Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: MAmaro on September 28, 2010, 02:41:43 pm
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I had posted this over on GetDPI but, figured the audience would appreciate the information as well. Just saw this news this morning at BJP and didn't recall see it posted on LL so, I figured I'd share the link. It talks about Phase's development of a possible new body (DF2), a new Phase back based on the 80MP sensor, its new "Investment Protection" program and hints at their current financial standing. Take a read:
http://www.bjp-online.com/british-jo...-camera-design
-Marq
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http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1735801/phase-one-were-brand-camera-design (http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1735801/phase-one-were-brand-camera-design)
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Now Phase says they will, one day, bring out a decent camera. And of course they cannot tell you what they will announce because they don't preannounce. Hahaha. The Hasselblads and Pentax products have decent viewfinders, decent back displays, decent AF, and are available *today*.
Edmund
PS Why are all the MF companies treating their customers like sh*t? A friend ordered his HD4-60 upgrade a long time ago, and the local rep tells me they have a camera in stock waiting to be sold - why isn't it going to the customer who ordered?
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http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1735801/phase-one-were-brand-camera-design (http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/1735801/phase-one-were-brand-camera-design)
Jonathan thanks for the link fix!
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It is like watching two political parties slugging it out to win public opinion. Each one scoring points of the other, each one trying to emphasise the benefits of belonging to their clique but mostly slagging off the competition.
The truth is that both Phase One and Hasselblad are great systems and far better than their 35mm competitors in many ways. Perhaps if they focussed on the benefits that MF offers over the professional 35mm competition they might find that produces a better return for their efforts.
Here we have a knee jerk reaction to Hasselblad's announcements at Photokina with a lot of spin and a lot of promise just like Hasselblad's launch of the HD4-60. Both companies locked in a dog eat dog fight cannibalising their own market with unaffordable trade-in offers financed by artificially high list prices.
The simple truth is that for serious photographers both Phase One and Hasselblad offer products that are streets ahead of both Canon and Nikon in terms of the quality of the images they can produce. Having used both Japanese company's products at the top end and found them wanting, for my purposes, I am more than happy with my Hasselblad system. That is not to say that I would not be equally happy with Phase One because I would.
If I was running either company I would be focussing on the many benefits of MF against top-end 35mm. There are many more D3X and 1DSMk3 owners to persuade/attack than there are MF owners.
???
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All-in-all Håkonsson is confident about Phase One’s prospects. “We’re up 50% this year,” he tells BJP. “We take that as a signal that medium format market is getting better.”
(emphasis mine)
Assuming he's talking about year-on-year revenue growth and comparing apples to apples (same quarter or year-to-date), that's pretty damn impressive. By comparison, Canon's revenues are up 22% YoY (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=CAJ+Key+Statistics) in Q2, and Nikon's by 17% (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=NINOY.PK+Key+Statistics). Both companies of course do much more than cameras, but in any case 50% YoY growth is a figure which shows that lot of people are investing in MFDBs.
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I guess the key questions for people in charge of the spec define of new gear at companies like Phase and Hassy are who their real customers are. Are they fashion shooters, are they rich amateurs willing to buy what they perceive to be the best, are they landscape guys? Probably all of that, but what is the dominant category?
Depending of the answer, the specs of the body and lenses will be very different considering that those small companies probably cannot afford to develop many new things simultaneously. The 4 technologies that they fully master right now are sensor image quality (although the lack of live view is a significant downside for landscape usage), fast tethering, some excellent lenses and flash photography. These developments appear to have been mostly driven so far by fashion and product photography.
Most of the rest is basically below par compared to high end DSLRs. What do you improve to close the gap and make MF really appealing for D3x/1ds3 users? That will depend on the target audience.
Pentax seems to have a very clear view of this, they focus on medium format landscape photographers and have designed with the 645D a body that fits perfectly their needs within the limits of existing technology (read lack of live view on sensors larger than 35mm).
Cheers,
Bernard
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Most of the rest is basically below par compared to high end DSLRs. What do you improve to close the gap and make MF really appealing for D3x/1ds3 users? That will depend on the target audience.
Incidentally that's exactly the market segment Mr Håkonsson says they are going after.
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It is like watching two political parties slugging it out to win public opinion. Each one scoring points of the other, each one trying to emphasise the benefits of belonging to their clique but mostly slagging off the competition.
The truth is that both Phase One and Hasselblad are great systems and far better than their 35mm competitors in many ways. Perhaps if they focussed on the benefits that MF offers over the professional 35mm competition they might find that produces a better return for their efforts.
Here we have a knee jerk reaction to Hasselblad's announcements at Photokina with a lot of spin and a lot of promise just like Hasselblad's launch of the HD4-60. Both companies locked in a dog eat dog fight cannibalising their own market with unaffordable trade-in offers financed by artificially high list prices.
The simple truth is that for serious photographers both Phase One and Hasselblad offer products that are streets ahead of both Canon and Nikon in terms of the quality of the images they can produce. Having used both Japanese company's products at the top end and found them wanting, for my purposes, I am more than happy with my Hasselblad system. That is not to say that I would not be equally happy with Phase One because I would.
If I was running either company I would be focussing on the many benefits of MF against top-end 35mm. There are many more D3X and 1DSMk3 owners to persuade/attack than there are MF owners.
???
David, did you read the same article I did? I didn't see any competition slagging. And I thought Henrik addressed medium format's advantages pretty specifically over 35mm, while also acknowledging that most Phase One users also continue with 35mm. Very fair assessment.
I liked Phase One's low key approach to this past Photokina. However, I think it created some confusion, especially with Leaf introducing an 80MP product. I don't believe Phase One felt any pressure to try and answer Hasselblad's "announcements of their new camera and digital back and lenses and software". None whatsoever.
However, I do believe it makes sense to at least get some sense of where things are heading and I didn't see anything that surprised me in the article. I think it's pretty clear they have done about as much as they can with the Mamiya 645 core product, turning it into a surprisingly usable camera, especially compared to past versions. So, my assumption has been that these things do take time, when it's a new design on something as complex as a camera. I also expected that Phase One would have the same 80MP sensor available to them but that the implementation will take longer as they are also re-designing the entire digital back chassis (my assumption), which has been requested for years.
So, no surprises, just clarifying a few things, and I don't see anything that Hasselblad announced at this Photokina that threatened Phase One at all. So I don't agree with the "knee jerk reaction to Hasselblad" perspective.
Being up 50% also does not surprise me. We have also seen sales exploding at our own company this year (actually started last year).
I think Henrik's perspective on users with 35mm and with medium format and the respective strengths of each is spot on. And the loyalty program sounds awesome. 18 months guaranteed to recoup 90% of the value of a digital back if you upgrade? So for 18 months, your penalty is only 10% of the purchase price if you trade in...basically the price of a one week rental?
From what I have been told, there are quite a few very interesting things that Phase One has not even mentioned. So, to me, this was a rather conservative release of information.
As far as product announcements, etc, I see them getting better, not worse.
Steve Hendrix
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I don't wish to intrude on a Phase thread, but for the sake of accuracy in the article the following quote...
The programme is reminiscent of a similar trade-in deal Hasselblad used to offer to its customers. However, Hasselblad discontinued the programme in late 2008 in a bid to lower the price of its integrated medium format systems.
...is incorrect as we still very much offer a trade in program for our own products and competitors products.
Thats all,
David
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Steve
Yes I did read the article and no I still think that both Hasselblad and Phase are to focussed on competing with each other rather than addressing the bigger opportunity represented by high end 35mm users. I spent two weeks in Iceland recently (shooting with my Hasselblad which worked flawlessly in difficult conditions) with a colleague using a D3X outfit. I know he would love to move to MF but feels he cannot afford it. If Hasselblad and Phase One offered a competitive upgrade from high end 35mm they might find a surprising number of takers and by definition new customers. The part exchanged products can easily be resold through Ebay (cf Canon's Ebay store as an example).
:)
David
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Although I know nothing of Phase's financial success, I am always treating figures like '50% up' with care. I didn't work last Sunday, but had a really meager job on monday, how much did my business grow in this time?
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Are the Kodak chips dead? All the new ones seems to be Dalsa. So no more long exposures for backs beyond the P45+?
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Are the Kodak chips dead? All the new ones seems to be Dalsa. So no more long exposures for backs beyond the P45+?
Hasselblad uses Kodak in some of the new backs, Leica S2 and Pentax 645D also use Kodak.
The H4D40 can do several minutes (4 or 5 minutes or so...)
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I think that the world is changing very fast, extremely fast. On a photographic basis, and global as well.
Current economy is not feeling well and people are really looking twice before investment.
And the MFD are changing very slowly. They apply the same recepy that they improove of course but there is nothing ground breaking.
Is it bad? I would say that if the global context was the same as 10 years ago, it wouldn't be bad. But the society, techniques and demands are changing dead fast.
I think that they really need to be less computer dependant in a way or another. Reorientate a part of their comming products to the new chalenges.
Because their target is going to disappear step by step if they refuse to embrace those evolutions.
People don't care if live view is not possible because it is heating too much the ccd, they want live view. They scream live view. The cable to the computer (reminds me of the baby one) needs to be cutted.
MFD are great, they force to think and slow down. But that can be acheived with cheap film large format too.
Young people, generally with little incomes, have now second-hand MFD old generation they can afford...but when you put the 5D MK2 at 2000 euros with its capabilities...
For most people, MFD is a sort of unreachable elite, but like the Senat in the old Rome, it starts to feel a little too conservative.
I think that the comming years are going to be very important in the choices the MFD makers will do.
Just hope they won't make too many mistakes.
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So the D3x is "King of the hill". For some maybe. I have owned and used this camera and believe me it is good but - and it is a very big but - the images produced just do not match up to what I can get from my Hasselblad (or Phase One if I had one). Okay no live view, poor autofocus and so on but my Hasselblad 500cm did not have these features and somehow or other I managed to get the images I needed. Some of the best photographers of the past 150 years did without this technology and produced wonderful gut-wrenching images.
For me the important thing is just how much information I can capture and the quality of that information - be it on film or on a digital sensor - and nothing captures as much information as a high quality medium format digital back. Ansel Adams famously said that "the negative is the score but the print is the performance" and this is just as true nowadays as it was then but if you start with a really good score you are far more likely to put on a good performance.
Yes the MF manufacturers need to make their products more affordable and yes they need to improve their software and their technology and they are. Perhaps not as quickly as some would like and perhaps they do "pander" to the high end amateur (hobbyist). Does that matter? No it doesn't because higher volumes ultimately mean better products and lower prices for working pro's - far from killing the product for the professional market you could argue that they are keeping it alive.
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Something just doesn't sit well with me about the new investment protection program. Not to be a party crasher, but the math would have to be so incredibly in Phase's favor to prosper so there's more to it than meets the eye. If someone buys a P65+ for $39K and in 18 months buys the new $39,001 eighty megapixel Phase back (hopefully new design, better screen and 20 more features to actually justify why these are needed by so many working pros, that's another argument all together) and only has to pay $3.9K and change to upgrade, I call B.S. Too much Kool-Aid to drink here.
I truly feel it's thrown out there so current users and owners keep going after the carrot. Nothing else really makes sense. We are talking about an item that costs as much as a car. I don't know any car makers who will sell you a new car after 18 months and buy the prior equal version for only a 10% sale price. I love how dpreview.com uses the word "scheme" in describing the program. That word fits well, has a shifty connotation.
