freedom of choice?canons or nothing

[James Russell]

The cost is directly proportional to quality of output. The better the back the more they can charge. It's market forces at work, nothing more. If Phase came out with a 50mp back with 48mm x 55mm CCD with useable 1600 iso and 3 frames a second continuous shooting, it would sell for $100,000 easily. This is irrespective of manufacturing cost.

Damien.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=86210\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Excuse the expression, but if the medium format back industry would just get this s___t together they would sell a lot more product.

Yes the Leaf, Phase and Hasselblad can produce stunning images, but all require some extra effort in comparision to a dslr.

Also just about the time all three of these manufactuerers's fix the bugs and update the firmware of thier current cameras, they are already advertising the next upgrade.

Leaf is the biggest culprit for this with thier new S series being announced, while the 2 year old A-22 still doesn't have Wi-fi and LC10 is still a work in progress.

For all three of these companies, the in camera previews tiffs are small, the high iso capabilties are still limited and all of their software suites require some workarounds.  Leaf's V-8, LC-10 and Hasselblad's Flexcolor require a definate upgrade and LC10 a complete rethink in stability and speed.

Phase's C-1 is the most stable but also very power hungry (maybe V4 will fix that).

All of the manufacturer's are also going to have to address thier on camera lcd's sooner or later.

Some of the excuses are getting a little old, when you hear that Phase, or Hasselblad cannot buy great lcd's without placing huge orders like Canon, Nikon or Sony.

Heck, for the price of a digital back, why doesn't Phase just go out and buy 2,000 cheap fuji P+S and rip the lcd out of them and stick them on their backs.

I know for a fact anyone would pay an extra $500 for a really good medium format lcd like the little Fuji.

IMO

JR

[eronald]

Heck, for the price of a digital back, why doesn't Phase just go out and buy 2,000 cheap fuji P+S and rip the lcd out of them and stick them on their backs.

I know for a fact anyone would pay an extra $500 for a really good medium format lcd like the little Fuji.

IMO

JR
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=86303\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Isn't this how Polaroid backs were first made for MF ? Companies bought Pola cameras and hacksawed them in half ...

Edmund

[Tim Lüdin]

The new phase plus series have new lcds. Phase claims that the lcd are much better now.
How good are they now? Does anyone now.
That damn lcd was one reason, why I never considered phase in my midformat diciding process.
Now I do. Phase somehow got their act together with the low noise, better lced and stabel software.

So how good is their new lcds?

Tim

[Dustbak]

I have seen the display on the P30 with which I was not particularly impressed. Anyway it did give a good impression of the image without being either too red or too green (the example I have held in my hands that is). It also held up fairly well when the sun was shining

The screen on my Aptus is large however fairly poor quality, it is hardly visible when even a little bit of sun is shining. It is very visible indoors but than I am mostly shooting tethered and thus not using the screen  

It would be fantastic to have the same quality screen I have in my 1300USD Nikon D200 especially when it is as large as the Aptus screen.

None of the DB's I have seen sofar (which is all but the Sinar eMotion) have an impressively good screen, nit by my standards anyway. None of them even comes close to the screens of much cheaper DSLR's.

[charles_m]

So how good is their new lcds?

Tim
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=86338\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

They were supposed to have one at Photo East, but again, a delay and an excuse. Big surprise.

To my knowledge, no one has seen one yet. The word is "one stop brighter and twice the resolution".

My personal feeling is that we must stop beating this dead horse. It might improve some, but I am not holding my breath. Leaf's is just as bad; it's only larger. Hasselblad's OLED is tiny, yet a slight bit better quality, but an odd color overall.

I feel that mediumformat photographers must begin to address this issue in other ways, other that continued bitching about a better LCD. Either we've got to shoot tethered, and shut up about the hassle, or devise some kind of instant-print system, similar to showing a client a polaroid, in the old days.

[Tim Lüdin]

I think we discussed the lcd problem a lot at RG. It's still a shame that the backmakers are not able or willing to put some good lcds on their backs. Especialy at this price point. Every handheld has a better screen.  I was hoping that the newer backs (plus and s series) would adress that.
My hasselblad dealer told me, that the better lcds would produce more heat and that wouldn't be to good for the sensors inside. Sounds like a poor excuse.

Tim

[Eric Zepeda]

I feel that mediumformat photographers must begin to address this issue in other ways, other that continued bitching about a better LCD. Either we've got to shoot tethered, and shut up about the hassle, or devise some kind of instant-print system, similar to showing a client a polaroid, in the old days.
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=86344\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Yes, tethered is a PITA, but my clients love to see the big preview up on the screen, plus it gives me a chance to check focus at 100%. Even when shooting to cards, it's still a good idea have someone downloading and checking exposure and focus and relaying that info to the shooter.

What would be cool would be a "polaroid button" on the back that would process the RAW file on the fly, in the background while shooting and wirelessly spit out a 4x6 hard copy in almost real time to one of those little Canon Selphy printers or the like.

[James Russell]

I think we discussed the lcd problem a lot at RG. It's still a shame that the backmakers are not able or willing to put some good lcds on their backs. Especialy at this price point. Every handheld has a better screen.  I was hoping that the newer backs (plus and s series) would adress that.
My hasselblad dealer told me, that the better lcds would produce more heat and that wouldn't be to good for the sensors inside. Sounds like a poor excuse.

