FlashPix Reference Images

a section of A Web Publisher's Guide to FlashPix by Philip Greenspun for photo.net.

I will be presenting a growing collection of reference images. Many of these will be of the same scene, produced with cameras and scanners of all types. They'll be in FlashPix format so you can zoom around and judge for yourself what works best.

Is lugging around a 4x5 View Camera worth it?

Compare these images of John Belushi's grave in Chilmark, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Devoted fans leave beer bottles and other items at a little fenced-in shrine in the Chilmark cemetery (Belushi's body is actually buried a few hundred yards away in an unmarked spot). Zoom up on the Budweiser can and chewing gum wrapper in front to see the difference between a 4x5 image and a standard pro-grade 35mm SLR. Both were produced with typical professional lenses (the Canon 28-70/2.8L is a $1500 zoom lens).

Linhof Master Technica camera, Rodenstock 150mm lens, Kodak Pro 100 4x5 film, scanned to ProPhotoCD (4000x6000 pixels), not sharpened, saved from Adobe PhotoShop (with HP plug-in) at "quality 8". Original file size: 72 MB. Size of FPX: 9.8 MB.
Canon EOS-5, 28-70/2.8L lens, Kodak Pro 100 35mm film, scanned to ProPhotoCD (4000x6000 pixels), not sharpened, saved from Adobe PhotoShop (with HP plug-in) at "quality 8". Original file size: 72 MB. Size of FPX: 11.4 MB.

Same tripod position but different lens angles

Church in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Linhof Master Technica camera, Rodenstock 150mm lens, Kodak Pro 100 4x5 film, scanned to ProPhotoCD (4000x6000 pixels), not sharpened, saved from Adobe PhotoShop (with HP plug-in) at "quality 8".

Original file size: 72 MB. Size of FPX: 9.0 MB.

Church in Oak Bluffs, Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts

Canon EOS-5, 24 T/S lens shifted up to the maximum, Kodak Pro 100 35mm film, scanned to ProPhotoCD (4000x6000 pixels), not sharpened, saved from Adobe PhotoShop (with HP plug-in) at "quality 8".

Original file size: 72 MB. Size of FPX: 10.6 MB.

A plausible example (real estate sales; check the condition of the shingles)

Edgartown Traditional Cape

Linhof Master Technica camera, Rodenstock 150mm lens, Kodak Pro 100 4x5 film, scanned to ProPhotoCD (4000x6000 pixels), not sharpened, saved from Adobe PhotoShop (with HP plug-in) at "quality 8".

Original file size: 72 MB. Size of FPX: 8.5 MB.

Read the Classifieds

Read the classified ads in the newspaper underneath the machine in the back right corner.

Sinar F2 view camera. 90mm Nikkor lens? Fuji RDP100 film. Drum-scanned on a Linotype Hell Tango by The Photo Lab to 16,240 x 12,930 pixels. No sharpening.

Original file size: 600 MB. Size of FPX: 37.8 MB.

ProPhotoCD versus Drum scanning

My friend Ted grew this Dahlia flower on his Cambridge condo's terrace.

Zone VI 4x5 view camera, Fuji Velvia film. I'm thinking that this was a 150mm Schneider Super Symmar lens but I could be wrong. Drum-scanned on a Linotype Hell Tango by The Photo Lab to 16,200 x 12,800 pixels. No sharpening.

Original file size: 600 MB. Size of FPX: 39.5 MB.

Same Dahlia, but ProPhotoCD instead (then converted in Adobe PhotoShop with JPEG compression at quality 8).

Original file size: 72 MB. Size of FPX: 3.8 MB.

philg@mit.edu