Archives for February 2014

[Added March 17, 2014] A reader posted a comment that you can see stating that there must be a systematic flaw in my simulation. He was right. Details are in the comments attached to this post. I fixed the error, and the results are reported at the bottom of this page. [Now, on with the… [Read More]

There’s a lot of Internet talk about whether the compression algorithm that Sony uses in the a7, the a7R, and several other cameras cause visible damage to the images. The furor seems to be gaining intensity rather than dying down. Because of that, I’ve decided to do something that I’ve resisted in the past, which… [Read More]

In the last post, I went through the reasoning that made me decide that the Betterlight scanning back isn’t the right tool for the firehouse project. Thinking about a scanning back got me onto another way to get really high resolution: stitching. I figure for macro work, I’m not restricted to the usual “swing the… [Read More]

There is a focusing aid in the BetterLight software. It allows you to position the sensor column anywhere on the image, read out part of it, and display any channel as a graph. If you’re looking at a high-contrast part of the subject, you can focus by finding the lens positon that maximizes contrast. In… [Read More]

Based on the testing that I’ve done so far, I have identified two possible cameras for the firehouse series. The Sony alpha 7R with electronic flash lighting, using rear-curtain synch at 1/25 second or longer to mitigate the effects of that camera’s shutter vibration. The Nikon D800E with available light. I’d use Nikon F-mount lenses… [Read More]