The 'Cambo Wide DS' experience

[rmaes]

Very nice overview of the state-of-the-art digital backs & lenses (and silk-dolls ;-). Reading the in-depth tests however,  reminded me of a remark made by Michael in his earlier article (The Ultimate Digital System) where he was struck by the  quality of the Cambo Wide DS system with the Schneider lens. If i may quote "The image quality, in terms of resolution, detail, contrast, "transparency", and microdetail was so dramatically better than anything that I had ever produced with the same P25 back on the Contax with Zeiss lenses..."

Was this quality difference not apparant anymore with the Rodenstock (HR) lenses in this GOF test?

Regards,
Raf

[free1000]

No the only LF lens they used was the Apo-Sironar HM lens which is a film lens.

On the digibacks they used MF lenses, in the case of the Mamiya the lens was also a film, not a digitally optimised lens.

Perhaps with either a Schneider digitar, or a Rodenstock digital or HR lens there would have been a slightly better result from the P45.  
 
However it has been said that the digital lenses lose some of their advantage when compared against the longer FL lenses. ie: Longer FL lenses, even film ones, are better than wides.

[Sheldon N]

I'm confused on the designation of the lenses listed in the shootout. I thought the Rodenstock lens that Michael had was the Apo Sironar 100 HR. They are listing a 100 Apo Sironar HM in the test shot labels. However, the intro to the article states that Michael had his HR lenses in the test.

I don't believe there is a Rodenstock Apo Sironar HM lens made. My understanding is that HM is a Schneider lens designation. This is probably a typo that needs to be corrected.

Also, if this is the case, it looks like perhaps Michaels assumptions about the P25 being lens limited were only in relation to his previous Contax wide glass, and not the Mamiya and Hasselblad lenses.

Michael - any comment on whether the shootout changed your perception of the resolution limitations your Contax system had relative to the new HR lenses?

[michael]

There were tests done using my Rodenstock lenses on the Linhof 679cs and also with Bill's Schneider on his Linhof 4X5. A speadsheet with a complete list of the lenses used, apertures used, etc.,  accompanies the raw files on the disk.

Michael

[Sheldon N]

Can you correct the lens designations/labeling on the article itself? Some of the shots are labeled Apo Sironar HM (should be HR?). Also Bill's Schneider lenses should be designated as some form of Symmar HM, rather than Apo Sironar which is a Rodenstock designation.

This isn't to be picky, it just makes it hard to tell which lens was used since saying HM implies Schneider, and saying Sironar implies Rodenstock. I don't believe that the two designations were ever used on the same lens.

The specific places in the article are the list of gear at the beginning, the ranking of the 4 lenses tested with the P45 (in both the article and the image label) and the image label in Charles Cramer's section.