Are there any other Digital MF shooters in here?

Warped

So .... I spent a silly amount of money on a new camera and I went with the new Pentax 645D, and LOVE IT!!

Just got back my first 24 x 32 inch prints and the detail, clarity and colours are mind-blowingly good (if I do say so myself) straight from the camera with no re-sizing or photoshop trickery.

I was shooting with a cropped sensor DSLR for ages and desperately wanted to go FF for a long time. I was looking at the Nikon D3s and since I was/am a Pentax shooter would have been starting from scratch and be up for the body, lenses, batteries .....etc and not a lot of change from $10K - so I bit the bullet and forked out for the 645D + the new 2.8/55mm lens.

While waiting for the 645D to arrive (ordered and paid for it in June last year, got in November!) I tried a D3s and a H4D-40 on a number of occasions and have no 2nd thoughts or regrets going the Pentax route.

I've also got a Pentax 645 film camera in the bag keeping the MZ-50 and K100D company - so a happy little Pentax family

The one and only drawback is seeing the detail and not being able to easily show it on the web. The 40-50 Mb Raw files turn into 100+ Mb Tifs or 20+Mb jgs which can be a killer on bandwidth .... and that's if you can find a place to upload and host them from.

Anyone else in here playing in the MF, or Large Format, arena?

What are you using and would you go back to the 35mm format?

Cygnus Studios

Warped wrote: »

Anyone else in here playing in the MF, or Large Format, arena?

What are you using and would you go back to the 35mm format?

I use Mamiya DM56 and Nikon D3 cameras. Both have their strengths and both have their weaknesses. If I could only own one format it would certainly be the 35mm.

If you find yourself needing higher ISO and only own a medium format, you are out of the game. Need fast shutter speeds, again this is not the strength of the medium format.

Now with good light, a medium format certainly has a ton of strength to draw from.

Warped

Cygnus Studios wrote: »

I use Mamiya DM56 and Nikon D3 cameras. Both have their strengths and both have their weaknesses. If I could only own one format it would certainly be the 35mm.

If you find yourself needing higher ISO and only own a medium format, you are out of the game. Need fast shutter speeds, again this is not the strength of the medium format.

Now with good light, a medium format certainly has a ton of strength to draw from.

If I'd only used a Mamiya with an older Phase One back or the 'Blad H4D-40 I'd agree with you, but the 645D does a damm good job at ISO1600 and with the huge amount of dynamic range and the fast 2.8 (fast for a MF) lens, I've been shooting in clubs and at night with reasonably fast shutter speeds and getting good results.
Definitely not a strength, but the newer gear coming out is getting better all the time and narrowing that gap making the medium format gear more flexible.

I've now ditched the DSLR from the bag and only use the MF gear, but I don't shoot sports or anything requiring rapid fire shooting, at only 1.1 frames per second it you don't get it the first time, you've missed it.
When I had the D3s for an extended period it was a lot of fun playing around with 7 frames a second (think it was 7) and holding the button down with it sounding like a machine gun firing off shot after shot

No video on any MF camera at the moment can be a downer for some, but video isn't my thing.

If I could only have one system - at this stage if would be Medium Format. For me (semi-pro with a "regular" day job), MF does better for wedding and commercial work, portrait work, and is perfect when I want to take a break and get out and shoot landscape/scenery or play with macro and abstract. If/when I make the move to shoot full time I'd guess at adding a full frame DSLR with HD video to the kit, but for now it'll just be the 645D and 645 in the bag.

The big thing getting me is the resolution - the clarity and definition from that bigger sensor size and 40 Mpixels .... wow!
I had a print or two done from the H4D-40 and was very impressed, I got some 18x24 and 24x32 inch prints done yesterday from the 645D and couldn't stop grinning like an idiot for ages and can't wait to try some even larger prints.

Cygnus Studios

Warped wrote: »

but the 645D does a damm good job at ISO1600 and with the huge amount of dynamic range and the fast 2.8 (fast for a MF) lens, I've been shooting in clubs and at night with reasonably fast shutter speeds and getting good results.

But what do you do when you need to shoot like this?

F3.2
1/160
ISO 6400



Don't get me wrong, I use the Mamiya for almost all the commercial work these days, but sometimes you gotta outside of their range.

Warped

Not sure what I've done in Flickr that's not letting me post the shot directly, so here's the link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/warped-photography/5347820696/

I've cheated a bit and there is a tiny bit of flash to add some highlights to the leather, but otherwise that's available light at night in the city, hand held at ISO 1600, 1/10th and 2.8. I've got that printed to 18x24 and it looks fantastic with very little noise and amazing colours (if I do say so myself!).

Not the best work due to it being my very first shoot using the demo 645D that was doing the rounds a few months before I got my hands on mine



That one was at ISO800, F4 and 1/60th from memory with just the available club lighting.

Definitely not the ideal tool for the job, but still capable of producing a reasonable result in less than ideal lighting conditions.

Being a semi-pro I've got the luxury of picking and choosing nearly all of what I shoot, where, when and in what conditions - so I never get stuck in a situation the MF gear can't handle.

studio1972

Can you do high speed sync with a medium format camera? just wondering, it would be a deal breaker for me, not to mention the weight.

Cygnus Studios

Warped wrote: »

Being a semi-pro I've got the luxury of picking and choosing nearly all of what I shoot, where, when and in what conditions - so I never get stuck in a situation the MF gear can't handle.

In a perfect world we would be able to make those decisions also. But you know how clients are, it's all about them.

studio1972 wrote: »

Can you do high speed sync with a medium format camera? just wondering, it would be a deal breaker for me, not to mention the weight.

Yes. I can high speed sync with the DM56, however I don't always have the option of using a flash or lights, which is why the D3 never gets left out of the plan.

The weight really isn't that bad. If you use big glass on your dslr it is about the same weight.

JimKarczewski

Well, you could always drop $30k on the new 80MP leaf back. It lets you do up to 3200 I think, but only at 20MP. It "pools" the pixels into 4 pixel chunks so it can gather more light. A tradeoff, but still, You can see the difference most of the time between a 20MP MF shot and a 20MP 35mm shot.