The next medium format camera from Fujifilm is expected to offer an even higher resolution than the expensive Phase One XF IQ4. According to the latest rumors from a reliable source, Fujifilm is currently developing a GFX camera with a 180MP medium format sensor.
Hello. Diffraction limit calling, who am I speaking to? Yeah hi, it is Fuji medium format 180MP camera. How it is going ? Ok just remember than any aperture smaller than f/5.6 will be affected by diffraction ok. Anything smaller won’t be sharper, you will just have to save larger files and won’t have more details in your image. Well, am I just a marketing gimmick them? Yes you are… that’s ok. Fuji is also selling the xhalf, we still love you.
As a real life example, the Canon 600mm F11 telephoto lens should be awful, on, say, a 32MP crop sensor R7. That’s insane pixel density somewhere in the ballpark of this Fuji.
…But look at real life shots of that exact combo, and they’re sharp as hell. Sharper than a Sigma at F6.3.
The diffraction limit is something to watch out for, but in reality, stuff like the lens imperfections, motion blur, atmospheric distortion and such are going to get you first. You don’t need to shoot at F4 on this thing to make use of the resolution, even if that is the ideal scenario.
I may not be representative of a larger sample, but I used medium format for landscapes, and always shallow depth of field. For sharper images, I used longer lenses on a 35mm camera. So, a diffraction issue wouldn’t be bothering me on a medium format camera, if I ever even found the money to get one.
I don’t know much about photography, so forgive me if this is a dumb question, but would something like focus stacking help with this?
That is to say, make the lens less of a bottleneck so you could benefit from a higher resolution sensor.
See: https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/hyperfocal-distance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperfocal_distance
But TL;DR: for distant landscapes on a wide field of view lens, you can shoot at F5.6 and everything is in focus. I even do this at F1.4 on my lowly aps-c camera.
Put more concretely, the hyperfocal distance for a 35mm f5.6 lens on a medium format camera is 5 meters. Everything in the distance can be in focus.
For portraits, you want background blur anyway.
And if you’re doing anything else on a medium format camera, you’re kind of insane, heh.