Luminous Landscape have done some comparison tests of 11 professional cameras with huge megapixels such as Phase One P45 (39 MP), Phase One P25 (22 MP), Canon 1Ds MKII (16.6 MP), and Canon 5D (12.7 MP).

“So if we have a close race between a 39MP back’s files and a 4X5″ drum scan, where does that leave us? A traditional enlarger made print can’t hope to compare, and so we now appear to have a new ball game, with top-tier medium format digital close to equaling 4×5″ large format. And to my eyes images from the 16Mp Canon 1Ds MKII are awfully close to those from drum scanned 645 format Velvia. “

Ales Litomisky did an interesting test comparing Film 35 mm: Nikkormat FT3 , Film 6×6 cm: Hasselblad 503CW, Canon EOS 5D, full size sensor 24×36mm, 12.8 MegaPixels, and Nikon D200, APS-C sensor, 10.2 MegaPixels.

Interesting results from the test:

“The best quality both in print and on the screen viewed at 100% are clearly from the Canon 5D, followed by the Nikon D200, then the Hasselblad, and lastly - after a significant gap – by the 35 mm film camera.

I expected that the prints from the digital cameras would be better than those from the 35mm film; the superior quality of the Canon 5D prints as compared to the Hasselblad, however, was a surprise to me. The significant difference between the Hasselblad and the 35mm film surprised me as well.”

Hasselblad has recently announced the new 39 megapixels CFH-39 back which uses the latest 39 megapixel chip from Kodak. The 39MP CCD sensor is currently the largest sensor commercially available.

The new Imacon back comes as a bundle with the H2 camera, as a stand-alone back in mounts for all major camera systems, and as an integrated back/camera with the H2 body.

Building on the success of the H1 range of products, Hasselblad has developed the H2 cross-platform camera and the H2D fully-integrated digital camera. Both the cameras include a series of brand new features, and are fully compatible with Hasselblad’s existing H system lenses.

The H2 and H2D cameras deliver improved mobility, quality, and workflow. Brand new camera features include a highly advanced image approval and selection tool, called Instant Approval Architecture (TM + patent pending) providing a swift and easy way to select and classify images.

Read more »