Out of the nay sayers, how many of you have actually used a digital medium format?
I used to use a twin-lens reflex Mamiya. Does that count?? Not very digital though . . . except I did use my digit to puch the little lever shutter release thingy.
John :
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
I used to use a twin-lens reflex Mamiya. Does that count?? Not very digital though . . . except I did use my digit to puch the little lever shutter release thingy.
C330 all the way!
But back to Cygnus Studio's question
I don't own a digital medium format, but I have rented Phase One P45's for assignments.
Digital MF is super nice and like everyone said the image quality is stunning, but I can't afford it because I need to do other things, like eat.
Even the rental fee of $500 to $600 a day causes most clients to balk.
These days I shoot mostly fashion and wedding, I've found that it's cheaper and more convenient to shoot with my RB67 and have Richard Photo Lab process and scan my film.
We are dependent on the system. Which output medium, post-processing tools, lab, etc. Plus your individual style and what you want to express. All cameras, also MF, give a poor imitation of the dynamic rage of the human eye when our concern is simply to repeat this experience.
Imagine a 1GB sensor resolving 10 separate colors. Huge amount of detail. How would you process it or view it today? Digital cameras are in still in their infancy.
Sure, medium format delivers more data according the old paradigm. In some circumstances you can even see the difference.
Most people prefer DSLR because it is multi-purpose and delivers excellent outputs 99% of the time. Most of this effect is due to the system surrounding and not the core technology. High volume electronics create an eco-system that is mostly perfect but not always. So I chose to go with Canon because when the 70D or 5Dmk3 comes out I think Aperture will support it a long time before they support the Pentax equivalent, however much fans promote the value-for-money and quality aspects of the Pentax XYZ. The eco-system is all.
MF is tiny volume electronics with a minute eco-system, creating superior results on occasions when you have enough skill and support resources. I would love to be rich and successful enough to play around with MF. I compare it with audiophile music equipment - it is better but only after you rebuilt your living room, and even then very few real people will ever hear the difference.
Meantime the real difference in photography for most of us comes from the photographer's eye, as for the past 150 years.
Yes, fine thoughts which accord very closely with what I have been saying here and in other threads - that comparing camera gear can only make sense in a context of other gear eg lenses and accessories, computers, printers, etc/ in a context of software/ of industry and purpose eg wedding, portrait, landscape, sport, advertising, graphics, fine art/ of ease and efficiency/ and of the skillset and imagination of the user.
As I said above, the two-headed sheep has a place - in a sideshow alley. But who would find it of much interest, let alone an advantage, in other contexts?D
Maybe just to stir the pot here...but there is a definite advantage of MF that is being overlooked. Lens quality and relative DOF/aperture. I work with a wedding photographer who shot portraits on a 500 C/M long after many of his peers made the switch to high MP FF DSLRs. Why? Not because of sharpness, but unsharpness. The old MF telephotos have bokeh and contrast characteristics which are truly incomparable for portraits. A 150mm/f4 Zeiss C (roughly 85 equivalent) compressed a subject like no other lens, and could be shot at f8-11 and still obliterate a background with SUPER smooth OOF areas. I believe many of the "old dogs" would switch BACK of they could get a good, REASONABLY priced D-back which had durability and reliability to be used in the field (and their eyesight back).
Nowadays, you can emulate many such qualities using software. You don't have to hire a time capsule or get surgery, or a second mortgage. Indeed, the digital iterations of this format rely integrally on software. Once you have images produced substantially by software, to some extent you are outside and independent of the constraints of particular gear. An example is producing a fisheye view image. In the future I'm sure it will be possible to create "bodies and lenses" which *could* only exist in digital reality, not outside it! Gearlessly! For chips!:D
Yes through very careful masking you COULD on an individual image create a similar effect, but for purposes of creating a "look" you'd be doing a ton of post production that could be achieved in camera. The closest I can get to recreating the look is to shoot portraits with my 60mm macro and even then they don't get quite the smoothness of out of focus areas OR the subject compression.
