My Next Camera...choke!

With the size of the file, and it says 30 fps, what kind of memory card would keep up with that?

What kind of anything would keep up with that! lol One would need all new software, pc etc .

Found a kit for $47k

https://digitaltransitions.com/product/phase-one-iq3-100mp-system/?attribute_systems=Phase+One+IQ3+100MP+XF+System+Kit+with+240mm+LS+Blue+Ring

Ouch...

It's a pipe dream for me at this point.

I held on to my Hasselblad system for far too long hoping that someone would come out with a reasonably priced square sensor back for it.

If I hit the lottery though…

Whoa! Think I will add it to the cart! Wonder if any one on this site owns one?Im going to check out Flickr and see! Im going to Lincoln Road again tonight,
Peter Lik has a studio there He owns this camera,, I changed my mind about pure landscape photos without wildlife, The difference is that he travels around the world to the most remote and scenic spots in the world, What an amazing life!

What is the learning curve on such a beast?

I can't even imagine! I struggle with the sony a6000 !

I was about to buy one, but then the salesman said I had to take the shots myself...
no deal! At this price I expect the camera to do the work, don’t you?

can't imagine what i would do with 100mp. right now with 30mp the size of a file is from 30megs to 50 megs. its probably great for aerial photography and maps of cities.


---Mike Savad
http://www.MikeSavad.com

You better have a good GoFund me account to finance your movie project. Most would rent one me thinks.

Or a hefty advance from Vogue.

This camera works for Peter Lik! He sells huge prints with unbelievable clarity! He has multiple retail studios as well and and sells online!

The 'megapixel' has been the main buzzword for quite a while now but I'm no longer seeing the point of increased resolution. I'd much rather have better dynamic range and lower noise, with the resolution I have today (24mp). At 40mp and above, we have to downsize for FAA anyway. Unless you're doing wall size prints for art galleries and the ultra-rich (like Peter Lik), there's just no need.

I've rented 40 megapixel medium format backs in the past, when they were the state of the art. There's a visible difference, even when you're downsizing an image.

Just attended a mini seminar with a portrait photographer who claims to be doing a half million dollars a year gross with an average sales order of $8000.

He shoots with the same Canon 5D mark III that I have and his largest prints suffer for it, and mine would too. If I were doing that level of business, I'd buy this system in a heartbeat and probably sell more 40 x 60's than he does.

People who regularly sell 40 x 60 prints to truly discerning buyers can no doubt make good use of this kind of resolution. But photographers like myself, selling prints online at typical wall sizes, would mostly be kidding themselves if they ponied up for a 100mp camera thinking it would make a real difference in their work.

Yes, low light shots of this size can be simply downsized for a big noise reduction, but there are other ways to accomplish roughly the same thing. Bird and wildlife photographers could use this high resolution because their subjects often don't nearly fill the frame; but not if the sensor resolution exceeds the resolving power of the lens.

For most of us, a 24mp camera has all the resolution we really need, and resolution of 2x or 4x that amount is just going to be lost on the output side: web images and typical wall size paper prints.

I agree mostly with Jim H. For me, the sweet spot is 36mp or thereabouts. Full frame images can be stitched together in so many different configurations, that i prefer a compact camera to medium format. And I used to shoot MF.

Says on his newest release that PL used a Nikon D800 and 50mm lens. PL is mostly about cranking up the sharpness and the saturation to the max and having a trained sales staff.

Ed. He uses different cameras including the d800 but his staff here in Lincoln road said he is now using the phase one camera!

But Judy you could easily get 100mpx from your a6000 by photostitching. It isn't hard, and it's much easier than lugging a Phase One around. When the specs sound that crazy amazing you have to realize the limitations of it as well.

So - 3 kgs with lens, then limited lens choice. And most lenses for MF aren't that special, getting their sharpness from necessarily smaller apertures.

Actually just the fact of its weight puts me off before I'd even worry about the price, regardless of whether I could ever afford it.