Tim
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=86351\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

My point wasn't really to diss the manufacturerers, but the theme of this thread was that there was a big gap between the Canon's and medium format.

I just think if the medium format backs were a little more refined, the costs and use would be easier to accept.

We all have workarounds for the lcd.  Me, I've move to tethering 75% of what I do and actually have grown to like the process.  

Still, it's kind of hard for most of us to accept that a twice price product still has a barely readable lcd, or software is glitchy, or worse, we get into reboot, overshoot, freeze, white balance or corrupt file problems.

I sometimes wonder if the manufactuers of the backs are so focused on getting new product out to compete, they are producing backs that just are not ready.  

Everyone I know that uses a medium format back tells me how much they love the files, then somewhere in the conversation it always gets around to how they have to reboot the back, or move to tethering to get a readable preview.

It's amazing what all of us go through just to get better quality.

I am amazed that I know look at a $15,000 purchase as a pretty good deal, when in the film days, a $15,000 camera purchase would yield a decade's worth of use.

We can all talk about the film and processing savings and sometimes they can be substatianial, though when I look at $30,000 a year in storage fees, the hours it takes processing, archiving, building web galleries and proofs I know that in the end, digital capture is not less expensive as film.

A few years ago I had a first assistant say that someday we will look back \remember when each film frame we shot only costs me 50 cents an image.

Given all of this, there is no going backward.

JR

[pss]

i have also complained about the screen on my phase back, but now i actually think that the problem is not so much the screen itself, but the image it has to show....a raw file from a DMF back is a pretty awful looking thing, we all know that....flat, color probably off.....we make sure to get the highlights in and don't loose the shadows....it does not even look pretty on the LCD/laptop screen! so how can it look good on the little back? the images look a LOT better if i actually take the time in C1 to set up the shot tethered, apply the profile, curves,....and hit the button to send the setting to the back....at that point every shot pops up with the setting applied and all of a sudden the preview looks a lot better....not really more accurate, but more pleasing....
i always felt that the previews on the canons were much more pleasing, vivid colors, great contrast, but really that was more for show then anything else, i knew that was not really the image, but it made people who checked the screen a lot happier....
the new phase screens will have twice the resolution and better color and contrast....but if they still have to show a raw flat file with 12 stops DR, the image will still look like crap....
i even bought one of the sony UX series miniPCs (5" screen) to get a better picture straight from the back....i was able to get a nicer looking preview, but i had to go back to re-adjust everything later anyway....so the question is do i want the preview for myself or for the client? for me the screen works just fine, i can interpret what it says, for the client only a laptop screen will do anyway and even there i have to make sure they don't get a glimpse of the files before i can make some adjustments.....
the aptus screens don't really have any advantage for me because of these points....the only screen i have seen that deals better is the emotion22/75 screen...somehow it does a better job...just a little better, still not even half as flashy as canon....but then again none of these backs produce jpegs, which is what we see on those screens i believe....

[Willow Photography]

Tomorrow, Wednesday, I will have a close look at the LCD on a P30+.

I will bring my P30 and maybe Canon 5D and compare.

Then I will report back here.  

Willow

[nicolaasdb]

the problem is not the screen..it is the fact that all Dslr camera's create a jpg image in the RAW file..the MFDB don't do this or have no software to show you this on their screens.

The reason being: the jpg image is not a close enough representation of the quality of the actual RAW image (which we all know and don't care about as long as we can actually see the models face, light and shadow, so we can make a quick light adjustment etc).

I only shoot CF...because I treath my shoots as shooting film and downloading the images so the client can view them is kind of getting the contact back from the lab...you just don't have to wait that long! and for me a better lcd would be great..time will solve this issue...because more pixels is becoming a little rediculous..so they have to come up with new stuff to make us upgrade and for them to stay in business!

[damien]

It sounds like I'm the only MFDB user here who is happy with their purchase. My P25 is not a work in progress, it worked straight from the box and has done so for 2 years without the need for a reboot, whatever that is. The files I get are great and way better than any 35mm type system I've tried. C1 software is okay, probably better than Canon, Nikon, Fuji, Apple, Adobe etc (all companies with far bigger budgets for this sort of thing yet still not able to make great software for image processing) and believe it or not, I prefer the lcd on the P25 to the one on my Nikon D200. In sunlight the D200 screen is unusable. If I worked in a studio, the Nikon type screen would be my choice, but I work in the big outdoors.

I agree there is room for improvement on my P25. I can't complain though, because in the last 2 years Phase have delivered 2, soon to be 3 superior products I can upgrade to. I'm not sure the same could be said for the top of the range products from Canon or Nikon etc. I know of Leaf users who like their backs too, so it's not just Phase who have some happy customers.

Damien.

[rainer_v]

maybee for the different subjects i shoot, but i dont have problems with the emotion screens, but they are some other technic,- no lcd. i forgot the word, but this creates have a very wide viewing angle.....
and also rarely i have clients take a look at them.
i dont shoot often tethered and i use the lcd mainly to check overexposures and histograms as well as 100% sharpness.
the shot itself i usually do on the groundglass or with my eyes before setting up the camera......
didnt liked the polas also too much.
( just bought a little optical viewer from leica with 21/24/28mm settings which equals my 28Hr and 35HR and, if i put the viewer vertical, it shows app. the 45mm perspective. nice tool for image  composition).