All I can figure is that the margins are getting much higher on the backs along with wealthy hobbyists buying and outpacing pro shooters to be the core reasons for the "50% increase". It's all such an odd business model, constantly a moving target. Around me I see some top shooters who have gone from DSLRs to digital backs to DSLRs as a 5DII, 1DsIII or Nikon D3x as new current king of the hill for commercial work.
Any dealer have the cohones to give the percentage of hobbyists vs working photographers who buy Phase backs? I would really be interested in knowing this little tidbit.
The single biggest life and business lesson I have learned is that it's easier to sell the buyer's dream than your own dream. Digital backs have their place for certain, but what I see overwhelmingly is the insecurity of hobbyists and photographers that is so easily prayed upon by the allure of medium format digital as a holy grail of photography. Content is the holy grail of photography regardless of the tool used to create it. And content comes from our heads.
I greatly enjoy all the images I created while I owned a digital back, but I hated using the digital back, clunky, slow, crappy screen, shitty focus (and no MFDB has the focus of a D3x type of camera so don't even try). And the whole time you can look at a sub $1K camera or phone or whatever and have more enjoyable features that make the process smoother.
Here is my list of innovation in the last 5 years w.r.t. to digital backs:
1) Phase/Mamiya leaf shutter lenses No that already existed 20 years ago with Mamiya 645
2) Sensor + technology allowing a large raw to be recorded as a smaller size raw and actual file dimension No Canon did that well before hand
3) 2-3 years for a vertical grip on Phase/Mamiya 645 No wait Contax and nearly every DSLR has that
4) better screens Don't make me go there
5) Hasselblad's newest focusing design, ding! I honestly think that may be the only innovative thing yet, to fix very old focusing designs.
6) the use of iphones and ipads is at least interesting, but the practicality of adding more things in the chain requires more time and people to make it work or act as tech support
7) physically larger sensors does require due respect, but the hodge podge of sensor sizes is silly. Was only needed in film to get better detail or different lens draw. But the physical sensor sizes are all squashed into a relatively small differential.
The reality is that the sensor is by far the only "new tech" that goes into these cameras now. All the other components are far behind the tech curve with no way of surpassing that curve. So innovation winds up being quite banal.
John, I guess we'll see when we get the details and the fine print. Honestly, we are scratching our heads as well, trying to figure out how this can work for them. I don't know how it can or how it will, but if it is as they state, and there aren't any details or gotchas (not saying there won't be, but I need to see them), then if the bottom line is a great deal for our customers, we're down with it. As long as our customers get the benefit and it's valid for them, I don't care how Phase does it, how much money they make, etc. Though I hope they make a lot of money.
Hobbyists vs Pros has always been a much higher ratio than was realized, and this has been for a long time. I've been told that 60% of Hasselblad customers even back in the 1960's were hobbyists. Working Pros shooting medium format has been reduced for some time, going back at least 6, 7 years as the type of photography demanded for commercial purposes has changed and DSLR technology has rapidly evolved.
Medium format has always been the slower big brother, and always will be. It trails 35mm in terms of speed (primarily), but also additional functionality that is largely a product of small scale CMOS technology. Medium format will never match the swift of foot that DSLR's represent. If they seem far behind, it is because they are working on it and it is difficult and time consuming. I don't see that as their fault.
We have an amazing range of clients who use these products. Yes, working pros - which is an extremely general/generic term as far as a categorical classification is concerned - that encompass many photographic niches, table top product, architectural, portrait, wedding (though not too many), fashion, lifestyle, non table top product, stock, reproduction, and more, as well as in-house studios for retail and product, fine art photographers - which is also a general/generic term - that encompass landscape, nature, travel, archival, abstract, and more. Our hobby clients - enthusiasts, amateurs, whatever you'd like to call them - often do impressive work under challenging conditions. Not to mention forenzic, medical, educational, and reproduction segments.
All of these clients have demanding applications from an image quality standpoint, and even from environmental and situational standpoints. If their needs stray outside of what medium format offers, they turn to Canon/Nikon and other products.
While medium format may be considered slow and cumbersome, it does produce work under the conditions it excels in that no other products can match. If it doesn't work for one's style of photography or the demands of one's clients, then it's an easy choice to not use it.
List of innovations in the past 5 years:
*Leaf shutter lenses that capture at 1/1600th of a second and also auto focus quickly (this wasn't available 20 years ago) that also are high resolving and minimize chromatic aberrations.
*Sensor Plus - yes John, Canon has optional smaller raw files (big deal), but they don't offer it on a sensor that is 54mm x 42mm and that also gain 2 stops of sensitivity.
*No wait for Contax on a vertical grip? Ok, I want a new Contax vertical grip. How long before I can get one? And I also want wireless built in to the grip that sync at 1/1600th. Oh, right...Contax never did that.
*Better screens? Well, well.....ah, ok. Well, Sinar has a good one!
*iPhones and iPads for client use to get them away from the monitor. Oh...this was a bad thing?
*Sensor sizes (for Phase One, as an example) are currently available in 44x33, 49x37, 54x41. Three sizes doesn't seem like such a hodgepodge to me. Canon has, oh let's see...36x24, 28x19, 22x15, 8x6...
But wait, there's more -
*The ability to do long exposures of 30, 60 minutes with minimal noise. Maybe extreme, but also had the benefit of getting 60, 120, 240 second images that are noise free a snap.
*Getting super clean images up to 80 megapixels at large sensor sizes. This is innovation to some, maybe not you.
*Getting 40-60MP images to show on screen tethered fully resolved in 2-3 seconds.
There's more, but my point is that some see what digital backs can do as innovation, rather than what they cannot do as the lack of innovation. Medium format will always have the handicap of SIZE as the restraining element in their innovation. But I don't expect them to ever abandon that. Shaping it to resemble innovation that is available in smaller scale technologies will certainly continue to be their focus. Believe me when I say it is now. They don't just blow off technical innovations and decide to only focus on big sensors with tons of megapixels. The focus is there for those technical innovations as well, but they are challenging, time consuming, and....expensive (as a result).
I agree, content is King. But the chariot that delivers it is often a factor. I don't think medium format is guilty of preaching this anymore than any other manufacturer - Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung, Casio, BenQ...
Steve Hendrix
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Steve, you are absolutly right in your description.
But to me, the coming chalenge for MFD (wich is: decisions now) will not be that much on usability-cost, like a lot included me would like to see that improoved faster.
The chalenge resides in the incredible evolution imagery is having.
We can not any more, IMO, like it has been said here before, taking word by word the Ansel Adams about the performance. Print is NOT the only possible performance. There are other mediums that are the performance.
The photographer, and this is going to be more and more true, is having more ways of expressions, and this is not only the case for the pros.
Video is really a key, and 3D very soon. The 15 year old boy, wich is a potencial future MFD buyer, is today using video+stills and actually as a communication lenguage. When the time will come to embrasse systems, the person will want to express himself also with these mediums. There is no clear distinction now, and this is not a Canon's or Phase problem. This is a social and cultural reality. MFD can not fail this turn, and this turn is right now for the comming products.
The other reality is that the notion of time (or speed) is changing. (accelerating), and again, this is not in photography but global. What could be considered as an healphy stability, can become easily an unhealphy conservatism. I think that MFD are facing a serious change and they are aware of that.
To me, and I know that some expressed their reserves for tech reasons and too narrow D.O.F, MFD has a real future in motion backs.
I agree.
....Thought I'd try to be a little more short winded than my last post. ;)
Steve Hendrix
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snip......
I agree, content is King. But the chariot that delivers it is often a factor. I don't think medium format is guilty of preaching this anymore than any other manufacturer - Canon, Nikon, Panasonic, Samsung, Casio, BenQ...
Steve Hendrix
Of all the talk, (mine included), of better lcd's, higher iso, live view I've come to the conclusion that it's quite fine that professional cameras are slightly more difficult to use.
I know, I've said the opposite for years and maybe I'm just going through a stage, but think about it for a moment.
The world is full of flicker, tumbler, cloned and copied images shot with inexpensive cameras and though some results are good, 99.9% of this content really hasn't added to the world of photography, advertising or art and surely hasn't improved the standing of the professional image making industry.
If anything cheap dslrs have democratized the industry and creativity is not a democratic process.
Early on in digital there was a lot of talk of NOT using the same camera our client's kids could afford and the recent economy and the resulting production levels have moved a lot us to dslrs, but today probably more than anytime it is important not to use the same equipment our clients can use. Today it's more important to stand out from the crowd than ever before. (and it's a damn noisy crowd).
There are exceptions to every rule but usually easy simple production makes for uninspiring images.
I'm not dissing any 35mm camera, I have Canons and Nikons and they are quite amazing, but today I am firm in my belief that it's not a one camera, one system world. It wasn't in the film days, not so in the digital age either.
I'm also not someone that stares for hours at digital images on the 200% level or truly believes in all the quotes of ultimate image quality, but some cameras that are larger, more difficult to use allow us (me) to produce imagery that in my view just looks different.
Whether this comes from ccd's, no aa filter, using a proper tripod or slightly larger formats is irrelevant. Different is different.
Now when you factor in price, or the comments that everyone wants larger cameras to costs less, specialty equipment always costs more, but usually has a much longer shelf life. I may go through computers and iphones, ipads and monitors like water but nothing in our studio has had the shelf life of our medium format backs, no images in our library allow for deeper post production than the ones from the larger cameras, so at the end of the day, the costs of cameras are pretty much equal.
My current two backs have run for 6 years and are still going and the dslrs, their usually 18 months systems.
In fact I believe most of the reason many of us shelved our medium format cameras had nothing to do with the cameras, it was software, as every company seemed to have a period of software glitches, though today, most of them are stable, most are equal and even if my dslrs produce an in camera jpeg, we still process out every image for review so our back end post routine hasn't changed whether it's shot 35mm or larger.
Now where is that white Hasselblad on Samy's website?
JR
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Gotta pull you up on a few things within your response, Steve:
*Sensor Plus - yes John, Canon has optional smaller raw files (big deal), but they don't offer it on a sensor that is 54mm x 42mm and that also gain 2 stops of sensitivity.
Yes, but in MFD this is mutually exclusive to the "ability to do long exposures". We still await a back/chip that can do both Sensor+ (binning for higher ISO) and Xpose+ (long exposures). Since these two capabilities come from two entirely different chip manufacturers and design platforms (Kodak and DALSA), I think we'll be waiting a long time...I so wish that it weren't so. Whereas for several years past, any good DSLR has delivered both capabilities off the shelf.
*Sensor sizes (for Phase One, as an example) are currently available in 44x33, 49x37, 54x41. Three sizes doesn't seem like such a hodgepodge to me. Canon has, oh let's see...36x24, 28x19, 22x15, 8x6...
That there are different sizes wasn't John's point. His point was how similar the sizes are in MFD. Compare the area increases:
MFD: 44x33 to 49x37 to 54x41: just 25% and 22% larger respectively. Or, 52% cumulatively.
Canon DSLR: 22x15 to 28x19 to 36x24: a much more significant 61% and 62% larger respectively. Or, 162% cumulatively.
*The ability to do long exposures of 30, 60 minutes with minimal noise. Maybe extreme, but also had the benefit of getting 60, 120, 240 second images that are noise free a snap.