When Peter Lik uses one it's to appeal to the 'Wow you must have a big (or expensive, or unobtainable) camera.' And he'd definitely make a point of mentioning the amount of megapixels in his brochure. The truth is he could get the same - or even better - results with a smaller camera.

Yup, it's part of the overall image. Just like in his TV show when he takes a helicopter to the same spot thousands of tourists park their car.

....

Next time I'm in Yellowstone I'll be sure to be on the look out for any retired doctors, dentists or investment bankers lugging one of these around.

If you consider the analogy of Moore's law, with computing power doubling every couple of years, it will only be a matter of time before this technology is mainstream. Fasten your seat belts!

Mark I get the impression that this camera offers a lot more than size output! Many “stops and other technology that captures much more detail than is possible with most other cameras! https://www.phaseone.com/en/Products/Camera-Systems/XF100MP
Check out the features! David exponential technology will yield some amazing developments in image capture in the future.

Only in a single shot.though Judy.

You could take four or five shots with a twentyfour mpx camera and when combined later in PS they'd give the same resolution as the Phase One

Now you could say that four or five shots from a Phase One would give you a four hundred mpx image - but so would sixteen to twenty shots from the 24 mpx camera. Still only a little bit of a hassle for a lot less size and weight.

The thing with visible light photography, and even ultra violet and infra red, is that that technology has been around for a hundred years.

15 stops of dynamic range was available in point and shoots from five years ago, because built in HDR achieves the same thing.

I mean if I was millionaire with a bit of spare pocket change I'd definitely buy for playing around with and there would definitely be a fun factor to it, but I'd still prefer a small camera for the majority of what I shoot

A multi-thousand dollar Phase One didn't get this shot - a 300 dollar Nikon P610 did

15 stops of dynamic range sounds great. You still have to point it at something interesting.

I'd rather take the money and travel around with a $500 micro four thirds camera and perhaps stack images for extended dynamic range.

Or why not just shoot film with a used medium format camera? Way cheaper.

My old graflex press camera with a Polaroid back shooting Type 45 positive/negative film probably still beats this for dynamic range.

The Nikon D850 has 46MP and costs considerably less ($3297) which I will get when Amazon gets more in stock.

Fine Art Nature Photography

I agree Ed, Greg that is one of the cameras I am considering,,, Mark, Wally is great!

$3,297 - that's a lot of spiral notebook sales!

Edward

As the former owner of a very large Hasselblad film system, I can assure you that the original 12MP Canon 5D exceeded medium format output quality 12 years ago. That's taking into account making optical prints from the film. A highest quality scan and digital print from film may match a 22MP camera.

You'd need to be shooting 8 x 10 to approximate the resolution with all the attendant difficulties involved.

Rumor has it that the next version of the 50MP Canon 5D will have the significantly improved noise performance of the 5D IV.

Hopefully I'll be in a position to buy one when it comes out.

Yep. Lots of notebooks. But not as many of these:

https://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=c83d924e7445d2c7e689fb9b371931ea

Mark

I would much rather shoot 1 100MP shot than try to stitch 4 24 MP shots.

I just spent the last few days compositing some architectural photos for a friend who had his hands full with shooting other assignments and the slightest movement of the camera or in trees in the background made for a frustrating experience to say the least.

Whoa Greg! That's a biggie!

Error correction - I meant Type 55. Dynamic range was incredible. "These negatives are fine-grained, have a broad tonal range and are of extremely high resolution, on the order of 150 LP/mm"

Yes, while i've done panoramas with stitching, it can be a pain.

Note that no matter how big or how good or panoramas are, we still have to downsize them for FAA. So there went your 40mp. Poof.

Another choice for your fat wallet -

Large format digital camera
8x10 (10x8) Inch high sensitivity, large pixel (fat pixel) digital sensor

http://www.largesense.com/

Jim

A downsized 100MP image will have more and sharper detail than a native 50MP image.

Edward

Yeah, but it's only 12MP :-), over $100,000 …and late.

Ha! I missed that part! I'd love a sensor for my 4x5 press camera.

Thanks Judy.

David I was being comparative. Most post processing is a pain to various degrees. And that's comparative too.