Yes through very careful masking you COULD on an individual image create a similar effect, but for purposes of creating a "look" you'd be doing a ton of post production that could be achieved in camera. The closest I can get to recreating the look is to shoot portraits with my 60mm macro and even then they don't get quite the smoothness of out of focus areas OR the subject compression.
Yes, you would need a fast telephoto on FF, and onOne FocalPoint, plus a (as-yet hypothetical) MF-camera-lens software profile. Done in 5min! And batched!
Yes, you would need a fast telephoto on FF, and onOne FocalPoint, plus a (as-yet hypothetical) MF-camera-lens software profile. Done in 5min! And batched!
Hand up for Yes - I own use a digital MF format (Pentax 645D if anyone hadn't already guessed ).
As for the Audiophile comparison - I have to disagree to a point. Print A0 or larger straight from any DSLR and compare that to a print from a MF camera and I reckon most people will see a difference straight away, it's just that not a lot pf people view real prints you can hold in your hands, or walk up close to when the print is hanging on a wall.
99% of the time I'll agree it's the photographers eye and a better camera won't make you a better photographer ........ but, if you're a half decent photographer I'd bet you'll get an improvement in your shots in a very short space of time switching to digi MF, provided you're not shooting a genre not suited to MF like sports. You can't help it with the increased sharpness, better dof control and the increased dynamic range.
As an example - I HATED shooting outdoors in the harsh West Aussie sun with DSLRs, I'd need polarisers, ND filters, fill flash and reflectors, wouldn't even bother between 10am and 4 pm, maybe some HDR processing needed .....etc and hated the inconvienience of it all.
Now I'm shooting outdoors as much as possible, the 645D isn't phased in the slightest with the glare and large exposure range and makes shooting a lot easier, gives me more options and takes away a reliance on post processing to bring back blue skies or dragging around all the extra lighting gear. At the most, just a circ polariser and small reflector is needed now.
Switching to MF digital didn't change too much for me in the way of indoors and portraits, but for outdoors ...... I've gone through a HUGE change and that's purely down to the camera. I'm out shooting things I'd have never shot before, I'm printing large and exhibiting my images, landed a book deal and think my photography has taken a reasonable step forward.
That said, I think with MF and large format gear there is a certain level of experience and know how needed beforehand. MF digitals are more simplified than DSLRs, no image stabilisation, no full auto settings or generic landscape/portrait/sports/night/macro type settings, less choice in lenses, big difference on dof for given apertures ......etc (and personally, I LOVE that!!). I've gone from my bag containing a 28mm prime, 50mm prime, 17-45 zoom, 28-80 zoom, 70-300 zoom - to just a 2.8/55mm prime for the last 6 months (and all I want to add to that is a 30mm wide angle and a 120mm macro and that'll be it).
Anyone who generally leaves their DSLR in auto, or even Av or Tv priority, with a big zoom on it is going to struggle with a MF of any sort and may go backwards there for a while and wonder what the fuss is all about.
It all comes back to "you need to try one". You can say all you like that you could do this, that or the other with software ... but when you see the same thing created with just one press of the shutter, straight from the camera, in amazing detail, gorgeous colour rendition and high resolution .......wow!!
Hand up for Yes - I own use a digital MF format (Pentax 645D if anyone hadn't already guessed ).
As for the Audiophile comparison - I have to disagree to a point. Print A0 or larger straight from any DSLR and compare that to a print from a MF camera and I reckon most people will see a difference straight away, it's just that not a lot pf people view real prints you can hold in your hands, or walk up close to when the print is hanging on a wall.
99% of the time I'll agree it's the photographers eye and a better camera won't make you a better photographer ........ but, if you're a half decent photographer I'd bet you'll get an improvement in your shots in a very short space of time switching to digi MF, provided you're not shooting a genre not suited to MF like sports. You can't help it with the increased sharpness, better dof control and the increased dynamic range.
