Steve Wake
Well-known member
I think everyone needs to see the print before making judgements. While it's clear something special was done here, and I trust Jim if he says it outdid a Phase one, the oohs and ahs over the "detail" in a 2.5 K JPEG are kinda fanboyish to me. I'll probably never see the print, but when the more objective folks on this forum report what they saw, I'll pay attention to that, too.
As far as Lee's comment. Whatever Alchemy did is probably magnified by the downrezzing and the brightness setting on your monitor. Also, some of what you don't like may be Peter Lik's grade - which you may have done differently. Alchemy is controlled by a slider. The effect probably could have been toned down. A matter of taste and I assume the grade was done primarily with printing in mind, not viewing on a (backlit) monitor.
As far as technique. I would guess this was done by panning while in motion mode and selecting stills to stitch. The nice thing about that is things that are moving, like clouds, people, cars, don't have a chance to move much from frame to overlapping frame since you can pan quickly with a fluid head. While good pano stitching software will aid in getting rid of the ghosts from moving objects, it can still be a PITA to make everything clean. Much less of a problem with a quick pan, and I would bet one of the major advantages of EPIC in this shot.
As far as lenses, in addition to resolution problems on the edge of the frame, any distortions will cause problems with stitching. Jim didn't say which Canon's he used, but I would guess they were 1.2's, and even a normal ultra fast still prime will have some barrel distortion, as well as more resolution falloff than, say a macro normal, like a Zeiss 50 f2 Makro
And BTW, I think what I said in the other thread about Alchemy and microcontrast is borne out by this photo. Will attendees be viewing some uprezzed 4k next Thursday? If a 14MP Epic can beat a 80 MP Phase one, it seems a 3K Scarlet should uprez to 4K nicely.
As far as Lee's comment. Whatever Alchemy did is probably magnified by the downrezzing and the brightness setting on your monitor. Also, some of what you don't like may be Peter Lik's grade - which you may have done differently. Alchemy is controlled by a slider. The effect probably could have been toned down. A matter of taste and I assume the grade was done primarily with printing in mind, not viewing on a (backlit) monitor.
As far as technique. I would guess this was done by panning while in motion mode and selecting stills to stitch. The nice thing about that is things that are moving, like clouds, people, cars, don't have a chance to move much from frame to overlapping frame since you can pan quickly with a fluid head. While good pano stitching software will aid in getting rid of the ghosts from moving objects, it can still be a PITA to make everything clean. Much less of a problem with a quick pan, and I would bet one of the major advantages of EPIC in this shot.
As far as lenses, in addition to resolution problems on the edge of the frame, any distortions will cause problems with stitching. Jim didn't say which Canon's he used, but I would guess they were 1.2's, and even a normal ultra fast still prime will have some barrel distortion, as well as more resolution falloff than, say a macro normal, like a Zeiss 50 f2 Makro
And BTW, I think what I said in the other thread about Alchemy and microcontrast is borne out by this photo. Will attendees be viewing some uprezzed 4k next Thursday? If a 14MP Epic can beat a 80 MP Phase one, it seems a 3K Scarlet should uprez to 4K nicely.
