![]() Leaf Aptus II 12, Linhof RD-1, Symmar 180mm f5.6 at f8. So here are some results, full frame image and 100% enlargement: The ballasting won’t be of practical significance for the Leaf back. The ballasting reduces flicker, which is significant when the Anagramm back is scanning on fast and very fast settings. I used well-ballasted continuous lighting for the tests. The Anagramm back is not calibrated to ISO film speeds: instead I set the scan speed to Fast (1 notch down from Very Fast) and the fine control, or amplification, came out at 96% to achieve good exposure. The Leaf back was set to its native ISO50 setting. I also white balanced all images against a Qpatch included in each shot. The dynamic range of all medium and large format backs is well able to cope with the reproduction of the works of art we normally digitise, though I made sure I included an item with reflective gold on it just to make sure the Leaf could rise to this challenge (it did, with ease). All test shots were exposed so that the brightest highlight fell substantially under the 255 saturation point. These had a lot of detail right down to the paper grain and the inker’s wiping marks, so these should be a good test. I chose 3 Japanese woodblock prints from our collections. I cropped much more tightly with the Leaf than the Anagramm, which had the effect that 100% enlargements were about the same size from both backs. It was necessary to adjust and re-focus the camera for each image and, since the Leaf has a much smaller sensor area than the Production2, I was more restricted on the size of original I could copy with the Leaf. This lens had a built-in infra-red filter though this was only necessary for the Anagramm scanning back, since the Leaf has an infra-red blocking glass as part of its construction. The camera was a Linhof RD-1 with 180mm f5.6 lens. I used the same camera and lens, column stand, lights and original artwork, which ranged in size from roughly A4 to A3. In the time available I could only evaluate the fidelity of resolution, not colour. I was impressed by the quality of the Leaf to the point where I would advise anyone looking to invest in a scanning back to seriously consider the new 80Mpx backs from Leaf (since Phase One are releasing an 80Mpx back based on the same chip, this would also be worth evaluating, though the additional sophistication of the Phase One back will be largely wasted on the digitisation applications I am mostly involved with). 80Mpx, and I recently spent an afternoon evaluating the Leaf back against the Anagramm. ![]() Leaf recently released a back of 10,320 x 7,752 px, i.e. We currently use Phase One P45+ backs (7,216 x 5,412px, i.e. (Each pixel records R, G & B colours hence the 13 x 8 x 3 Mpx count). This has a resolution of 13,000 x 8,000 pixels and is used for digitising larger books, maps and artwork from our collections. My employer has owned an Anagramm Production2 scanning back for several years. I recently compared the 80Mpx Leaf Aptus II 12 single-shot digital medium format back and the 312Mpx Anagramm Production2 5 x 4 inch scanning back. I don’t normally write about equipment in this blog but I’m making an exception in the hope that someone might find this interesting. ![]()
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