As an example - I HATED shooting outdoors in the harsh West Aussie sun with DSLRs, I'd need polarisers, ND filters, fill flash and reflectors, wouldn't even bother between 10am and 4 pm, maybe some HDR processing needed .....etc and hated the inconvienience of it all.
Now I'm shooting outdoors as much as possible, the 645D isn't phased in the slightest with the glare and large exposure range and makes shooting a lot easier, gives me more options and takes away a reliance on post processing to bring back blue skies or dragging around all the extra lighting gear. At the most, just a circ polariser and small reflector is needed now.
Switching to MF digital didn't change too much for me in the way of indoors and portraits, but for outdoors ...... I've gone through a HUGE change and that's purely down to the camera. I'm out shooting things I'd have never shot before, I'm printing large and exhibiting my images, landed a book deal and think my photography has taken a reasonable step forward.
That said, I think with MF and large format gear there is a certain level of experience and know how needed beforehand. MF digitals are more simplified than DSLRs, no image stabilisation, no full auto settings or generic landscape/portrait/sports/night/macro type settings, less choice in lenses, big difference on dof for given apertures ......etc (and personally, I LOVE that!!). I've gone from my bag containing a 28mm prime, 50mm prime, 17-45 zoom, 28-80 zoom, 70-300 zoom - to just a 2.8/55mm prime for the last 6 months (and all I want to add to that is a 30mm wide angle and a 120mm macro and that'll be it).
Anyone who generally leaves their DSLR in auto, or even Av or Tv priority, with a big zoom on it is going to struggle with a MF of any sort and may go backwards there for a while and wonder what the fuss is all about.
It all comes back to "you need to try one". You can say all you like that you could do this, that or the other with software ... but when you see the same thing created with just one press of the shutter, straight from the camera, in amazing detail, gorgeous colour rendition and high resolution .......wow!!
To some degree you are fighting straw dogs here. What MF *can* do is not the issue. It's more a matter of what it can't do, where it is superfluous, or inappropriate, and even a disadvantage.
When I look at 4ftx6ft image adverts with my nose on them, and there's not a pixel in sight, and resolution, tonal gradation and colour are better than flawless - then I know the limits of my own gear. I don't have to shoot MF to get the message! You don't have to shove the message down my throat!
Would I love to be able to produce such images? You bet! But my G**, the cost, not only in primary gear, but computing power and storage, paper and printing! The whole enterprise has the potential to be more restrictive than liberating. How much does a 4ftx6ft display with equal resolution and quality to the best print cost? Does it exist? What sense does it make to show these MF images at 72ppi and 24in diameter? Or in a 12inx15in mag, or a 5inx7in book, at industry dpi? How critical is a 5% advantage in DOF, or compression, in those products?
There is quite a list of things I would love. I don't trash those things because I will never have them. I get on and live my life within my means, not only financially, but also within my vision, purposes, skills etc.
Please continue to showcase this format, it's great entertainment! At the same time, I will continue in my quest, too. I don't see any reason to believe that you will get more satisfaction than me, or necessarily better photos.
Never meant to be shoving anything down anyone's throat - it's just that this is one of the few areas I can comment on when easily 90+% of the threads are on Canon, L glass, Nikon, FF Vs Dx and the like
Without meaning to sound uppity - I did like the comment "...quite a lot of rubbish is being written about the 645D – especially on the Web – mostly by people who are unlikely to have even used the camera let alone analysed its output" kinda backs up the "you really need to try one" comment mentioned a few times in the previous thread.
The review seems balanced to me and does point out a few flaws along with the good bits, though one of those "flaws" is incorrect and looks to be copy/paste from another review I read. It states "Pentax has elected to give the 645D a pair of SD/ SDHC memory card slots, but curiously the camera doesn’t offer SDXC support, although it may come later as a firmware upgrade" - this did happen quite early in the piece, the first firmware update was to allow the use of SDXC cards.