But I find carrying even a lightweoght aps-c dslr becomes a pain after a short while. The heavier the camera the quicker I reach the threshold.

But then again I'm not making a fortune from photography - if I was I'm sure my attitude would change; especially if I could afford to helicopter into the place I needed to go.

Maybe I'll win the lottery tomorrow...

David, an interesting assertion which i'll have to research.

For POD purposes, what's the use of having a jillion pixels if it goes beyond what the printer can print? It will get downscaled anyway.

When I joined here I was shooting a 12.3 MP camera (Nikon D300s). Those images can be printed at up to 40" in the long dimension. In 2012 I got the then new D800E with a 36 MP sensor. Those images can be printed three sizes larger (72"). I have some panoramas that can be printed at over 100".

Fine Art Nature Photography

Doug

As I said to JIm, a higher resolution original will have more detail and be sharper when down sized than a lower resolution native image.

The higher rez file simply has more detail to start with.

Back in 2002 I shot 200 pieces of jewelry with a 2.74MP Nikon D1 for an intraweb catalog. 2 years later I shot another 100 or so images for the same company on a 6MP Nikon D1x and even though files from both cameras had been downsized to 600x900 pixels the D1x images were visibly sharper.

Another advantage of more MP comes when shooting wildlife. It's not always easy or safe to get close to critters. With a higher MP camera one can crop and still come away with an image that can be printed at decent size. The grizzly bear image below is cropped quite a bit and will still print at 24"x36".

David, not doubting it but note that the downsizing is done by software. Downsizing algorithms, of which there are several, have likely improved over the years and can contribute to perceived sharpness. They probably try to 'preserve' detail in ways that may actually enhance it. I'm assuming you used the same lens, or at least something very similar.

Jim

Same version of Photoshop was used to prepare both sets of files and, yes, same lens and lighting set up. Only difference was the camera.

But that was just one example. I have done other comparisons in the past and higher resolution always wins out.

When you start with more detail you end up with more detail. If the software has more information to work with, it tends to maintain it.

Well I'm all for technological progress and no doubt at some point I'll get a camera with 40mp or more. Today, files of that size would be a pain to store, edit and upload, so I'd probably want a computer with another step up in CPU/graphics/storage specs. I'm just not seeing the need to pay for that resolution yet - especially since I can't get it in APS-C.

For me, probably the biggest attraction of 40+ mp would be doing night photos downtown, then downsizing to lose the noise. That might be great.

I'm not a big seller, lucky to sell a few each month, but today I sold a 60" print of a 24mp photo taken with a Sony a6000 (APS-C).

I shoot with digital medium format, not Phase one but a Hasselblad H system. They're surprisingly simple to use believe it or not. It is a big financial layout but well worth it in my opinion.

I got a 250MP camera second hand off ebay for £200, It takes incredibly sharp pictures when paired with a good lens. Here's one shot from it (I've forgotten how to insert the image in a post):

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/clyne-park-waterfall-paul-cowan.html

The camera does have a few drawbacks, though, for one thing you have to be careful not to scratch the negative when you insert it and remove it from the film holder.

Since Day One in digital photography, which is not all that long ago, we've been upping the pixel count, along with upping the processing speed of the computers we use to edit those images, but it does seem as though we have reached the point of diminishing returns. When I look back at sales and comments, I seem to get the same reaction to pix that come from my iPhone (12 megapixels) as I do with pix from my 25 Mp Nikon dslr. Another factor that plays into this is the resolution of monitors used by customers. The image will never look any better than the monitor it's displayed on, and given that I have not had any returns so far, I assume that the print quality is within customers' expectations.

Then, of course, you need to ask yourself, just how many pixels does an image for a coffee mug or t-shirt really need. My guess is that about 10 years ahead, we will have iPhones that shoot 100 Mp images with a generic processing routine that does a better editing job than I can do....all I do will be to take it out of my pocket and point it somewhere. Siri will tell me that the composition is OK and then I hit the button. I'm guessing that this will be the time to retire from photography and resign my computer to take care of whatever tasks are still left to humans at that time.