A Digital Xpan? Would you buy it?

There are things a panoramic camera can do that we sometimes cannot acheive with post process stitching... For example if one is shooting a daylight architecture shot with people walking or vehicles moving in the foreground, stitching becomes much more tedious if not impossible.

Imagine if the assignment requires a series of panos! Ouch!

Since the digital imaging workflow is now an inevitable part of any professional photography, I imagine a digital panoramic camera is also inevitable at some point in time...

The Hasselblad / Fuji platform is as good as any for conversion to digital... Prohibitive prices for such gear? Professionals bill their clients equipment rental fees all the time. (Ideally of course! Clients are known to haggle too!)

Kev
 
:bang: Ok, I'll poke my head up above the trench and say YES!

I really enjoy using my XPan (although not the scanning & clean up) and the glass is second to none. Like another poster here, I've been using the Panosonic LX1 (Leica folks call it DLux 2 and pay extra for the priviledge), and it's a great digital pocket camera with 16:9 panoramic native capture mode with composition gridlines on the LCD etc. It takes nice shots and I never, ever, use it in standard 4:3 mode (in much the same way as I never use 35mm with the XPan).

I would be one of the few who'd welcome a digital XPan so long as it had a true optical viewfinder, the same level of Fuji glass and a superb sensor performance. Pixel counts I'm less bothered about so long as the colour capture was up to D2X/1DsII type of level and could take advantage of the glass.

I guess I'm one of those shooters who's also only happy shooting square images (6x6 equivalent) or panoramics. Generally I find standard format 35mm or digital equivalent a lot less satisfying that either a wider or square composition. Do some of us think 'square / wide' vs std. film ratio? Should I see a therapist?? :cool:

p.s. ... yes, I know I can crop etc, etc.... but it's not the same thing at all as composing in the camera.
 
Andy K said:
Wouldn't be caught dead eating that c**p! If I do eat fast food I go to Subway. ;)
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Very true, a Big King however is something I like to have every now and then, miles better than the c**p they sell at Mac D
 
Dougg said:
Hard to believe the panorama proportions won't be well-addressed by some digicam maker to fill this niche. Jeff, with the DLux 16:9, does that result in fewer pixels in the captured image? The Pano option on APS cameras effectively reduces resolution by instructing the printer to crop off the top and bottom of each frame... That approach would be a bit hard to take with an Epson R-D1, for instance, as it would turn the 6mp rig into about a 3mp one.
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Actually, the native format for the LX1 is the 8.4 MP 16:9. With respect to pixels we are talking 16:9 (3840 X 2160, 8MP), 3:2 (3248 X 2160, 7MP), and finally the Panasonic/Samsung/Leica 4:3 (2880 X 2160, 6MP). The really neat thing about the camera that I like is its flexibility. The noise issue at the higher ISO's is a non-starter with neat image or noise ninja.

Jeff
 
JeffGreene said:
The noise issue at the higher ISO's is a non-starter with neat image or noise ninja.

Jeff
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While noise reduction software is useful (I use Neat Imege myself) high noise is always an issue since a too aggressive reduction tends to wipe out details as well and make the image look "plastiky".

That said I am a happy owner of the LX1 since I shoot RAW where noise is better dealt with, and image stablization helps using low shutter speed thus reducing the need of high iso.
 
I'll gladly pick up a Digital Xpan if it were ever made though I doubt it will come at a sensible price.

On another note, it might be more useful if a MF Xpan were ever developed. The GX617 comes close but its bulkiness, the lack of an onboard meter, and other modern conveniences does not make it a worthy candidate for street photography.
 
I was at Hasselblad just today and asked about an Xpan digital back. H has not intention to make one and the person with whom I spoke ( a Hasselblad technician) indicated that he was unaware that anyone else was developing a back. He indicated that this was because of economic considerations - too expensive.
 
anaanda said:
Just curious..It seems that anyone who shoots an Xpan, also loves it very much and I imagine its the panoramic format that is so seductive....so If a digital Xpan came out would you go for it? Or do all us Xpanners just love our film....??
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I would get one if it could be made for a reasonable price (< $4K or so). Highly unlikely, of course.

On the other hand, it should be possible to build a digital Noblex/Widelux/Cirkut with a linear CCD like that used in scanners. Indeed, there is already a panoramic digital camera, the panoscan (http://www.panoscan.com/).

Stitching is not a substitute for a true panoramic camera. The thing I like most about my XPanII is that it can capture spontaneous scenes, unlike my Fuji G617. I have thought of making a special bracket to take 3 simultaneous pictures with 3 Canon Digital Rebels arranged in a circle around the nodal points of 35mm f/2 primes (Matrix style), but the combination would be incredibly heavy and unwieldy, and you would need lenses with a nodal point sufficiently ahead of the front lens element.
 
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You can play with the KODAK V570 as well. Good idea with 2 lenses and built-in stitching but the quality is far off. CRAP !
I still prefer the xpan i got last week :cool:

GrahamWelland said:
I guess I'm one of those shooters who's also only happy shooting square images (6x6 equivalent) or panoramics. Generally I find standard format 35mm or digital equivalent a lot less satisfying that either a wider or square composition. composing in the camera.
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I wonder why no manufacturer tried to create a square format digi cam ?
cheers
 
I think the love for an XPAN has nothing to do with digital or analog.

There are a lot of handheld cameras that can shoot panorama, whether full time such as Noblex or Horizon, or those with an adapter such as M7II or Bronica MF.

What is intriguing about the XPAN is its ability to switch from one to another on the same roll of film. By far this is the only one available in the market and that was exactly the reason I talked myself into it at the start. It is the concept that I bought.

With other digital or analog cameras, one can crop whichever way he / she likes, using PS or darkroom development, since we all have that invisible frameline in mind after shooting panorama for a while.

If XPAAN were to go digital, that convenience about having both formats on the same roll no longer exists, and it certainly is not worth it anymore.

Hasselblad should be smart enough to understand this, since it is the designer of this concept, hence advantage in the first place.
 
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