Even so, only a small minority of MFDBs can actually do those multi-minute exposures. And CMOS DSLRs still produce less dark noise than MF CCDs. What's more, DSLRs give the user control over how and when the dark frames are created and subtracted - Xpose+ does not. So a DSLR photographer can keep shooting light frames, while a P+ shooter is waiting for up to an hour for the dark frame to expose! A DSLR photographer can stack umpteen dark frames (for higher S/N) before subtracting them, while a P+ shooter cannot! So the P+ shooter ends up with 40% more readout noise than in his original capture - the DSLR shooter does not. And all of this could be avoided if PhaseOne simply allowed the user control/over-ride over XPose+ !
I write all this as yet another MFDB user who is frustrated that we are not being given what we actually need, and instead we are told that life has never been better for the MFD shooter.
Ray
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Of all the talk, (mine included), of better lcd's, higher iso, live view I've come to the conclusion that it's quite fine that professional cameras are slightly more difficult to use.
I know, I've said the opposite for years and maybe I'm just going through a stage, but think about it for a moment.
The world is full of flicker, tumbler, cloned and copied images shot with inexpensive cameras and though some results are good, 99.9% of this content really hasn't added to the world of photography, advertising or art and surely hasn't improved the standing of the professional image making industry.
If anything cheap dslrs have democratized the industry and creativity is not a democratic process.
Early on in digital there was a lot of talk of NOT using the same camera our client's kids could afford and the recent economy and the resulting production levels have moved a lot us to dslrs, but today probably more than anytime it is important not to use the same equipment our clients can use. Today it's more important to stand out from the crowd than ever before. (and it's a damn noisy crowd).
There are exceptions to every rule but usually easy simple production makes for uninspiring images.
I'm not dissing any 35mm camera, I have Canons and Nikons and they are quite amazing, but today I am firm in my belief that it's not a one camera, one system world. It wasn't in the film days, not so in the digital age either.
I'm also not someone that stares for hours at digital images on the 200% level or truly believes in all the quotes of ultimate image quality, but some cameras that are larger, more difficult to use allow us (me) to produce imagery that in my view just looks different.
Whether this comes from ccd's, no aa filter, using a proper tripod or slightly larger formats is irrelevant. Different is different.
Now when you factor in price, or the comments that everyone wants larger cameras to costs less, specialty equipment always costs more, but usually has a much longer shelf life. I may go through computers and iphones, ipads and monitors like water but nothing in our studio has had the shelf life of our medium format backs, no images in our library allow for deeper post production than the ones from the larger cameras, so at the end of the day, the costs of cameras are pretty much equal.
My current two backs have run for 6 years and are still going and the dslrs, their usually 18 months systems.
In fact I believe most of the reason many of us shelved our medium format cameras had nothing to do with the cameras, it was software, as every company seemed to have a period of software glitches, though today, most of them are stable, most are equal and even if my dslrs produce an in camera jpeg, we still process out every image for review so our back end post routine hasn't changed whether it's shot 35mm or larger.
Now where is that white Hasselblad on Samy's website?
JR
James, your post reminds me in some ways an old one that you wrote here before about a friend of you who regularly comes back to film MF when he has the blues, then when satisfy, back to digital imagery.
I guess those are cicles.
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The moderators might want to investigate t
Maybe as Fred says it's a stage and I'm not going to throw away my Nikons or Canons and maybe some of this is just blowback from the way we have worked in the last few years, but I really like a camera that is a professional camera. I'm not digitally unaware and I'll admit it never fails to flip me out when I look at that casio watch sourced phase lcd, but when working with lights, in production I've really come to appreciate the digital backs.
We've done so much recently in post with this person put next to that person, that prop moved 4" etc. etc., all at breakneck speed, that maybe it's just perception but it seems I'm more thoughtful, even respectful when I shoot a larger camera.
Today a friend stopped by. Someone that started me in photography . . .one of my heros. He pulled out a little point and shoot and did a snap. Now this photographer I've known forever and I don't think before digital he probably would have considered a Nikon F3 a small camera.
Watching him take a few snaps with that little toy just kind of shook me and I realized that's exactly where I don't want to be, taking snaps . . . of anything . . . ever.
It was kind of like seeing Ronaldinho playing croquet.
One thing I do know, rarely if ever have I seen someone who owns a larger camera not eventually go back to it, unless they sold it.
JR
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JR,
The market is gravitating back to more produced images. All that flare, rough and tumble and natural light style was picked up by every Model Mayhem stills shooter from Valley Village to "East" Williamsburg. Everything started to look the same. The last mood board I was shown was plastered with 2002/2003 beauty ads, even one I shot on Provia with an RZ. Really produced, lots of precise strobe, lots of styling.
To summarize: McGinley is out, McDean is in.
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but I really like a camera that is a professional camera. I'm not digitally unaware and I'll admit it never fails to flip me out when I look at that casio watch sourced phase lcd, but when working with lights, in production I've really come to appreciate the digital backs.
We've done so much recently in post with this person put next to that person, that prop moved 4" etc. etc., all at breakneck speed, that maybe it's just perception but it seems I'm more thoughtful, even respectful when I shoot a larger camera.
Today a friend stopped by. Someone that started me in photography . . .one of my heros. He pulled out a little point and shoot and did a snap. Now this photographer I've known forever and I don't think before digital he probably would have considered a Nikon F3 a small camera.
Watching him take a few snaps with that little toy just kind of shook me and I realized that's exactly where I don't want to be, taking snaps . . . of anything . . . ever.
JR
I do too. Maybe that is why I never ended feel totally comfortable with the 5D MK2 handling but yes with the Mark1. Being a fantastic camera the 5d feels like a toy really.
Okay, it is a toy-tool or tooltoy. But it has great IQ, great usability, total universality and... this video.
Cheers.
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Of all the talk, (mine included), of better lcd's, higher iso, live view I've come to the conclusion that it's quite fine that professional cameras are slightly more difficult to use.
Hum... fine, but the lack of live view doesn't just makes things more challenging and therefore a differentiator in favor of the pros, it make it next to impossible to have perfectly optimal results every time. Therefore it does penalize the pro by reducing the image quality that could set them apart from the crowds of amateurs that will nail their focus everytime with their live view enabled DSLR. The same thing goes with inaccurate/slow AF,...
This is probably not a big issue for a fashion pro like you, but think about product photography or landscape.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Hum... fine, but the lack of live view doesn't just makes things more challenging and therefore a differentiator in favor of the pros, it make it next to impossible to have perfectly optimal results every time. Therefore it does penalize the pro by reducing the image quality that could set them apart from the crowds of amateurs that will nail their focus everytime with their live view enabled DSLR. The same thing goes with inaccurate/slow AF,...
This is probably not a big issue for a fashion pro like you, but think about product photography or landscape.
if you are so anal about focus you can also take an Arca Rm3D... especially for product and landscape work.
Then again I am not aware of a lot of landscape photography shot at f1.4 or 2.0...
Live View is certainly nice, and it would be a very welcomed feature on a DB. Then again it's not the only way to get accurate focus...
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I'm still trying to figure out why I would really need live view after all these years without it. There is no way in the world it would make me any better with it. I honestly do not see the need . Now if I am tethered in the first place what really would be the point saving a frame from actually checking the image to see if i got it okay. If it is a focus issue than I just switch off AF and do it myself. I'm rarely off and I know many shooters that go to manual more for comfort zone than relying on AF which anyone that truly trusts AF on ANY cam is always at risk. AF is easily fooled. Sure it has it's place but the DF is pretty much spot on all the time anyway. I'm sure others are as well. This sudden need for live view must be coming from the newer generation shooters. I come from the days where Polaroid was a dream on our cams. But each his own, just another thing to get in the way of shooting. My teaching theory on shooting is keep it simple work on the image not the gear. Again I share this opinion as mine, no need to conform.
Would it be nice, I guess i have it on the Canon never used it. Seriously folks they day you don't trust your own abilities is the day you need to find other work.
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I doff my hat to you, you're the only photographer I've ever come across who expects perfectly optimal results every time.
If we are both speaking about focus accuracy, why settle for less than perfection when technology makes it a breeze? Isn't the strive for perfection the very message that James is promoting here?
Things move forward in every domain and technology does redefine the bottom line. It used to be OK for doctors to mis-diagnose the start of a bronchitic for a cold. Now those who would not bother doing the right test go to jail if they don't get it right every time.
Different types of impacts obviously, but again, I do agree with James that Pros need to be at the forefront in terms of quality of the results, but disagree with him that the lack of live view can be a plus.
The reasonable way of reacting to the current situation is to demand from the back makers that they deliver live view, not to try to deny the fact that DSLRs have a clear advantage there.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Would it be nice, I guess i have it on the Canon never used it. Seriously folks they day you don't trust your own abilities is the day you need to find other work.
Well Guy, you eyesight must be outstanding then.
Mine is assessed as perfect each time I test it, but yet when I did compare the quality of focus I achieved with naked eyes vs live view using a Zeiss100mm f2.0 at f6.3 for subjects located 100-200 meters away from me, I see a clear difference of average sharpness over 10 frames. This is not a belief, it is a fact for me.
If you did the test also in the context of your needs and couldn't see any difference, then you don't need live view. I wonder if all the photographers who claim they don't need the capability actually did this test or not.
To my eyes, this difference is about the same I see when using the best DSLR lens compared to an average one, both used at optimal aperture.
It is also similar to the difference in sharpness I see when using a best in class tripod as is vs using it weighted down with a 5kg load.
Cheers,
Bernard
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Would it be nice, I guess i have it on the Canon never used it. Seriously folks they day you don't trust your own abilities is the day you need to find other work.
What I want most from a new back - Live View - pared with a decent lcd! - this will makes life so much easier on location with a tech camera, but then again, I apparently don't need it with my lack of trust in own abilities ;)
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No it is not but really my point being is sure Live View can be a great benefit be the last to argue that point. It can slow you down also and obviously not always practical in the field and such. The real issue and it gets so overlooked is have you ever met a AF cam with a decent manual focusing screen. Think about it none of them are good at manual focusing. Now go pick up a Leica R9 and manual focus a R lens. Pretty much dead on each and every time. Why because they use focusing screens meant for manual focusing. I have a 7D here I just got actually and sure it does AF but try manual focusing with it , frankly it sucks as they all do. Even my DF is not the greatest at manual focusing it could be better but the AF is pretty accurate on it.
Also the other point is this if it don't have Live View it is crap and I am not buying it. Not speaking at anyone here but what the heck is that all about have we become so dependent on this technology wagon we can't do stuff ourselves . I just keep hearing this whining about this and that and than it repeats 10 more times. The bottom line is Live View is next to impossible with CCD sensors as they heat up when they are ON. Need to solve the heat issue before you can do that. These are BIG sensors that generate a lot of power and heat. I'm not so sure we are truly even there yet. I'm not a scientist by any stretch but just logic alone tells you obviously there is a limitation here.
If anything I think the LCD is more important to most users
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If anything I think the LCD is more important to most users
couldn't agree more - Live View, will be pointless with the crappy lcd's we have to deal with every day.... I still can't belive why this is so hard - 80 mp same lcd... it's like putting a V12 in an old VW Beatle.
Now phase have the opportunity to do it right with a new back design - it's going to be interesting to hear the excuses this time for not providing a lcd that can match a phone or a cheap compact camera - I really do hope that the excuses are not needed!
