hand held and its effects on resolution on large negs

Not nescesarely: the optimum aperture for each lens is diferent, check the lens charts
As a general rule you can say that is format dependant: f:8 for my Olympus E, f:11 for my SL66 and RB and f:22 for my Sinar 4x5 inch lenses.
What aperture you use without a tripod is a choice between optimum sharpness of your lens, the depht of field you want and the shutterspeed required to obtain a sharp picture without camera movement showing.

Hopefully this helps a bit.
Peter

 

Why don't you put your 6x9 RF on a tripod and take a test on a fine-grain (low ISO/ASA) film at f:8, f:11, f:16 and so on and see what your lens does ? Use a 10x magnifier or scan to see the diferences.
Use a high detail subject.
I would not worry about a couple of lines diference that can only be seen on a test chart.
The correctness of your focussing is more important, check that with the lens wide open on the same film.

Most modern lenses are pretty close to each other in performance.

Peter

 

The potential negative (& resulting print) definition (sharpness) is related to the resolution of the lens at its various apertures & the capabilities of a film, but the actual sharpness is affected by the choice of aperture and shutter speed as well.

It's wrong to to think of camera shake reducing tas he lens resolution, because that shake will reduce the definition (sharpness) of the image regardless of the resolving power of the lens and in a different way. An image made at a high shutter sped with a poor resolution lens could look far better than a similar image made with a top quality lens at it's optimum aperture but with mild camera shake.

Comparing old lens designs with new raises other issues because even lenses of the same basic design have been improved since the 40's & 50's, so a modern Xenar (Tessar design) will be better than an older one. I have tested 1919, 1931, and early 50's Tessar's against a last production Xenar and the modern Xenar is better at all apertures. Then compare any 4 element Tessar design against a modern 6 element lens of similar focal length. I tested against a Symmar & a Sironar and the modern lenses are far superior across a wider range of apertures, even against the modern Xenar which was the closest of the Tessar design lenses.

Skopar's have a good reputation, but would it perform anywhere nearly as well as a modern Fuji 6 element lens across the whole of its aperture range. That would really depend on the size of print you want to make. I found with a hand held Crown Graphic and 135mm Tessar (1931) that 125th gave sharp results but the Tessar's edge sharpness isn't adequate until f16 and is best at f22. On a roll film camera the optimum apertures are more like f11 - f16.

Ian

 

I'm pretty comfortable hand-holding down to 1/60 sec. with my 69. I can hand-hold my Leica fairly well at 1/15th. Anything slower than those speeds and it's tripod time.

 

Nothing wrong with the Skopa ! Looks good, I take this were enlarged parts of the neg.

6x7 - 6x9 beating D ? Anytime, with both eye's shut and hands down !

Peter

 

If you are hand holding, then vibration/movement will reduce sharpness. However, the bigger the film, the less enlargement you need for a print. Also, the bigger the film, the less the movement matters (the shake distance relative to the final print size). I have found that I can handhold 4x5 well beyond what I could do with 35mm. I'm sure the heft of the Speed Graphic helps but there is also some geometry at play.

If I shake the camera and it moves 0.1mm then there will be blur on the film. But in 35mm with an 8x enlargement, that is now a 0.8mm blur. In 4x5, that is only a 0.2mm blur on the final print....much more acceptable.

 

Of course, shooting handheld doesn't reduce the lens resolution in any way, it just makes less use of it. We all know that you get the most critical detail on a tripod, etc. It's abundantly clear that shooting from a tripod is the best option, if critical detail is the concern.

But... motion blur doesn't degrade the tonality of the image, and there are plenty of motion blurred photos that are very effective.

The idea of getting as much detail as possible and blowing it up huge and showing off all that detail is, IMHO, teetering on the verge of cliche. Seems to me that the trend in photography (and I am including digi in this very broadbrush assessment) is to go big, bigger, biggest. As if the value of the photograph is now determined by how large you can print it. X beats Y for bigger prints, etc. etc.