As it happens, there's been the odd occasion over the last few weeks where I wouldn't have minded one of these ... (in addition to usual gear)
At a local lake (system) trying to get pics of Herons - pref. in flight - and tracking where they went / landed etc, so's I could keep an eye on them for take-offs.
One favourite spot was the other side of the lake and whilst the bird was far too small, I'd take the occasional shot to check exposure.
At that point I realised that there was some potential in the shot as the light changed at the end of the day - light bird, dark trees, slightly surreal (possibly) - or whatever - and started looking for suitable compositions / light etc.
I even ended up talking multiple shots 2 / 4 with the intention of trying a bit of stitching to make the 'subject' even smaller in frame.
An mf rig would've certainly provided more than sufficient detail in a single frame (am using a 10mp cam)
Comments
I used to use a twin-lens reflex Mamiya. Does that count?? Not very digital though . . . except I did use my digit to puch the little lever shutter release thingy.
Natural selection is responsible for every living thing that exists.
D3s, D500, D5300, and way more glass than the wife knows about.
C330 all the way!
But back to Cygnus Studio's question
I don't own a digital medium format, but I have rented Phase One P45's for assignments.
Digital MF is super nice and like everyone said the image quality is stunning, but I can't afford it because I need to do other things, like eat.
Even the rental fee of $500 to $600 a day causes most clients to balk.
These days I shoot mostly fashion and wedding, I've found that it's cheaper and more convenient to shoot with my RB67 and have Richard Photo Lab process and scan my film.
Yes, fine thoughts which accord very closely with what I have been saying here and in other threads - that comparing camera gear can only make sense in a context of other gear eg lenses and accessories, computers, printers, etc/ in a context of software/ of industry and purpose eg wedding, portrait, landscape, sport, advertising, graphics, fine art/ of ease and efficiency/ and of the skillset and imagination of the user.
As I said above, the two-headed sheep has a place - in a sideshow alley. But who would find it of much interest, let alone an advantage, in other contexts?
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Nowadays, you can emulate many such qualities using software. You don't have to hire a time capsule or get surgery, or a second mortgage. Indeed, the digital iterations of this format rely integrally on software. Once you have images produced substantially by software, to some extent you are outside and independent of the constraints of particular gear. An example is producing a fisheye view image. In the future I'm sure it will be possible to create "bodies and lenses" which *could* only exist in digital reality, not outside it! Gearlessly! For chips!:D
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Yes, you would need a fast telephoto on FF, and onOne FocalPoint, plus a (as-yet hypothetical) MF-camera-lens software profile. Done in 5min! And batched!
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
Let us know how that works for you.
Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
In the interest of play, sure!
I'll need you to give me the camera-lens software profile.
Looking forward to that, please keep in touch!
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
As for the Audiophile comparison - I have to disagree to a point. Print A0 or larger straight from any DSLR and compare that to a print from a MF camera and I reckon most people will see a difference straight away, it's just that not a lot pf people view real prints you can hold in your hands, or walk up close to when the print is hanging on a wall.
99% of the time I'll agree it's the photographers eye and a better camera won't make you a better photographer ........ but, if you're a half decent photographer I'd bet you'll get an improvement in your shots in a very short space of time switching to digi MF, provided you're not shooting a genre not suited to MF like sports. You can't help it with the increased sharpness, better dof control and the increased dynamic range.
As an example - I HATED shooting outdoors in the harsh West Aussie sun with DSLRs, I'd need polarisers, ND filters, fill flash and reflectors, wouldn't even bother between 10am and 4 pm, maybe some HDR processing needed .....etc and hated the inconvienience of it all.
Now I'm shooting outdoors as much as possible, the 645D isn't phased in the slightest with the glare and large exposure range and makes shooting a lot easier, gives me more options and takes away a reliance on post processing to bring back blue skies or dragging around all the extra lighting gear. At the most, just a circ polariser and small reflector is needed now.
Switching to MF digital didn't change too much for me in the way of indoors and portraits, but for outdoors ...... I've gone through a HUGE change and that's purely down to the camera. I'm out shooting things I'd have never shot before, I'm printing large and exhibiting my images, landed a book deal and think my photography has taken a reasonable step forward.