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Yes, those dslr's viewfinders are garbage for manual focusing, so as the autofocus lenses
I think the finders are generally okay, but you have to use appropriate screens. The regular clear AF screens are hard to focus manually. But this also goes for medium format cameras... IMO.
As to AF lenses the Contax AF lenses are okay for manual focusing; not perfect but clearly good enough.
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if anyone at phase is listening.... please make a removable finder!
better yet, make a few different finder options- more money that you can make with selling more accessories.
paul
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Honestly what I REALLY want is a viewfinder that can magnify to the crop sensor. So if you have a P40, P45 you can just dial in to that crop and see nothing but image to size. Not crop lines. That would make my day for sure
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The only high-resolution digital camera that I can focus manually with 95% reliability is the Sony a850. The optical viewfinder is terrific. I also have Hassey H2f, which is okay, but not nearly as good as the Sony for critical manual focus.
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Live view is very useful and I'd love to have it, but frankly if every shot turned out to be optimal, or exactly as I had planned, I wouldn't bother picking up a camera ever again.
There's a danger that technology is turning an adventure into a process.
Spot-on, Keith. The camera I get the most fun out of using is my old quarter-plate bellows camera with a 6x9 rollfilm back. Made in 1928.
John
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if anyone at phase is listening.... please make a removable finder!
better yet, make a few different finder options- more money that you can make with selling more accessories
agreed!!!
I loved the extensive finder system of the Pentax LX: http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/pentaxlx/viewfinders/index.htm
Shouldn't be too hard to simply copy such an approach ... as they are redesigning the camera anyway.
It's one of the features I really appreciate on the Contax...
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We aren't, or at least I wasn't.
Live view is very useful and I'd love to have it, but frankly if every shot turned out to be optimal, or exactly as I had planned, I wouldn't bother picking up a camera ever again.
Sure... but then I'd rather avoid paying 30.000 US$ for a 80 mp back. ;)
Cheers,
Bernard
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if anyone at phase is listening.... please make a removable finder!
better yet, make a few different finder options- more money that you can make with selling more accessories.
paul
+1!
No; actually that's understating it...
+ infinity!!!
So we are all agreed: if the new PhaseOne DF2 body does not offer interchangeable viewfinders, it will be a total wasted opportunity.
Proper MF SLRs can take WLFs and chimney finders; it's not just attractive in being "what sets them apart from smaller format cameras", it's also a critical part of their usability. I nearly sprain my neck every time I do astrophotography with my Mamiya 645AFD. Tripod mounted and fixed prism are a bad combination when you have to tilt the camera upwards. Don't talk to me about accessory angle-finders for the prisms: they are no replacement for the brilliant light transmission and full-frame magnification of a real WLF or chimney finder.
Here's another suggestion: for the same reason, new MFDBs should have swivel-out LCDs like the new Canon 60D (and heck, like my old 2004 Canon A620 P&S digicam!)
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We aren't, or at least I wasn't.
Live view is very useful and I'd love to have it, but frankly if every shot turned out to be optimal, or exactly as I had planned, I wouldn't bother picking up a camera ever again.
There's a danger that technology is turning an adventure into a process.
Keith, the point is that if you're shooting with say a 56mm x 36mm sensor then the tolerances for focus accuracy/error are tiny, such is the hugely reduced depth of field. Having Live View (with a good enough screen to make it worthwhile, of course) would be enormously helpful here. But only for certain situations and not all the time - it's the old horses for courses thing. I love photography where a certain amount, even sometimes a large amount, of accident comes into play, but I also love other kinds where very precise choices are made regarding focus and you definitely do want exactly as planned. Live view on MFDBs would give us the CHOICE to use it sometimes, sometimes not.
Philip
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I'll chime in here. Yesterday at was at a location shooting a table top product. For certain shot the AD accepted my idea to leave in focus only the name/logo on the platter containing a cake. I used a Canon 45TS counter tilted all the way. After some attemps, everytime I checked for focus accuracy on the logo, I found out that I missed it. Suddenly I had "a stroke of genius". I said to myself: What am I doing? Why I am not using live view to focus? (dumb enough!) Well, I proceeded. After I took the shot, I checked and I got perfect focus on the logo.
Small insignificant story I know, but it clearly describes how useful and simple is live view helping a 30 year experience photographer.
Live view? I wouldn't want to live without it now!
Eduardo
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Well you could have shot tethered in the studio. Which actually is better you see the image that your actually going to deliver. End of day it is a nice feature but it is not a mandatory one either. I would like it but I would rather they give me a real LCD to work with.
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Unless you're not actually in a studio... (Crazy talk, I know) ;D
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It is like watching two political parties slugging it out to win public opinion. Each one scoring points of the other, each one trying to emphasise the benefits of belonging to their clique but mostly slagging off the competition.
The truth is that both Phase One and Hasselblad are great systems and far better than their 35mm competitors in many ways. Perhaps if they focussed on the benefits that MF offers over the professional 35mm competition they might find that produces a better return for their efforts.
Here we have a knee jerk reaction to Hasselblad's announcements at Photokina with a lot of spin and a lot of promise just like Hasselblad's launch of the HD4-60. Both companies locked in a dog eat dog fight cannibalising their own market with unaffordable trade-in offers financed by artificially high list prices.
The simple truth is that for serious photographers both Phase One and Hasselblad offer products that are streets ahead of both Canon and Nikon in terms of the quality of the images they can produce. Having used both Japanese company's products at the top end and found them wanting, for my purposes, I am more than happy with my Hasselblad system. That is not to say that I would not be equally happy with Phase One because I would.
If I was running either company I would be focussing on the many benefits of MF against top-end 35mm. There are many more D3X and 1DSMk3 owners to persuade/attack than there are MF owners.
???
I own both MF and 35mm, systems and of course they both have strength and weakness, therefore they are used for different tasks.
But a part for image quality of images taken under certain conditions, I can't agree that MF systems are streets ahead of 35mm.
Actually, as a system, the 35mm, are much more complete and can perform most of he tasks of MF, rather than the opposite.
Most of the best paid ADs campaigns and fashion work published around the world, are made with 35mm DSLR.
I guess in term of world wide photographers revenues, even just considering high end work only, 35mm DSLR, beat all MF combined probably 20 to 1.
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Something just doesn't sit well with me about the new investment protection program. Not to be a party crasher, but the math would have to be so incredibly in Phase's favor to prosper so there's more to it than meets the eye. If someone buys a P65+ for $39K and in 18 months buys the new $39,001 eighty megapixel Phase back (hopefully new design, better screen and 20 more features to actually justify why these are needed by so many working pros, that's another argument all together) and only has to pay $3.9K and change to upgrade, I call B.S. Too much Kool-Aid to drink here.
I truly feel it's thrown out there so current users and owners keep going after the carrot. Nothing else really makes sense. We are talking about an item that costs as much as a car. I don't know any car makers who will sell you a new car after 18 months and buy the prior equal version for only a 10% sale price. I love how dpreview.com uses the word "scheme" in describing the program. That word fits well, has a shifty connotation.
All I can figure is that the margins are getting much higher on the backs along with wealthy hobbyists buying and outpacing pro shooters to be the core reasons for the "50% increase". It's all such an odd business model, constantly a moving target. Around me I see some top shooters who have gone from DSLRs to digital backs to DSLRs as a 5DII, 1DsIII or Nikon D3x as new current king of the hill for commercial work.
Any dealer have the cohones to give the percentage of hobbyists vs working photographers who buy Phase backs? I would really be interested in knowing this little tidbit.
The single biggest life and business lesson I have learned is that it's easier to sell the buyer's dream than your own dream. Digital backs have their place for certain, but what I see overwhelmingly is the insecurity of hobbyists and photographers that is so easily prayed upon by the allure of medium format digital as a holy grail of photography. Content is the holy grail of photography regardless of the tool used to create it. And content comes from our heads.
I greatly enjoy all the images I created while I owned a digital back, but I hated using the digital back, clunky, slow, crappy screen, shitty focus (and no MFDB has the focus of a D3x type of camera so don't even try). And the whole time you can look at a sub $1K camera or phone or whatever and have more enjoyable features that make the process smoother.
Here is my list of innovation in the last 5 years w.r.t. to digital backs:
1) Phase/Mamiya leaf shutter lenses No that already existed 20 years ago with Mamiya 645
2) Sensor + technology allowing a large raw to be recorded as a smaller size raw and actual file dimension No Canon did that well before hand
3) 2-3 years for a vertical grip on Phase/Mamiya 645 No wait Contax and nearly every DSLR has that
4) better screens Don't make me go there
5) Hasselblad's newest focusing design, ding! I honestly think that may be the only innovative thing yet, to fix very old focusing designs.
6) the use of iphones and ipads is at least interesting, but the practicality of adding more things in the chain requires more time and people to make it work or act as tech support
7) physically larger sensors does require due respect, but the hodge podge of sensor sizes is silly. Was only needed in film to get better detail or different lens draw. But the physical sensor sizes are all squashed into a relatively small differential.
The reality is that the sensor is by far the only "new tech" that goes into these cameras now. All the other components are far behind the tech curve with no way of surpassing that curve. So innovation winds up being quite banal.
Never say never, but the only dealers will see my money again are cars and furniture dealers.
DB dealers, hardly so.
Looking at a greatly furnished living room, cooking food in a Boffi kitchen or driving a 6 series, it is much more satisfying than pixel peeping an 80 megapixel image, which would have not make a zick of a difference on the succes of the last advertising campaign, catalogue or cover of Vogue, if they were shot with an older 20/30/40mp back or a DSLR.
Who ever think that a bunch of more megapixel and a fraction of more dynamic range, not mentioning cranky live view on a DB, will make them a 20/30/50 grands a day photographer is totally delusional.
They are looking at the wrong map for finding the path.
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I read a lot of the idea here about Live-view for focusing. I can't follow you on this and would join more Guy's philosophy: tether then! if it's all about focus.
Also, Keith statement is spot on: do we really want our gear to think and act for us? Tomorrow smile or sunset detection in MF gear then?
This is not serious.
IMO, live view is really important to get rid-of devices and to avoid distractions, not that much to be focused.
If they could devellop new generations of viewfinders that would be also a great acomplishment.
What is really anoying tether is having the assistant screaming "your are ok or not", that is something extremely ridiculous in the 21th century and having the people watching the screens instead of doing their job.
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Obviously we all have different needs on what we want on these systems. The real trick here is what is most important and keeping those manufacturing costs down since we all know we are the ones paying for it in the end. In Phases case what are the most important parts to improve this system. If it is say Live View you know it is going to cost us dearly. Now if it is something like removable finders or the ability to have this feature or not. Well if your happy with the standard finder than your not going to pay for the extra finders as accessories. Key thing here is costs to build are not bad but to buy the parts as a option you will pay but if don't need it than your not paying for the development of it like Live view which everyone gets and gets passed on to use like it or not. Look at Canon/Nikon you have no choice you are paying for it no matter what. Okay so what else better screens that is a given and cheap to do. Bigger and better LCD will we will pay for that and in general we all agree it is worth whatever it takes and for Phase/Hassy/Leaf to stay competitive against the 35mm world they know they have to do it anyway and will most likely be built in the price to survive so it may be a user cost that is just built in to the price and the OEM's may just have to eat those costs. Let say we want wireless tethering. This could be very simple without major costs for the OEM. They could add CF slot for it and offer a CF wireless card which we can buy or not buy. The only thing really needed here is the ability to shoot small jpegs at the same time. That is all firmware to do that so manufacturing costs could be low. Obviously it could be built into the back itself with wireless transmitters. But again maybe everyone wants it anyway. I'll take it for sure.