Sure, all of us, when transitioning into larger formats, first get excited about the detail under loupe. But I think that ultimately the tonality is the thing- the lower frequency information. Detail appeals to the brain, but tonality appeals to the soul, that is my current thinking

 

With the use of a modern camera for handheld use, I would expect better performance from the use of the highest shutter speed that allows me to take the type of photo that I want even if I am a ways from using optimum aperture. Having no mirror or focal plane shutter but rather a very low vibration leaf shutter will be helpful in allowing very good performance at a relatively low shutter speed such as 1/500th of a second with a static subject and a handheld camera where the amount of magnification is fairly low.

 

Yep, and we won't want to have this discussion here, but if you know what you are doing, it is possible to get good tonal smoothness from a small neg or lowish resolution scan or digital file.

But here is the really important thing, I allege. Enalrgements from smaller negs, lower res scanned images and digital files will always be more prone to posterization across regions of a scene with similar tone values. This is particularly true of infrared, a genre that I like very much in film but utterly despise in digital, frankly.

 

Should i .. should i not ... should i ?
Ah well ... once more into the breach!

When handholding, moving mirrors, or focal plane shutters, should be the very least of your worries.
The shake they may contribute really is orders of magnitude smaller than what your hands are doing.
So take that worry of your mind. It will help you enjoy photography more.

 

But never as good as from a larger neg, or higher resolution scan or digital file.
Tonality is not just a matter of dynamic range, but also of resolution.

For doubters (if there are any), a simple, rethorical question may make that clear: how many different shades of a gradient going from blown out highlight to the deepest black will you be able to capture when you have 3 pixels spanning that gradient, and how many when you have 30 pixels at your disposal to span that same gradient?

 

As a ***** is either on or of, 2 in the first question & not many in the other.

Can you explain "rethorical" ??? is it the American spelling ? of Rhetorical . . . . . . .

Ian

 

Ian, a digital sensor most certainly does not capture only ones and zeros. The issue that you and I and most film advocates have with digital is not with the sensor itself, but rather with the analogue to digital conversion Therein lies the posterization.

Anyway, I think/hope that Q.G.'s point was that resolution and bit depth are both important, and I agree.

 

You're right I wasn't thinking straight I was thinking of Bytes I don't think to hard about Digital if I can help it

Ian

 

It was.

It's not just the conversion that is important, but also the 'sampling'. More 'real estate' (whether film or sensors), more samples, more 'tonality'.
Both the tones 'spatial resolution' as it's 'dynamic resolution' are important, in real life, the spatial thing (format size) more than the dynamic thingy.



Oh, and Ian,
That's juts how my spleling somteimes comes out.
It's stronger than me, so i try not to fight it too much.

 

OG, Why do you think I referenced 1/500th of a second? Perhaps because of hand movement? Why do you think I specified low magnification in the print?

Are you of the opinion that my post was about other than relatively large formats?

Zeiss and others state that it is extremely difficult to surpass 30lpm with a hand held camera. I am willing to believe what they have to say.

So a 6x9 negative with 30lpm is capable of producing a good 8x10...in my opinion. At 40lpm a 6x9 negative would be capable of making a very good 8x10 print. Of course, a 5x7 Technica at 30lpm would be capable of being enlarged to a truly excellent 8x10 relative to sharpness and gradation.

However, it makes a great deal of sense to carry as much tripod as possible.

I am a believer in saying that a tripod should always be used except when the photo would be better without using it. And...make it as much tripod as possible.

 

I don't. And i don't.
Because i don't even care. It is not the point.

So am i. And so do i.

Doesn't change things though:

is still not right. It isn't helpful at all.

It will be when you put the camera on a tripod.

Thinking about mirrors and focal plane shutter makes no sense when you are thinking about handholding.

 

I would agree that the primary creation of 'blur' ,if you will, is caused by the act of hand holding the camera. I would also agree that vibration caused by the movement of a mirror and a focal plane shutter vs a leaf shutter is of a substantial lesser importance. I would also agree that in many cases the clarity difference caused by a lesser lens vs a more capable optic can also be of much lesser importance than the loss caused by handholding.

I do not consider the difference to be nothing...nor do I claim that anyone during this topic has said otherwise. There are many ways to enjoy photography. You can quote me as saying "Mother said so" should you so wish. I will put into my mind that which I choose and practice things to my own level of incompetence.

 

Does some of this topic sound as if it comes from one schooled at a fine California University in both English and physics...perhaps one who has no middle name?