That said, I think with MF and large format gear there is a certain level of experience and know how needed beforehand. MF digitals are more simplified than DSLRs, no image stabilisation, no full auto settings or generic landscape/portrait/sports/night/macro type settings, less choice in lenses, big difference on dof for given apertures ......etc (and personally, I LOVE that!!). I've gone from my bag containing a 28mm prime, 50mm prime, 17-45 zoom, 28-80 zoom, 70-300 zoom - to just a 2.8/55mm prime for the last 6 months (and all I want to add to that is a 30mm wide angle and a 120mm macro and that'll be it).
Anyone who generally leaves their DSLR in auto, or even Av or Tv priority, with a big zoom on it is going to struggle with a MF of any sort and may go backwards there for a while and wonder what the fuss is all about.
It all comes back to "you need to try one". You can say all you like that you could do this, that or the other with software ... but when you see the same thing created with just one press of the shutter, straight from the camera, in amazing detail, gorgeous colour rendition and high resolution .......wow!!
www.warped-photography.com
To some degree you are fighting straw dogs here. What MF *can* do is not the issue. It's more a matter of what it can't do, where it is superfluous, or inappropriate, and even a disadvantage.
When I look at 4ftx6ft image adverts with my nose on them, and there's not a pixel in sight, and resolution, tonal gradation and colour are better than flawless - then I know the limits of my own gear. I don't have to shoot MF to get the message! You don't have to shove the message down my throat!
Would I love to be able to produce such images? You bet! But my G**, the cost, not only in primary gear, but computing power and storage, paper and printing! The whole enterprise has the potential to be more restrictive than liberating. How much does a 4ftx6ft display with equal resolution and quality to the best print cost? Does it exist? What sense does it make to show these MF images at 72ppi and 24in diameter? Or in a 12inx15in mag, or a 5inx7in book, at industry dpi? How critical is a 5% advantage in DOF, or compression, in those products?
There is quite a list of things I would love. I don't trash those things because I will never have them. I get on and live my life within my means, not only financially, but also within my vision, purposes, skills etc.
Please continue to showcase this format, it's great entertainment! At the same time, I will continue in my quest, too. I don't see any reason to believe that you will get more satisfaction than me, or necessarily better photos.
Neil
http://www.behance.net/brosepix
If anyone is still interested in MF, the Pentax 645D is particular, this is a reasonably good review and does mention the other MF options out there:
http://www.avhub.com.au/index.php/Product-Reviews/ProPhoto/pentax-645d-the-big-easy/Page-1.html
Without meaning to sound uppity - I did like the comment "...quite a lot of rubbish is being written about the 645D – especially on the Web – mostly by people who are unlikely to have even used the camera let alone analysed its output" kinda backs up the "you really need to try one" comment mentioned a few times in the previous thread.
The review seems balanced to me and does point out a few flaws along with the good bits, though one of those "flaws" is incorrect and looks to be copy/paste from another review I read. It states "Pentax has elected to give the 645D a pair of SD/ SDHC memory card slots, but curiously the camera doesn’t offer SDXC support, although it may come later as a firmware upgrade" - this did happen quite early in the piece, the first firmware update was to allow the use of SDXC cards.
www.warped-photography.com
At a local lake (system) trying to get pics of Herons - pref. in flight - and tracking where they went / landed etc, so's I could keep an eye on them for take-offs.
One favourite spot was the other side of the lake and whilst the bird was far too small, I'd take the occasional shot to check exposure.
At that point I realised that there was some potential in the shot as the light changed at the end of the day - light bird, dark trees, slightly surreal (possibly) - or whatever - and started looking for suitable compositions / light etc.
I even ended up talking multiple shots 2 / 4 with the intention of trying a bit of stitching to make the 'subject' even smaller in frame.
An mf rig would've certainly provided more than sufficient detail in a single frame (am using a 10mp cam)
pp
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