I think it is the old saying that comes into play here . Be careful what you ask for because in the end WE are going to pay for it. Not to say live view or some of the other needs we want are not valid but how much are we willing to pay when these things are not cheap to begin with. At this point any back we want to buy starts at 10k and ends in the 30k range. Question becomes are you willing to pay a extra 5k say for things that you may not want but others do. That goes for anything we ask to be built into these backs. I know we all scream for these things but when faced with the price how many of us will just back down and either get out or worse switch systems. We have to put ourselves into these OEMS shoes and see how this all plays out good or bad to there customers which is US.
Need 2nd espresso. LOL
BTW good debate and please I am not forcing my opinion on anyone but we have to think on both sides of the fence to get what we need and also keep those costs down for the OEM and ourselves. Bottom line everyone needs to survive here and we already lost a lot in the MF world over the last couple years.
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Sorry Guy but that doesn't hold water. The actual cost for Phase on the P backs outside of the sensor should have dropped considerably over the years ................snip.............
It's the sixth year of the same P chassis. I can only assume they are redesigning it now, it not, then someone with more foresight needs to take the helm. I only hope the redesign is truly foreword thinking and not lukewarm. Live view, tilting screen, iPhone screens, wireless, and plenty more should be part of that new design. If not, just lame.
I think Phase got a deal on those little black metal boxes, with a 2" hole for the lcd and 4 slits for control buttons.
Or they overbought. You get the feeling somebody wrote the Purchase Order for 65,000, instead of 650 and unfortunately like twinkies, they don't have an expiration date.
Once they get near the bottom of the box, they'll probably come out with a new one, though I fear it will be from the same manufacturer which will have a 2.5" hole.
We know Leaf must have got a deal on those 22 pixel lcd's because those things are never going away even if they make a 180 mpx back.
Hasselblad must have bought their boxes a little wiser because they do change them.
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Guy you obviously based a part of your business model around associations with some people that sell and make equipment, so YOU might pay for it but not that many working photographers rush down to the local "Specialty Digital Camera, Value Added Dealer" every time somebody announces another 30 mega something.
Most photographers use their equipment until the paint falls off, or rent and like Ziocan says most really good photographers don't see that much if any difference between version pee something 5 to the next version pee something 6.
Now if the current business model/time line holds, by the time Phleamam has live view or a real wireless system, Canons will shoot 3d holographs, have built in steady-cams and costs 50 pesos. Hasselblad will have a 14" lcd though I'm positive Phase will have 12 more megapixels than anyone.
You or any photographer don't HAVE to buy new stuff to stay competitive, at least not new expensive stuff at every announcement I know because those contaxessss I use shoot the same today as they did 5 years ago, the checks still clear the bank and life goes on.
BC
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I think Phase got a deal on those little black metal boxes, with a 2" hole for the lcd and 4 slits for control buttons.
Or they overbought. You get the feeling somebody wrote the Purchase Order for 65,000, instead of 650 and unfortunately like twinkies, they don't have an expiration date.
Once they get near the bottom of the box, they'll probably come out with a new one, though I fear it will be from the same manufacturer which will have a 2.5" hole.
We know Leaf must have got a deal on those 22 pixel lcd's because those things are never going away even if they make a 180 mpx back.
Hasselblad must have bought their boxes a little wiser because they do change them.
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Guy you obviously based a part of your business model around associations with some people that sell and make equipment, so YOU might pay for it but not that many working photographers rush down to the local "Specialty Digital Camera, Value Added Dealer" every time somebody announces another 30 mega something.
Most photographers use their equipment until the paint falls off, or rent and like Ziocan says most really good photographers don't see that much if any difference between version pee something 5 to the next version pee something 6.
Now if the current business model/time line holds, by the time Phleamam has live view or a real wireless system, Canons will shoot 3d holographs, have built in steady-cams and costs 50 pesos. Hasselblad will have a 14" lcd though I'm positive Phase will have 12 more megapixels than anyone.
You or any photographer don't HAVE to buy new stuff to stay competitive, at least not new expensive stuff at every announcement I know because those contaxessss I use shoot the same today as they did 5 years ago, the checks still clear the bank and life goes on.
BC
Honestly and your right I went through several backs already but I will say in that time I knew it was not totally what i wanted. The P40+ i could hang onto for quite awhile as it is in my mind much better than the P25+ and P30+. And updating the body to a DF was a absolute must have. That shutter lag killed me on previous models. Lens well lets be honest Im a lens whore and always have been. LOL
Daddy like new toys no question but also besides clients needs i do this for me first so being fond of something is somewhat important. I have a 7D here i just bought maybe 3 weeks ago . I shot 10 frames with it, hate it but it does what it is supposed to do when I need it. I'm a firm believer in shooting what turns your jets on otherwise you go through burnout more and all these years doing that i do protect myself from burnout and honestly a new toy helps that as well. Yes i have many associations with actually a lot of dealers , reps and OEMs and i do enjoy those friendships but I do pay full banana as well. These folks help support our workshops with gear to use, demo and see if people are interested in them themselves. We feel folks need to try before they buy. Besides all that like LuLu we like having these folks on the forums. I know Michael and Mark believe it is a benefit to the members as well as we do.
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End of day it is a nice feature but it is not a mandatory one either. I would like it but I would rather they give me a real LCD to work with.
In terms of priorities, a good screen does indeed come first and it is obvious that live view only brings value if the screen provides enough information.
Cheers,
Bernard
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It's pretty obvious P1 will release a significantly updated casing with their new lineup, otherwise they would have announced them at photokina. A better screen is given.
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With Phase One, a better screen is NEVER a given!
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;D ;D ;D I want to see that! is it going to be a 2" with 150.000 res ?:P
My eyes seem to get older faster than the screens improve :(
Edmund
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I've got a P40 on test at the moment and I see this new insurance program they have introduced as an attempt to to pump the R&D fund.
The shameful LCD, pathetic back menu/navigation interface, poor/gritty/sloppy/slippy manual focus feel on all bar the 120 macro, awful 1/125sec flash sync on all bar a very few lenses and a pretty poor rehash of a god knows how old Mamiya 645 camera is shocking IMO.
Thank God the software is first class, glass sharp and file output is sublime because the rest of the package is a bit lame.
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so i heard a rumour that Phase have an image manipulation program being developed, anyone have any more details?
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so i heard a rumour that Phase have an image manipulation program being developed, anyone have any more details?
Capture One is Phases image manipulation program and I can only imagine the rumour you have been told is possibly the next version of the software..... Version 6?
Who knows but I can't imagine its a whole new piece of software but more like an evolutionary refinement.
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i was told there was a large team of programmers working on something akin to photoshop.
i guess time will tell if there is any truth in the rumour.
capture ones colour controls and styles are quite advanced (not forgetting the lens adjustments) so i guess it's half way there :-)
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Now go pick up a Leica R9 and manual focus a R lens. Pretty much dead on each and every time. Why because they use focusing screens meant for manual focusing.
http://diglloyd.com/articles/LeicaM/LeicaM-Lenses.html
quote "The sharpest lenses available for any camera are Leica M compatible, and some highly unusual ones as well, such as the Noctilux-M. But sharpness means nothing without accurate focus."
It seems according to Lloyd chambers that the leica M9 is not capable of achieving accurate focus with some of its best lenses like the Noctulux 0,95 50mm lens. That is a shame..
..and easily solved with Liveview
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Quote from the Phase One press release:
"90 percent of their original purchase price against any new Phase One digital back launched at a higher price within 18 months of the original purchase date."
Note the comment "at a higher price". This means that if Phase One brings out a product at a lower price the offer falls away. Given that technology inevitably becomes cheaper as time goes by (cf Hasselblad's new price structure on the HD4-31 at £8995 inc lens) this trade-in offer is a lot less valuable than it seems and it gives Phase One the scope to introduce their new products at an artificailly high price to "lock in" their existing customer base.
What we have here in my view is a clever bit of marketing spin.
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I would regard the 90% trade-in deal as just another variant of the "financial handcuffs" approach.
Once you make the initial big buy-in, you are financially handcuffed to the brand; you would lose more by leaving it, than by staying with it and paying upgrade fees every so often.
They are basically trying to lock in their customer base; prevent future defections.
The only way for the math to work for PhaseOne is if the initial buy-in price is artificially high; and if you look at PhaseOne pricing vs. Hasselblad, Sinar and Pentax, there is evidence for that.
OTOH that can backfire - new customers may dry up, if they baulk at the buy-in price and don't like the idea of the handcuffs.
Anyway: I would massively prefer "feature handcuffs" to financial ones. Despite excursions into a few other systems, I always kept and grew my Mamiya system because I was hooked on its fast, sharp glass and bodies which had the features I wanted - interchangeable viewfinders, T mode, reversible mirror lock up, low light eV ability on the metering prism etc. If this thread has made anything abundantly clear, it's that we are less happy with the features of our MFD systems than we were/are with our MF film cameras and DSLRs. That has to be put right, before we will submit to the handcuffs.
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Always interesting to hear different views.
One man's "Rewarding loyal customers" is another man's "financial handcuffs".
Also note the statement "Given that technology inevitably becomes cheaper as time" is only disproved my many Phase One introductions. Most recently and notably the P65+ was introduced at $39,990 which a new price high. It's also been the strongest selling model.
Anyway, it's futile arguing. As the end users we will always want to have all the features, the "best possible price", but also be rewarded for staying with the brand if/when we upgrade within the brand. As the mnfr they will always have to balance R+D, marketing, maintaining value for current customers, offering existing customers upgrade opportunities, and offering brand new customers the best possible entry price.
There is no way to please everyone.
Doug Peterson (e-mail Me) ("doug@captureintegration.com")
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I would regard the 90% trade-in deal as just another variant of the "financial handcuffs" approach.
Once you make the initial big buy-in, you are financially handcuffed to the brand; you would lose more by leaving it, than by staying with it and paying upgrade fees every so often.
They are basically trying to lock in their customer base; prevent future defections.
The only way for the math to work for PhaseOne is if the initial buy-in price is artificially high; and if you look at PhaseOne pricing vs. Hasselblad, Sinar and Pentax, there is evidence for that.
OTOH that can backfire - new customers may dry up, if they baulk at the buy-in price and don't like the idea of the handcuffs.
Anyway: I would massively prefer "feature handcuffs" to financial ones. Despite excursions into a few other systems, I always kept and grew my Mamiya system because I was hooked on its fast, sharp glass and bodies which had the features I wanted - interchangeable viewfinders, T mode, reversible mirror lock up, low light eV ability on the metering prism etc. If this thread has made anything abundantly clear, it's that we are less happy with the features of our MFD systems than we were/are with our MF film cameras and DSLRs. That has to be put right, before we will submit to the handcuffs.
Well isn't this the case with many system purchases? It's often more affordable to stay with your existing system. I see nothing new here, or specific to Phase One. Let's think in terms of what this means to you instead of - why are they doing this? This policy coincided with price reductions on most of the Phase One digital back product line. So, today a P65+ is $32,990. It's not hard to imagine a P95+ in the future that comes in at $39,990 (the original price of the P65+).
