Cal,
If I am reading that right, you are talking here about a print made from a scanned negative taken by the Leicaflex SL, right, and not a digital file, right? Or, no?
And, a question regarding the MM, since you have both a Monochrom and a digital SL: When the SL came out, there were people saying that the files from it, converted to monochrome, were quite close in character to the files from the Monochrom. Close enough for government work. Would you agree with that, or not close enough, and still worth the bother to get a Monochrom even if one already had an SL? And assuming that differences are more obvious on a large print than on the web.
Larry
Larry,
Sorry for the confusion. I do not scan and my negatives are made for wet printing.
The Piezography print I mentioned was from a file from my Monochrom.
I think because I'm an old school analog guy and because I print glossy on Baryta papers exclusively that I get mighty close to an analog wet print look to my digital printing.
I use Heliopan filters that are marked "Digital." I found that these filters marked "Digital" have both UV and IR filters built in that make for cleaner histograms with less clipping. Pretty much I get a better signal to noise ratio.
Add onto that with my Monochrom I use a 2X yellow filter to boost my contrast at time of image capture instead of using LR5 and post. My post processing is very minor as to not to add digital artifact and noise so I can print big/huge.
In comparing the SL and Monochrom files all I can say is they are different. First off I don't use a yellow filter on the SL for contrast control. Also I have to tweak the SL files a bit more.
I can also say that the CCD sensor has a different look than the CMOS. The histograms also are different. While the CMOS has smoother roll-off in the highlights and more shadow detail I find the mids to be somewhat scooped.
Meanwhile the CCD sensor has this wonderful vast midrange that when exploited by big/huge prints jumps formats and can look easily like medium format and even large format. When we look at large format the rendering becomes more about the mids and less about contrast.
Don't get me wrong. The M-246 is a much more advanced camera with better high ISO, better roll-off in the highlights, more shadow detail, better screen, liveview, bigger buffer, faster shooter... but the original Monochrom has the mids of larger formats.
I use the SL to cover my gal's fashion blog. She has over 568K followers, earlier this year won a "Shorty Award," and last year gave a TED Talk.
For me I find I get more of my best shots from my Monochrom. Warts and all I find my Monochrom to be more like a film camera, and the way I shoot it is as if I'm a large format shooter maximizing IQ at the time of image capture as if I'm trying to make a perfect negative for contact printing like I'm shooting an 8x10 camera.
Back in the seventies I was trained to make negatives that could be straight printed on a number 2 grade paper consistently.
Also a 12x18 image size for me is required as a test print size because smaller prints really don't reveal enough detail and the tonality does'nt open up on smaller prints.
Cal
