Re: 220 VR questions

[Bill Glickman <bglick@xxxxxxxx>]

Stephan

> How come you buy a camera first and afterwards complain about the quality
of
> the results? Was there no way of renting one and judge the quality of the
> pictures at that time before taking out a second mortgage and buy a
> Roundshot?

        I could not find any rental houses with the Mamiya MF lenses to use.
Most 220 VR users here I spoke to mentioned that images were a bit soft....
however they were using 35mm lenses, Mr. Seitz said MF lenses would produce
superior images.  Of course that made sense to me.  So I took Mr. Seitz word
for it and bought the camera.  You may be confusing my comment as a
complaint.  I clearly stated in a few posts, that, as you compare a Rolls
and a Ferrari, one can not expect the same performance from both....and I
totally agree, same true here...I clearly stated that!  I bought the camera
for aspect ratio, not to get the sharpest images in the world!  And the
camera does this very very well, and as I mentioned before, I consider it an
engineering marvel, specially considering the low volume of sales they have!
Its proof that nobody can design and build such precision like the Swiss.
(Well, the Germans are a close second in my experience though)

      So please be fair, I am not knocking anyone here... just looking for
input to improve my photography and sharing what I see on my light box.  I
plan to use this camera for many many years!

When buying a Rolls Royce I'm not expecting it to have the same
> top speed as a Ferrari. How big would your enlargement be? I usually have
> mine enlarged to 30 cm (I leave the conversion to you) tall and whatever
it
> results wide (could be more than two meters). Yes, they are not as sharp
as
> my Sinar pictures when my nose touches the print. (But then: do I have a
> Sinar picture 2 meters wide?)

      Stephan, I was hoping for 14x enlargments with 5 lpmm on print, so
thats about 70 lpmm to film, a high standard indeed.  From what I have seen
so far, I think I can do about 8x enlargement and still get 5 lpmm to
print...  Thats not too bad..... specially if I stitch a few together, then
my enlargment potential is greater.   But I will give more exact numbers
when I finsih shooting and printing, which will be some time in the future.

> As to the very.... very short answers from Peter Seitz I have to defend my
> fellow countryman: we Swiss are less inclined to eloquence as other
nations
> might by....

      Ok, I accept that... sometimes it's hard when myself and another
engineer struggle to understand the short "one word" answers, hence the need
to go up and back several times.  But considering they are halfway around
the globe from me, and they do communicate back very quickly, that in this
modern day, I am happy that this potential exist.   The only real issue I
hope will change to benefit new buyers of the cameras, is better
documentation of the finer details....  much of this information is known,
but it seems unproductive to make every user find out this information on
thier on, or to querry their dealer to no end.   I realize not every tiny
detail can be documented, but much more than whats in the maunal.    Would
you agree with that?

     Stephan, would you agree that constructive input from users is for the
potential of betterment of the maker and future users?  I love when my
customers give me constructive feedback of their experiences dealing with my
company.... that is how I improve, by listening to customers comments.   I
never take offense, and quite often financially reward my customers who take
their valuable time to share any shortcomings of my product / service.
Would you consider my approach improper?

Bill G



>
> Regards
> Stephan Sulser
> http://stsulser.virtualave.net
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Glickman [mailto:bglick@xxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Friday, June 09, 2000 9:14 PM
> To: Panorama-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: 220 VR questions
>
>
> Hi, I am new to the Pan list...
>
>      I just bought a Seitz 220 VR.  I have been testing it for the past
week
> and trying to perfect the use of it before I leave on a long Photo trip on
> 6/16.  I have the followings issues that possibly more experienced users
> could be so kind to assist me.
>
> 1.  The h value (H-H) which seems to be the distance between the two nodal
> points of the lens.... this information seems impossible to get for the
> Mamiya 645 lenses.  Seitz does not know the values and Mamiya either won't
> release the information or does not comprehend exactly what is being
asked.
> I am wondering why Seitz even designed and released the Mamiya lens board
> when these values are unknown by them?  Peter Setiz recommended using the
> Hassy values which are in the manual, however, the variance in lens makers
> values for equal fl lenses for this value varied so much between the 35mm
> lenses, like Nikon, Leica, etc.... I felt doing this would be a total
random
> guess which could be so far off it would make things worse?
>
> 2.  Does this h value offer no benefit when subjects are far?
>
> 3.  Mr. Seitz explains the need to nail the fl of each lens down to +/-
.05
> mm.   With my 150 and 300 mm this process was tedious but, it seems to
have
> worked.  I shot a wall about 150 ft. away.  I measured the aspect ratio of
> the wall, and then measured the vertical height on film and calc. what the
> horizontal needs to be to maintain the same aspect ratio.  This was fairly
> effective.  However, on wider angle lenses, 80 and 35mm, this was not so
> easy... image distortion makes measurements too difficult to be this
> accurate.  Mr. Seitz said shoot letters.... so I shot letters on
buildings,
> the largest letters I could find.... and it is way too difficult to
> determine within .05mm which letters look best.... they all look good when
> you get down to a few tenths of a mm?
>
> 4.  The test images I shot all appear soft on film.  I was a disappointed
> with the image quality.  It did not come close to what a MF camera can
> produce.  Do other people experience this also?  I was told by a few users
> that rotational cameras are not that sharp for the obvious reasons.  Mr.
> Seitz said a MF lens will never be as sharp on a rotational camera vs. a
> still camera?  I am wondering how much worse the image really gets.  Does
> using smaller slits help?  Any input on this would be helpful...  I was
> planning on big enlargements, and now am doubting the possibility of doing
> such.
>
>            Thank you for any help you can offer.  This experience is
turning
> out to quite a circus act so far...  Although Peter Seitz has emailed me,
> his answers are very very very short and sometimes inconclusive.... that
is
> making this process go on for a longer time than it should.
>
> Regards
> Bill G
>