Phase One has traditionally been the most expensive brand and they have been the market leader at that pricing. So I don't see any "artificially high" pricing philosophy either. If a manufacturer sells a product at a higher price than its competitors, and still retains the highest market share, then there is nothing artificial about that. The P65+ was announced two years ago at $39,990. At the time, nothing else was priced anywhere near. And yet, it has been a runaway success. Obviously Phase One's pricing has been based on what the market will yield.
I see this more as a signal that - Hey, we're working on some really cool stuff, but it may take a while. And if you can't wait, and want to upgrade now, you will have (at least some) measure of assurance that your investment will be somewhat protected. It's more than any competitor is doing.
Steve Hendrix
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I don't know I kind of like this insurance program.Right now I'm out of the woods since i bought my P40+ almost a year ago. So right now I have no real options with this program, yes I can upgrade but what I can't do is go buy a P40+ today at say 20k than in time buy a P75+ at 29k and only lose 10 percent on the P40+ which gives me a trade up value of 18k and pay the difference between 29k for the new one and 18k for the trade up program. That is 9k for a new back. Now go back to the P40+ I used it for 18 months at a cost of 2k that is a little over 200 a month which is nothing compared to what my P40+ is that I bought a year ago on the used market luckily if I walk away with 13k or so from the 19k that I spent. HELLO I lost 6k in a year. Okay maybe a little more I could get but you see the point. I also have the option in a trade program with a upgrade as well but not at 10 percent of the price paid. Sure there is a catch no question about it you stay within the system as it pays dividends to do so. But if I wanted to switch to Hassy i am still in the same boat as i am today without the program. I would have to sell my system on the used market or jump in Hassy's trade in program. So you jump from one to another and you gain nothing. Now i am a guy that went through 3 backs already so this smells pretty good to me ( admittedly one to many there) but this gives me the option to upgrade when a new back is out and than i have my choice either stay with what I have and let it run off the program list after 18 months or make a move on a new back. Now if I stayed pat after 18 months I am no different than what I am today without the program. Still out here out in the wind with dealing with the used market to sell. For the end user that will continue in this system to me it is a no brainer and actually right now the price of the P65+ and P40+ dropped in price when the Leaf was announced and this program started. Now If I had the money right now maybe a smart time to buy the P65+ in a upgrade path ( Hope Phase is reading) from my P40+ at a good price. I get the buyer protection and than when the ?+ comes out I have a choice on trade up or not.
I just see this as a interesting option for the current users and those that want to buy in and actually a much better path for those jumping in the ring. New Price on a P40+ back I think is 17k. As David pointed out Hassy has similar paths, so this has some merit as others are doing it as well. Go buy a S2 right now and see what you get, Nothing with price protection.
What I think folks forget here is it is a added option without added cost to the program. A P40+ will still cost you 17k to buy today with or without the insurance program. Obviously Phase is doing this to attract new customers which you can't blame them just like us we are out to make money.
My exact numbering maybe off here as to real costs of backs but I think I am real close. Dealers can fill in the blanks on those numbers
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snip It's often more affordable to stay with your existing system. snip
Maybe.
I don't know what happens in the markets outside the world of advertisingl photography. In the amateur world maybe they upgrade every 18 months, in the copy art at the Smithstonian world maybe they need 80 to 90 mpx, In the in-house catalog world it probably makes sense to stay with one camera brand, but in the commercial world I don't know anyone that is buying new cameras the day they are announced.
Early on in digital we all upgraded what seemed like every month, partly because the economy was cranking, partly because there was a big difference between a 12mpx, a 22mpx and a 30mpx camera, but today it's different and today in the world of money for pictures it's pretty much a given than any camera will reproduce well.
In fact I guess we could all say "hey thanks, my 1ds3, p30+, hd31 works fine today and nobody's complaining".
We just purposed out and retouched a half frame from a shoot. The client wanted a more horizontal and it was shot vertical. Honestly once we started working in post I didn't know if it was a dslr, a 21mpx back or a 30 mpx back because I shot all three during the session.
(http://ishotit.com/half_frame.jpg)
All I know is we worked in post, got the desired effect, added grain for texture and shipped. Nobody in the chain ever said anything about original file size, interpolation, etc. etc. etc. I do know that whatever camera I used was at least 3 years old, probably older and honestly at this stage paid for itself many times over.
So in my view, maybe the phase 90% value plan is good, but personally unless the next line of cameras is just earth shattering, I don't see the point because at this stage cameras are cameras. I don't think I'd even jump on the next Canon or Nikon unless there is just something I couldn't do without and once again at this I don't know what that would be, (other than raw video).
Personally I think the best news in medium format was when Hasselblad lowered their pricing, especially when they got close to the 10k range. That's a sensible number and could go a long way to introducing more photographers to larger formats.
It also allows you to keep your current camera, rather than trade it in, because I don't want to be stuck with one brand forever. Digital changes and sometimes not for the best. At one point Leaf was the darling of the NY world then came lc10 (oops), finally to be fixed with LC11.
Phase was the stable platform with v3, then came v4 (whew) only to be fixed with v5 and Hasselblad that lagged behind forever with their backs and software finally caught up and in someways surpassed everyone with a larger lcd and finally modern software.
So the 90% thing may work for some but I really think the most important thing is to make a stable, usable camera at a good price. A price that doesn't make you gulp if it drops ti 1/2 in a year.
That will enlarge (pun intended) the market.
BC
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Maybe.
I don't know what happens in the markets outside the world of advertisingl photography. In the amateur world maybe they upgrade every 18 months, in the copy art at the Smithstonian world maybe they need 80 to 90 mpx, In the in-house catalog world it probably makes sense to stay with one camera brand, but in the commercial world I don't know anyone that is buying new cameras the day they are announced.
Early on in digital we all upgraded what seemed like every month, partly because the economy was cranking, partly because there was a big difference between a 12mpx, a 22mpx and a 30mpx camera, but today it's different and today in the world of money for pictures it's pretty much a given than any camera will reproduce well.
In fact I guess we could all say "hey thanks, my 1ds3, p30+, hd31 works fine today and nobody's complaining".
We just purposed out and retouched a half frame from a shoot. The client wanted a more horizontal and it was shot vertical. Honestly once we started working in post I didn't know if it was a dslr, a 21mpx back or a 30 mpx back because I shot all three during the session.
(http://ishotit.com/half_frame.jpg)
All I know is we worked in post, got the desired effect, added grain for texture and shipped. Nobody in the chain ever said anything about original file size, interpolation, etc. etc. etc. I do know that whatever camera I used was at least 3 years old, probably older and honestly at this stage paid for itself many times over.
So in my view, maybe the phase 90% value plan is good, but personally unless the next line of cameras is just earth shattering, I don't see the point because at this stage cameras are cameras. I don't think I'd even jump on the next Canon or Nikon unless there is just something I couldn't do without and once again at this I don't know what that would be, (other than raw video).
Personally I think the best news in medium format was when Hasselblad lowered their pricing, especially when they got close to the 10k range. That's a sensible number and could go a long way to introducing more photographers to larger formats.
It also allows you to keep your current camera, rather than trade it in, because I don't want to be stuck with one brand forever. Digital changes and sometimes not for the best. At one point Leaf was the darling of the NY world then came lc10 (oops), finally to be fixed with LC11.
Phase was the stable platform with v3, then came v4 (whew) only to be fixed with v5 and Hasselblad that lagged behind forever with their backs and software finally caught up and in someways surpassed everyone with a larger lcd and finally modern software.
So the 90% thing may work for some but I really think the most important thing is to make a stable, usable camera at a good price. A price that doesn't make you gulp if it drops ti 1/2 in a year.
That will enlarge (pun intended) the market.
BC
Almost every sensor upgrade has had big improvements from 9 micron to 6.8 to 6 and now looks Like the new Leaf which is in just one version at the moment. Now sure LCD's and such have maybe not made the upgrade paths but every purchase I made was for the sensor and they keep improving with better noise levels better moire being less visible and so on. Not mentioned also is the upgrades on bodies and lenses at 50 percent or whatever it is. The point being here is if you walk into a dealers office today plunk your money down you have a extra option down the road that we did not have before. I'm sitting here as well as you with a P30+ and P21+ and my P40+ and have limited options and have two choices sell them used on the market or upgrade them at used market value. This third option gives you 90 percent back in 18 months. Either you say okay I want to upgrade or you don't. The key here as the user is you have a third option. Now given that would you not like to have this option today on your P30+ , I know i would on my P40+. Not that I have to take it but it is there for the taking if you want. Sorry but everything else you mentioned is not really the issue. The point is every manufacturer will keep producing new product to compete in the market with other products. Like it or not it is coming no matter if we want it or not that is the way digital has been for the last 20 years i have been working in it and Canon as you know has followed the 18 month path as well as Nikon I believe regardless they keep coming up with new ones. Not that they are worth a salt but we Pro's are not driving the train here. The hobbyist rule the market share and always will the numbers are staggering on what these hobbyist buy. End of day how to look at this because people walk in and buy everyday new backs and bodies is they get a third option on there purchase and Phase retains customer loyalty just like Hassy does with there programs.
Bottom line we are not driving this ship
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Bottom line we are not driving this ship
Right!
Is it then because of that that we always have those pre-cambrian's tethered bodies, the target being people with lots of time and money?
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Guy,
I find you're just too close to the tainted bed sheets of the manufacturers, late night taudry escapades.
What I see as JR's success is that the man can show stunning images that honestly feed the soul, his clients know that. Yet he's well versed in what is needed to create those images technically.
When I read your posts, it's microns or nanocrystalline silicon structures (no, I threw in that last bit for hyperbole).
There's a big difference.
It's simple, sell the dream someone else wants, not your own. JR sells the dreams his clients want and his clients' customers want. Phase One, Leica, etc. ad nauseum are selling the dream you want.
What in the hell are you even talking about this is about a insurance program and nothing else. Has NOTHING to do with any shooting whatsoever. This IS about buying GEAR and a insurance program that deals with it. The program gives US you me and the idiot down the street a option when you buy. Jr's success is a whole different topic on the planet no one is even talking about it. And BTW i am a little sick of your little snarky attitude towards me. I work for PAY not from any of these manufactures. Next time you want to accuse me of anything better have your lawyer standing right next to you because my bank account has no Leica, Hassy, Phase or anyones else checks deposited there except my clients which none of these are.
Frankly I view this as a insult and I demand a apology. Next time you talk about anyone better have your facts. It's like a sin to actually like a feature or program. It's a interesting option that unfortunately I can't take advantage of. I wish I could but I have to deal with it like everyone else with used market values.
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Good glad you got the message. And I'm glad you mentioned the PM in public maybe you'll get it. Don't ever insult anyone in public without hard facts. Now its your reputation out here not me. Don't bring your argument with someone else in another thread over here which is exactly what you did.
John let me ask since you are so against this is if Canon your brand offered you a program on your 1dsMKIII to give you a 90 percent upgrade path to a Canon 1DSMKIV for the price difference 18 months after you bought the III would you do it and it cost you nothing to do.
Think before you answer that one. Than please tell us the difference. Now i won't be here to get the answer i will be leaving here in a few minutes for a trip.
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...can I make a french joke to cool down the atmosphere a little bit?
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heu...can I make a french joke to cool down the atmosphere a little bit?
Hey cool as a cucumber. I just don't like to be accused of something that is not true. Been doing this 35 years and I have a lot of friends in this industry and no one will take that from me by accusing me of what this guy was going after.
