.

The shots with the C70 were good enough for the wedding pages in the local
press, but that's about all and looked great printed on my own Epson 2100
but that's it and compared the Nikon film camera no contest.

You hit the nail on the head in you last paragraph, all I have ever written
confirms this in practice.

 

[frederick]

I follow what you are saying, but from using the digi and using the F4 for
the extra shots like the child with ice cream all over it's face at the
reception and many other shots of that nature, my posts have never suggested
that the either the digi or F4 was to be used for the serious stuff.

The Nikon used an 85mm lens and the C70 used it own 38-190mm and took
photos throughout the range, all I am saying and have ever said is that the
Nikon gave me a series of photo's that were better than the digi.
Irrespective of what specs have been written the Nikon won hands down. Again
I refer to my reference to the Canon 1ds/2.

The shots with the C70 were good enough for the wedding pages in the local
press, but that's about all and looked great printed on my own Epson 2100
but that's it and compared the Nikon film camera no contest.

You hit the nail on the head in you last paragraph, all I have ever written
confirms this in practice.

You might find this of interest:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/d30/d30_vs_film.shtml
A comparison of a 3.3mp dslr to Fuji Provia 100f 35mm. The digital won
hands down in the writer's opinion. I find that quite fascinating.
About one year before this was published, Luminous Landscape published
an article based on theory, which concluded that 14mp was required to
roughly equal 35mm film. This sort of figure is still quoted, yet it
conflicts with everything that I have seen. The performance of the old
Canon D30 is well surpassed in every way (lenses permitting) by any new
entry level dslr.

 

[Shooter]

Thanks for the link Frederick, I am sure you and others are correct in that
digital will be the system to use in the future. I am always suspicious of
the camera makers and the writers as it is easy for a camera to be tested
that has been pulled out of production and batch tested for the test and
that some writers may have an advantage to writing in the way they do. The
only way is to get hold of the camera and test it ones self, but that's the
name of the game so it will continue to be that way.