Photonic Shunkan

Man is the measure of all things, so said the Greek philosopher, Protagoras. At least when we compare the size of animals we compare them with ourselves to get a sense of their relative scale. The size of an average adult becomes the standard size reference point. The comparative size of a human = 1. What about cameras? A commonly used standard comparative reference point is the 35mm format camera after it was popularised by the Leica I released in 1925. The odd thing about this comparison is that some people refer to a 35mm format camera as being "full frame". The reason for this is that its comparative size is set at relative size = 1. This makes it a 100% sized camera and hence "full frame". This is like saying that a human being is a full frame animal because its comparative size is set at 1, making it a 100% sized creature. Large circle: 640mm diameter of the LSST space telescope's digital sensor Civilian digital camera sensor formats shown for c...

It looks like my predictions are off as Canon has announced the development of the 1DX Mark III: https://photonicshunkan.blogspot.com/2019/06/prediction-canon-will-put-pellicle.html https://photonicshunkan.blogspot.com/2019/05/the-canon-1dx-ii-successor-will-be.html That's OK—since I originally predicted that the move to a pellicle mirror would take another product cycle after the 1DX Mark III. You have to make predictions bold even when you know there is always going to be a chance of being wrong. I wrote: "I thought it would take another product cycle of the 1D line for this to happen given Canon's conservatism, hence my prediction that it will take another 4-8 years, but it may be happening sooner than thought. It might even materialise before the 2020 Olympics." There were false rumours about the Mark III having an extraordinarily fast frame rate, which were little more than rumours, and which made me hope that Canon would ditch its conservatism and mo...

When I first started shooting with an interchangeable lens camera, I chose a Canon and considered myself a Canon shooter for a long time. These days I shoot more Fujifilm, both the X and the GFX Systems. I have kept the Canon EF mount system because there are so many lenses you can't get for Fuji mounts. Today, I would discuss how the field vs studio camera difference  that we previously discussed comes into play in practice. Of late I have been shooting a lot of macro work after making friends with Kiki the neighbourhood brushtail possum! They are encountered often in suburbia here in Australia. Here's a little link to the story on Instagram . Kiki is quite the Fujifilm fangirl. When she sees my camera, she comes rushing down from the treetops to say hello. She is fascinated by the Fujifilm camera and goes right up to it, sniffing it and touching it with her hands. There were issues I had with shooting this scene. The biggest one comes from the fact that poss...

One of the oddities produced by the dawn of the digital photography era is the multi-purpose professional camera. A typical example is the Canon 5D series (current iteration = 5D Mark IV). It can be used for a bit of sport/wildlife/action, portraiture, weddings, travel, street etc. It is a jack of all trades. In future, the multi-purpose consumer level camera will be some sort of small format mirrorless-EVF (ML-EVF) camera (eg M4/3, APS-C, 35mm small format). It will be interesting to see if it continues to remain acceptable for professionals to shoot with such devices across multiple scenarios. Such multi-purpose cameras are becoming increasingly capable eg high resolution, fast frame rate, good ergonomics/portability. They will remain popular and retain some sort of place in the market. The rise to dominance of the multi-purpose professional camera can be put down to the loss of camera differentiation caused by the mass extinction of speciality camera firms from the apocalyptic e...

A follow-up to this entry: Proof that the Larger the Camera Format, the Shallower the Depth of Field We previously showed that Canon was correct to state that increasing format size reduces DOF Left: 35mm format Right: APS-C format Image: Canon Japan I thought of the following potential additional experimental setup. It is based on the fact that it makes it much easier when you compare much smaller formats with formats much larger. The problem is that I don't own or have access to a Pentax Q10 camera with the 15-45mm f/2.8 lens. The others I do have access to. I even looked to see how much a Q10 with this lens would cost on eBay...but it seems absurd to spend money on a camera just to prove that our current scientific understanding of optics is correct. Here is the setup: 1. Pentax Q10 camera ( 5.53× crop factor ) with 06 Telephoto Zoom 15-45mm f/2.8 lens (35mmF equivalent of an 83-249mm lens) set at 35mm focal length (35mmF equivalent of 193.5mm focal length) 2. A...

It used to be that 35mm format (which we will call 135F) was a low-resolution mass consumer format. In the film era, 35mm was never touted as being an earth-shattering large "full frame" format as calling a disposable camera that would have sounded ridiculous. Today 135F is gradually becoming a commonplace mass-consumer product again It was considered acceptable for professional use in the film age only for field use in reportage, sports, and wildlife photography. That said, towards the end of the film age, the grain of film became finer, resulting in better quality images from smaller formats. The progressive evolution of 135F into a higher resolution image format has continued into the digital age. Amongst digital formats, at one point in history, it used to be the largest format utilised in civilian photography, and for that reason, the advertising moniker from around 2002 touting it as "full frame" became stuck in popular usage, despite the emergen...

It is a sad fact that today some algorithm ensures the populist proliferation of gross misinformation on the internet. In an age of misinformation being spread like wildfire over the internet, readers are asked to critically evaluate the information they have been presented with: 1. Is the source of information credible? 2. Is it mechanistically plausible (in photography, on the basis of the science of optics)? 3. If objections have been raised, have these objections been adequately dealt with? Sadly, the chances are that the internet will ignore credible sources of information along with science and unquestioningly listen to Suckerberg-type algorithm driven popularisations of egregious falsehoods instead. But despite the chances that all reasoned arguments and scientifically credible evidence will be ignored, proof that the claims made in this YouTube segment are utter nonsense will be shown to the rare thinkers amongst readers: This flies in the face of what Canon st...

A field system is for sports, wildlife, reportage, and street photography. A studio system is for more methodical use in ideal light situations where portability is less of an issue. As with all dichotomies, the margins are always blurred, but I see this as a good thing. For some, the field is the studio, and Ansel Adams did take his large format camera out into Yosemite. I still find the term "field" vs "studio" camera to be a useful distinction for the purposes of discussion. The most interesting phenomenon today is that we can squeeze much better quality out of much smaller formats. The basic field camera in everyday use today is the phone camera. Today, M4/3 and APS-C cameras are maturing into remarkably highly resolving field systems. It used to be that 35mm format was considered a low resolution field system that compromised on image quality for ergonomic gain. You could even buy a disposable 35mm camera at souvenir shops at tourist spots (and nobody t...

This comes from the Phase One website: Notice that Phase One refer to a digital 645 format equivalent sensor as "full frame". That is probably correct given that the largest format used in standard civilian photography is a 645 format sensor. In addition to the 645 (53.7 × 40.2mm; similar to the 56 × 42mm imaging frame size of 645 format film) and 4433 (43.8 × 32.9mm) format medium format sensor, some video cameras use sensors larger than 35mm (36 × 24mm) format e.g. 54.12 × 25.59mm Arri sensor. There is also the Leica S system with its 45 × 30mm format sensor. That means there are several sensor size formats larger than 35mm format making it increasingly difficult to hail something running in fifth place the leader in the size stakes. Newer video camera sensor formats are now growing larger than 35mm format It is probably only a matter of time before even larger digital photography 670 format sensors go into production though that may not happen for another 6-12...