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...can I make a french joke
Is there such a thing? ;D
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Is there such a thing? ;D
Yes...the french themselves! ::)
Okay, this is becoming as hot as a virgin panty in front of a Brad Pit's picture.
I wouldn't like to be the cucomber involved...
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I drink Vodka
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I didn't know that expression "cool as a cucumber". Like it, it made me laugh. I will integrate in my language options.
"tranquille comme un concombre" in french.
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Everything sounds so much cooler in French... 8)
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I didn't know that expression "cool as a cucumber". Like it, it made me laugh. I will integrate in my language options.
"tranquille comme un concombre" in french.
that sounds cucurbitatingly unfunny - we need, we want, a real french joke!
Edmund
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that sounds cucurbitatingly unfunny - we need, we want, a real french joke!
Edmund
Edmund, I tryed but the translation is impossible for my english. I don't really know how to translate cultural codes into english. It probably won't work.
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Keith
No, not at all: he's a politician. That's a whole other league of funny. The only thing you can tell for sure is that he does not place a high value on large breasts.
Rob C
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And he is very appreciative of the surgeon's art :)
Edmund
Keith
No, not at all: he's a politician. That's a whole other league of funny. The only thing you can tell for sure is that he does not place a high value on large breasts.
Rob C
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This is about marketing . . . right?
Since this thread started out as a link to an article about a phase one camera that is not in production yet, with no specifics on features, delivery or costs you have to assume it's just marketing, a way to keep the buzz going.
I don't know about most photographers but I'm curious, does this move anybody to buy anything, or consider phase over some other brand based on conjecture?
I find medium format strange, or at least some medium format companies. I get the feeling they're driving down the road looking in the rearview mirror rather than the windshield. Every now and then they stop the car and say, hey we're gonna be real good real soon. then get back in the car and drive looking in the mirror.
No photographer, ad agency or client will admit or even propose they want their images to be cheap looking or lacking in quality, but once again they will demand their images to be still, to be moving, to be good and be faster, less expensive, and oh yea better than before.
That's the view from the windshield and whoever makes equipment that works with that view will prosper, those that don't will keep on marketing.
When I see these articles on the "new" Phase, the HY6, the Pentax (which took about 5 years), the Canon rumors of a larger format it means nothing to me, because it's nothing I can use today. Actually it kind of pushes me away from a brand because I don't believe it till i've seen it and even if I do believe it I don't have time to wait for it.
No knock on Phase because they all do it, but let's get real, this thread has almost come to blows mostly with a few Phase defenders that are rabid about microns and "superior image quality" though hardly anybody talks about or shows photography.
To me, it just seems like cheap marketing and to anyone pushing a specific brand if your not getting paid for all that public loyalty, you should submit and invoice for services rendered.
But since this whole thread is either a defense or rebuke of a marketing effort, If I made a very expensive cameras, I think I would align myself with expensive looking images and place a ban on marketing images of brick walls, alley's, rainy streets and snapshots.
Let the pictures do the talking, because that's what pictures are for.
I strongly suggest looking at the way Hasselblad markets, because they kind of get the idea that expensive cameras are good for making expensive looking photographs.
Today I opened my e-mail box to the usual 395 messages, mostly spam about deals, offers, lower cost studio rental, apprentices that would love to work for free and a few dozen companies from the Ukraine that want to improve my sexual performance.
Anyway, from the three medium format players was a leaf ad of the 80mpx back stuck on a old V system, a Phase One software tip (I think) and a link to the new Hasselblad Victor magazine. I tossed everything but the blad link and opened up Victor.
Now this I understand because it's not just about a camera, or a light or a software seminar, it's about really pretty pictures from very good photographers. So pretty that it makes me want to buy a blad and no offense to anyone, but today I don't need to buy any new still cameras, so if showing pretty pictures can move me to consider a purchase, then I think that might be a good plan for all the companies.
IMO, Hasselblad pretty much gets it. They're not showing a 4 page spread of a camera to come, they're showing real photographs, produced beautifully from their current cameras and even using photographs shot with strobe and high sync (which is something they've had for a long time).
Pretty pictures.
That's what get's my blood flowing, not talks about microns, quotes about whose driving what ship, or the last three days to save 30% on software, or protect 90% of your camera investment.
Trust me, don't invest in cameras . . . use cameras.
BC
P.S. Just a suggestion to the Hasselblad Company. Stop that silly consuming log in procedure to view Victor. Just make it an e-mail address and send the link to everyone in the world, not just photographers, but clients, ad agencies, designers, anyone in the communications and arts industries (which pretty much means everyone). Keep the brand name going and make it a household word. Also give the contributors some reason to be published in the magazine rather than peer gratification, because after all photographers have to market too.
IMO.
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Well, Rob, there you go, I hadn't realised that I had something in common with Nicolas Sarkozy.
There you are, then; give Greece a rest and visit Nickie's France again instead! But wait until the strikers are done, until the spring comes around and the world takes on a fresh glow! You could even take Hot Minnie!
;-)
Rob C
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some real sense there from bcooter.
made me think of a marketing email from one of the lists people (bikini/File-FX/agency access) it had a model i had seen in person the previous week holding a camera in that way non-photographers do. i just can't take that cheap advertising seriously.
i have no interest in vaporwear either. show me the camera and the software and i'll think about how it makes my life easier and how long it's going to take to pay for itself and i make some money.
most of the photographers i know are shooting with 'old' tech p45's etc and this is for advertising/design up to 98sheet.
why waste another 15-20k on a back that isn't going to get you any more work?
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Quote from bcooter
"I strongly suggest looking at the way Hasselblad markets, because they kind of get the idea that expensive cameras are good for making expensive looking photographs."
Very loud applause - this is exactly what it is about. Well said.
:)
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I don't know if it would be possible, or even permissible by the community... just thinking out loud here...
I would like to see a forum/website that to be a member you must use your real name, have a website, and to be allowed to join one must pass entrance by member voting. What brand of camera is irrelevant. Most discussions would be about finding talent, assistants, getting new work, image critic. A real club of people dedicated to helping each other. It might only be 2,000 people, but the best in the industry. Non-photographers (guests who are browsing) are not allowed to view certain sections of the site.
Never would a person feel unwelcome because they are not doing much work, or can't afford this or that. All based on talent for entrance. The cool thing? All haters would be left out, gear discussions would be realistic, and best of all new ideas for your particular market, which does not hurt others, could be shared.
Forums like DPreivew, LL, POTN, have good people present, but there is a real fear to come forward by some professionals because of all the haters present. That is why I keep myself anonymous. I produce new work every week, but I don't want a bunch of bozos commenting on the imagery and it getting back to the client. Sometimes the work I do is very much like Kirk Tuck's for example, not really all that glamorous but I would like to share and find like minded people to chat with. I would like to ask real questions on gear for specific situations and know I am not going to get a dealer or shill, or worse amateur telling me I need to spend $30K to get to the next level to take care of my client. I'm an artist after all, not a scientist, but $30K is not the answer for improving an image and getting more work.
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I would like to see a forum/website that to be a member you must use your real name, have a website, and to be allowed to join one must pass entrance by member voting.
Slippery slope....
I'm all in favor of using real names.
The website idea is a non issue, I think, as they are so easy to do these days.
The real trouble point is...who votes to accept members? Who starts off as a member before there are enough to vote in new members?
Last, but not least, how many here would be willing to pay for such a site, and how much would you be willing to pay? Lets face it, a site and business dedicated to full time working photographers needs to make money too.
It does not sound like you want dealers or advertising, so the money would have to come from membership dues only.
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Slippery slope....
The real trouble point is...who votes to accept members? Who starts off as a member before there are enough to vote in new members?
It does not sound like you want dealers or advertising, so the money would have to come from membership dues only.
Yes, there is slippery slope, but the alternative is what we have now... there is nothing to bring out people like me into real discussions. We need a little bit more protection from the public. Endless debates about things that don't matter is all that is left. As far as the cost of the site, forum software is a one time $300, a domain name is $30/year, and a hosting package suitable for 2,000 photographers would run about $150/month. So $5 bucks a year would cover the costs.
I am close to just giving up on all this online forum non-sense. Nothing is learned here, all we do is bash each other and our gear. Yet deserving new people don't learn proper technique about image making (of which the camera is irrelevant). All very sad I think.
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What bugs me most are armchair photographers offering opinion on anything and everything, people who believe their own choices are the only valid ones and gear-heads in general. Get rid of this bunch and I'll join anything, if invited.
I know what you mean, and I might add some are shills. Would it not be cool to have a forum filled with people like yourself, bcooter, TMARK, eronald, RainerV, BernardLanguillier, John-S, etc... I could go on, forgive me if I left anyone out!!!
People who have a history of posting sensible statements and are making images, not pushing gear? I am so sick of gear. I'm sick of thinking about gear, recommending it, waiting for manufacturers to get their act together, and feeling like I need to save up and get that red Hasselblad just to be accepted. I say all of us get together and revolt, make our own site!!! We can figure out how to let people in, voting them in does sound a bit Bohemian Grove'ish.
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As far as the cost of the site, forum software is a one time $300, a domain name is $30/year, and a hosting package suitable for 2,000 photographers would run about $150/month. So $5 bucks a year would cover the costs.
So for an almost fulltime job of administering a website like this, the lucky owner would make a grand total of less than $8000 per year.....assuming he/she could get 2000 members.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, and I've often thought of setting up a professional photgrapher online community, but I gotta feed the wife and kids :)
Here's a question, and maybe we should do a poll to find the answer. How many people here would be willing to pay, say, $50 per year to be a member of a tightly regulated online community that would cater to strictly the full time photographer?
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Here's a question, and maybe we should do a poll to find the answer. How many people here would be willing to pay, say, $50 per year to be a member of a tightly regulated online community that would cater to strictly the full time photographer?
I would gladly pay that *if* the forum was filled with persons like yourself, I had protection from the public in certain categories, and other members truly shared new work weekly. Kindness was legislated, we had a real critiquing section. Cool stuff could happen like... imagine I get an offer from an ad agency that turns me down, I could alert others. You know, a real team of photographers across the globe who are not paid patsies by gear manufactures.
$50 is worth it to be to learn and grow in a safe environment, not filled with newbs, or potential clients. I know that sounds conflicting. I am referring to growing to the next level, refining my talent. I want advice from people who really know what they are doing and don't have agendas. We all get new ideas that we can apply to our local markets.
I'm pretty scared to show some of my really creative work and ideas for fear it will just get ripped off. If a safe environment, 'Joe' poster could say "Hey PC, mind if I use your idea like this for this ad? I will change it around like so". And I will be like "cool, Joe, yeah I love your work, make some money over there in LA with that. don't forget to flag the left side cause it was doing this and that for me."
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I already do.
Which one?
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I don't know if it would be possible, or even permissible by the community... just thinking out loud here...
I would like to see a forum/website that to be a member you must use your real name, have a website, and to be allowed to join one must pass entrance by member voting. What brand of camera is irrelevant. Most discussions would be about finding talent, assistants, getting new work, image critic. A real club of people dedicated to helping each other. It might only be 2,000 people, but the best in the industry. Non-photographers (guests who are browsing) are not allowed to view certain sections of the site.
Never would a person feel unwelcome because they are not doing much work, or can't afford this or that. All based on talent for entrance. The cool thing? All haters would be left out, gear discussions would be realistic, and best of all new ideas for your particular market, which does not hurt others, could be shared.
