Is digital advancement reaching a plateau? I haven't been

Never for the large format bit.
You will /never/ get the same detail that large format offers in digital, screencap this, you will /n e v e r/
as scanning technology advances that old 8x10 negative will only get better and better.
the shitty dslr in your cupboard won't.
It's all mainly because most cameras just have the same sensors from one or two manufactures. I doubt there will be much improvement sensor wise for another 2 years

photography needs to let go of silicon based technology.

photo needs to be chemical.

>>3036990

I actually believe this. It's a trifle to make a bigger sheet of film, but sensors get exponentially more expensive the bigger you go. You can only cram so many sensels onto a sensor before you reach the abbe limit, and then what?

You can always stitch for still scenes, but not for portraiture, nature or action.

>>3036984
>>3036984
From what I've seen, modern tech has managed to make smaller sensors punch above their weight.

What I'm getting at is that "35mm digital" is actually more in between small and medium format film, while edging closer to medium format (especially with higher res bodies). Medium format digital is closer to 4x5 large format (but not 8x10). It's still rather expensive, however.

The theoretical resolution of large format is beyond what 99.99% of photographers "need". Suppose we had a large format digital camera, what kind of computer would be needed to process files? How expensive would the lenses be? And at what size would you need to be printing in order for it to be justified vs. another format?

File: 1488644564815.png (159KB, 1003x600px) Image search: [Google]

159KB, 1003x600px

posting in a troll thread

>>3037172
Or maybe just troll posting in a thread.

We just need that Adox 20 emulsion to be available for everyone, that would be a permadeath scenario per excellence

>>3037166
Space telescopes are the largest format digital cameras. It's a pretty specialized niche though

>>3037154
eventually it will be a trifle to make a bigger sensor
screencap this

>>3036984
Without some sort of radical advancement in the next few years, yes. But so did film long ago, it's not a bad thing really, unless you're doing billboard posters. Because why image quality is stagnating, stabilization, wifi off loading, autofocus etc. are all getting better all the time.
As far as large format goes, yes and no. I mean it's more than possible but it's prohibitively expensive to make a sensor that large and aside from scientific uses it really isn't going to affect the end image. Even on an 8k monitor you couldn't tell the difference between 12-24 megapixels, it's the glass that makes the sharpness in the image, not the sensor

>>3037166
You probably wouldn't need a specialized computer, just one from the past 5 years with a decent chunk of ram (which is cheap) and lots of storage (which is cheap).
As far as the lenses go, how about using old lenses people have been using with 4x5 cameras for decades?
You'd need to be printing pretty fuckhuge for it to make any difference, and the viewing distance would need to be very close. I'm pretty sure they use 1 megapixel images for billboards because no one looks at them closely.

And who would buy these large format digital cameras? It's not economically viable for anyone.

>>3037632
Yes, the other issue is that what you gain in raw image quality, you lose in portability or speed. It's not easy to set up a a film camera and just "get the shot", I'm not saying nobody's done it, but I'd honestly rather have speed/versatility over insanely detailed 1 terapixel images that would only make a difference in a ten foot or wider print.

>>3036984
Yes. You can buy a Canon 1d Mark II on ebay for less than $200. That's a camera that can take photos that could be published in any magazine or used as a large print poster.

As time goes by older high quality digital cameras will saturate the used market and the demand for the newest stuff will be less since the old cheap stuff can do the same jobs.

>>3036990
quantum efficiency of film is about 5-10x lower than digital, faggot. film is garbage for low light/ short exposure

>>3038159

Decade old Pentax 645Ds still cost ~$2500 used and beat to death, how many years until they go to $200?, will it be before my alcoholism pickles my liver?