Forums like DPreivew, LL, POTN, have good people present, but there is a real fear to come forward by some professionals because of all the haters present. That is why I keep myself anonymous. I produce new work every week, but I don't want a bunch of bozos commenting on the imagery and it getting back to the client. Sometimes the work I do is very much like Kirk Tuck's for example, not really all that glamorous but I would like to share and find like minded people to chat with. I would like to ask real questions on gear for specific situations and know I am not going to get a dealer or shill, or worse amateur telling me I need to spend $30K to get to the next level to take care of my client. I'm an artist after all, not a scientist, but $30K is not the answer for improving an image and getting more work.
great idea but it will never work.
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http://www.pro-imaging.org/ (http://www.pro-imaging.org/)
Keith, I visited your website tonight and discovered some of the new ones. Really really good! Beautifull works.
I really enjoy so much beauty on abandoned places, there is a very delicate and refine approach in your visual world and at the same time, I see action, in the sense that you have to reach those places, find them like a (pacific) hunter. There is instinct and beauty. That makes me thing about a balance between Hermes and Afrodite. I like when opposite forces are combined into one element.
Congrats.
Cheers.
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I am close to just giving up on all this online forum non-sense.
I think you should. Considering you've only participated with about 150 messages since you joined in Oct 2008, I don't think this forum is for you. You seem way over the top regarding your privacy...and to be an anonymous member of this forum precludes you from full participation. Why did you even post in this thread? You want "members" to "vote" on whether or not somebody can join your friggin' club? Really? Are you serious? That's not a club I would want to be involved in (you prolly wouldn't vote me in anyway-what's the quote: I wouldn't want to be a member of any club that would have me?)
You might as well go back to the lurking you were doing...(funny how you seem compelled to look though-kinda like looking at an accident on the highway).
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Well Guy, you eyesight must be outstanding then.
Mine is assessed as perfect each time I test it, but yet when I did compare the quality of focus I achieved with naked eyes vs live view using a Zeiss100mm f2.0 at f6.3 for subjects located 100-200 meters away from me, I see a clear difference of average sharpness over 10 frames. This is not a belief, it is a fact for me.
If you did the test also in the context of your needs and couldn't see any difference, then you don't need live view. I wonder if all the photographers who claim they don't need the capability actually did this test or not.
To my eyes, this difference is about the same I see when using the best DSLR lens compared to an average one, both used at optimal aperture.
It is also similar to the difference in sharpness I see when using a best in class tripod as is vs using it weighted down with a 5kg load.
Cheers,
Bernard
Your point on the benefits of Live View is well taken Bernard.
I don't think there's any type of photography that augments even the slightest degree of out-of-focus like macrophotography. Oftentimes, with a live moving subject, I have to hand-hold my macros ... and my focus % is always at its lowest here.
At other times I have used a tripod and focused manually (without Live View)--but I have found that because of the tiny, tiny details of insects and the like (which have features that I can't even see with my naked eye), I still miss perfect focus many times, simply because I cannot fully-see the intricate details of these creatures, until after-the-fact and they're blown-up on my computer monitor.
However, when I use a tripod, a remote shutter release, and Live View (which allows me to blow-up my subject 400% and really see its intricate details to a degree I simply CAN'T with my naked eye) ... and only then do I focus ... my photographs ALWAYS come out sharper and better than they do trying to use my naked eye alone. Always.
I agree with your conjecture, that people who downplay Live View either (1) don't require critically-precise focus and/or (2) have never actually used Live View to where they can magnify their subects and then focus.
I strongly believe that no one who has ever actually done this could possibly argue against the benefits of Live View,
Jack
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Thank you Mr Schewe for saying what many of us probably feel.
While I am saying that can I also remind pcunite that this is a thread on medium format "gear" which given his rabid opinions he should not even be reading.
Anyway where would we (and our professional equipment suppliers) be without the large number of photographers (and yes many of them are not professionals) who can afford and are happy to keep buying the latest so-called gear.
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I think it's a dream.
The site you think you want (pcunite) already existed: it was formed by another photographer and myself some years ago, in disgust at the way things were going in a site where we previously spent much time. Membership was only by invitation; there was probably no way anyone could just stumble into it.
And you know what? It still didn't work.
You simply cannot legislate for personality. Even people who actually admire one another's work can't see eye-to-eye on major psychological issues that never occur in one's imagination at the moment of extending the magical invitation. Further, the increase of numbers/membership isn't that easy to achieve; you certainly do need a critical mass, which is why LuLa functions as it does; the group we started never did grow very much: who the hell do you know to invite? In my own experience, photographers do not know many other photographers. The reason is simple: we hold hands when we do in order to stop the other guy from picking our pocket. Good relationships only happen with people in different disciplines and in different countries.
Time. Few working guys have it to spare. If they did, they would be better served chasing work rather than sitting at the keyboard moaning about the state of the world. I am a dinosaur; I have been told this and it must be my turn to accept that things change and are going down the tubes. They always were, ever since '60 when I discovered this world, only now the acceleration has gone like gravity: 32ft/sec/sec squared!
Worse, the economy has gone south faster than the photographers! The economy might recover - or not - but a sunken snapper is dead. At least, he should have discovered that the life isn't for him or he would still be alive, metaphorically speaking.
Stay happy with what you've got here. Some really great people and intelligent conversation if you give it too.
Rob C
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They're instituting real name policy at http://reduser.net/forum/showthread.php?t=27544
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I belong to a number of other discussion forums not related to photography and they all have two things in common.
1. I can count on one hand (even after the horrific table saw "incident") the number of times there have been flame wars or personal attacks.
2. They have a real name requirement to join.
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WAHAHAHA ... I got a PM *here* some member of this forum once telling me that I had been blackballed for some private forum :)
Why should I join a forum whose members PM me in such a way?
And most of us here have got banned from at least one of the big public forums for our debating style.
I think the whole point of public debate is that it is public. If someone wants to come here and tell me that I don't know sh*t about color, bravo, bring him on maybe he'ssl teach me something. If someone wants to post interesting images of amazonian ants here, please, let him do it, maybe it will inspire me. If someone wants to gush about Man Ray's surrealistic imagery, no problem.
Surprises, welcome!
Edmund
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A real name requirement is a good thing, but not without getting something back. Internet searching and a photographer's name are one and the same. I was just expressing my ideas aloud, it would probably never work, not without a huge grassroots effort.
I was just checking out the PODAS website, I thought it was funny how they always show themselves next to the camera, holding the camera, pictures of the camera. That is the new culture... defined by gear. At first I thought this was all about quality, but after looking at PODAS, I realize it is about money, and those who can spend it on veblen without thought to their business. I have always avoided MFD because of the workflow and cost. Others are buying for that very reason alone.
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I was just checking out the PODAS website, I thought it was funny how they always show themselves next to the camera, holding the camera, pictures of the camera. That is the new culture... defined by gear.
Hmm... Did you found it funny, or threatening perhaps?
Rephrasing what Rob and others have said, there's really only one way to have a forum without any disagreement or conflict--and that's a forum of one.
I guess I'm not clear why it bothers *you* if a some group of people choose to show off their gear. Who cares if the PODAS photographers photographed themselves naked in a bathtub, writhing, covered in their own gear, slathered in oil?? (Ok, truth be told, that probably would be rather unsettling, but that's a whole 'nother discussion :) -- apologies to everyone for that visual...)
If that's not what you're about, I would humbly suggest moving on--to be blunt, if you don't like gear discussions, don't participate in gear discussions!! I hope you are not suggestiong that there aren't any other discussions going on--there are many, many illuminating conversations on a huge variety of topics, it's not all just about "gear".
There is some irony in the statement I am about to make, but I'll make it anyway: The idea that everyone else I interact with should agree with my world-view is, to my mind, all too prevalent these days. Why not welcome other perspectives, and on those viewpoints you disagree with, give them as much airtime as you feel they are due (maybe none, maybe some), and move on, possibly enlightened, certainly informed, but hopefully without the feeling that there is a need to have those other perspectives segregated or suppressed.
I just don't think you're going to succeed at filtering out the rest of the world's opinions, unless it's not really a community you're after.
Just my 0.02,
-Brad
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...why on earth would I?
Obviously it would depend on who you are and how much a factor you feel "the gear" has in the value of the final result. Without placing a high factor on this it's hard to imagine why one would be concerned with what PODAS (or any other group of) shooters are using. ...Unless one wished to emulate them, of course.
Thankfully we are all different.
Agreed. Precisely my point.
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- I've received a grand total of two less than positive messages/emails and have suffered virtually no on list abuse -
Your mother smells like elderberries.
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Who cares if the PODAS photographers photographed themselves naked in a bathtub, writhing, covered in their own gear, slathered in oil?? (Ok, truth be told, that probably would be rather unsettling, but that's a whole 'nother discussion :) -- apologies to everyone for that visual...)
Not sure I can ever forgive you for that...
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A few comments on the philosophical twists this thread has taken...
1. Pcunite's unhappiness with the current forum membership: I've already had to point out the other day that this part of LuLa is not reserved for "professionals". I and someone else similarly had to point out that those who have not yet used MF (film or DB) are welcome to post as well. And I am not aware of any real "haters" here.
2. Pcunite's call for a special place in cyberspace for him and his ilk: no problems here. I don't care what other people want to do with themselves. But do it someplace else. I want LuLa MF to stay welcoming to amateurs, the technically inclined, people who don't have personal websites, and so on.
3. Full names: would be a good idea. I go by my full name on photo.net for example.
4. Fredjeang's disapproval of too much 'tech talk', insistence that any camera will do, need to focus only on the "creativity": sometimes the tech really does matter to the images produced. Creativity gets you nowhere when, for example, you're photographing in such low light that the readnoise is killing you even before the darknoise does (that's often my problem). Then it's all about how the best tech can serve your needs. We have to talk about these material things, not sweep them under the abstract carpet of "creativity", "vision", "talent", and "client focus".
5. When did the Luminous *Landscape* become the Luminous *Model Studio* or the Luminous *Advertising Agency*? OK it didn't but it often feels like it did. Now I have 100% tolerance for other people's viewpoints, interests and careers - so I really do want to see this type of area continue to be exhibited and discussed on LuLa. No exclusions, no censorship, respect for all - see points 1 & 2 above.
I just think that our discussions would be better if everyone remembered that not everything in MF/MFD is about the particular applications of fashion and advertising. There wouldn't be that frequent harping about creativity, and denigration of the tech aspects. I can understand that if your job is to shoot the one trillionth image of "woman wearing nice clothes", you do need that creativity to make your work stand out. But it is not a universal requirement. Mother Nature, god bless her, provides all the creativity one needs in landscape photography or astrophotography. Then it's about equipment (yes, the tech), preparation, dedication and opportunity, and some vision. But not creativity in the sense of moving lights, people and furniture around, manipulating props and makeup and hairstyling and paint and animal handlers and... What appeals to me is just moving oneself around and leaving nature be herself. That's what I do, that's what I think a lot of us here do...so just keep it in mind that there's a lot of different photography going on and statements of sector-specific dogma are not appropriate.
Ray
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Ray, you have a great sense of humour and that's nice. No, the Luminous Landscape is not going to be tomorrow the Vogue Alley...and thank god it won't.
I'm for pluralism and avoiding getthos.
As you said, the key is "respect for all". I completly agree with that.