Looking for help on upgrade decision

[Greg Haag]

I was hoping to get some input on upgrading my camera.  I currently have the H2 w/P20 Phase One back.  I am looking at the special that Hasselblad has on the H3DII-31 for $17,995 or keeping my H2 and upgrading to the Phase One P31+ back, does anyone has a recommendation.
Thanks in advance,
Greg

[j.miller]

Greg,
    Giving the equipment you already own, there are several upgrade options available, including upgrading to an H3DII-39 for little more than the promo price of the H3DII-31. I have to admit, the current promo on the H3DII-31 is hard to ignore!

I cannot speak for your PhaseOne options, however either the H3DII-31 or H3DII-39 could be advantageous, depending our type of work.

Feel free to contact me if I can be of any assistance.

Regards,

Jordan Miller

I was hoping to get some input on upgrading my camera.  I currently have the H2 w/P20 Phase One back.  I am looking at the special that Hasselblad has on the H3DII-31 for $17,995 or keeping my H2 and upgrading to the Phase One P31+ back, does anyone has a recommendation.
Thanks in advance,
Greg
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202620\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[Greg Haag]

Greg,
    Giving the equipment you already own, there are several upgrade options available, including upgrading to an H3DII-39 for little more than the promo price of the H3DII-31. I have to admit, the current promo on the H3DII-31 is hard to ignore!

I cannot speak for your PhaseOne options, however either the H3DII-31 or H3DII-39 could be advantageous, depending our type of work.

Feel free to contact me if I can be of any assistance.

Regards,

Jordan Miller
DTG
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202622\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Jordon,
Thanks for the feedback.  I am struggling with 2 issues.  1. should I take advantage of the Hasselblad H3DII-31 offer and upgrade my camera as well as my back  2.  How does the Hasselblad 31 back compare to the Phase One P30+ (it would seem to me that if the backs are comparable the Hasselblad offer is my best option).  Thanks again for your feedback.
Greg

[j.miller]

Greg,
    The Hasselblad H3DII-31 and the PhaseOne P30+ use the same imaging sensor. Therefore, they share some similarities in regards the capture rate, high(er) ISO performance, and micro-lens technology. However, the differences are quite vast, and the H3DII can be appealing for numerous applications.

One critical comparison to draw between these two systems will be the image quality. As you are aware, the image quality of a camera of this caliber will be quite good, yet is comprised of several things. Hasselblad has made numerous strides in improving the hyper-critical sharpness and color fidelity of their camera systems, along with keeping accurate color reproduction, and low noise. Additionally there are other, more model specific features such as DAC (Digital APO Correction) that incorporate hardware and software solutions to problems inherent in today's ultra-high resolution digital systems. These improvements have come not only with the development of new sensor / processing technologies, but also with the integrated development of the camera, as a whole. It is this integration that has enabled various features within the H3DII, improved it's image quality beyond the limits of the digital back, and made for an extremely elegant, capable camera system.

Another comparison to draw will be the software to support this camera and its files. In Hasselblad's case, you have the newly released Phocus software, which unbelievably powerful, and can certainly bring some advantages to the table, when comparing it to CaptureOne.

Without knowing what / how you shoot, it will difficult to assess the advantages of each system. Can you give some insight as to what shoot, and any specific requirements might have?

For instance, the tethered capabilities of the H3DII-31, along with Phocus, provides the most powerful, feature-rich operation available today. Is tethered operation a concern for you?

Another obvious question will be... Do you have dealer's in your area to allow for hands-on demonstrations of these systems? The right dealer will be integral (no pun) in your decision-making process.

I look forward to more input from, so I might be able to direct you a bit further.

Regards,

Jordan Miller

Jordon,
Thanks for the feedback.  I am struggling with 2 issues.  1. should I take advantage of the Hasselblad H3DII-31 offer and upgrade my camera as well as my back  2.  How does the Hasselblad 31 back compare to the Phase One P30+ (it would seem to me that if the backs are comparable the Hasselblad offer is my best option).  Thanks again for your feedback.
Greg
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202647\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

[Greg Haag]

Greg,
    The Hasselblad H3DII-31 and the PhaseOne P30+ use the same imaging sensor. Therefore, they share some similarities in regards the capture rate, high(er) ISO performance, and micro-lens technology. However, the differences are quite vast, and the H3DII can be appealing for numerous applications.

One critical comparison to draw between these two systems will be the image quality. As you are aware, the image quality of a camera of this caliber will be quite good, yet is comprised of several things. Hasselblad has made numerous strides in improving the hyper-critical sharpness and color fidelity of their camera systems, along with keeping accurate color reproduction, and low noise. Additionally there are other, more model specific features such as DAC (Digital APO Correction) that incorporate hardware and software solutions to problems inherent in today's ultra-high resolution digital systems. These improvements have come not only with the development of new sensor / processing technologies, but also with the integrated development of the camera, as a whole. It is this integration that has enabled various features within the H3DII, improved it's image quality beyond the limits of the digital back, and made for an extremely elegant, capable camera system.

Another comparison to draw will be the software to support this camera and its files. In Hasselblad's case, you have the newly released Phocus software, which unbelievably powerful, and can certainly bring some advantages to the table, when comparing it to CaptureOne.

Without knowing what / how you shoot, it will difficult to assess the advantages of each system. Can you give some insight as to what shoot, and any specific requirements might have?

For instance, the tethered capabilities of the H3DII-31, along with Phocus, provides the most powerful, feature-rich operation available today. Is tethered operation a concern for you?

Another obvious question will be... Do you have dealer's in your area to allow for hands-on demonstrations of these systems? The right dealer will be integral (no pun) in your decision-making process.

I look forward to more input from, so I might be able to direct you a bit further.

Regards,

Jordan Miller
DTG
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202654\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Jordon,
Thanks again for the feedback!  I would be using the lens for portrait work and possibly some weddings depending on how the back performs at the higher ISO's.  I would also use it for landscape photography for pleasure (about to for 5 weeks Canadian Rockies and Pacific NW).
Thanks,
Greg

[elitegroup]

Another comparison to draw will be the software to support this camera and its files. In Hasselblad's case, you have the newly released Phocus software, which unbelievably powerful, and can certainly bring some advantages to the table, when comparing it to CaptureOne.

For instance, the tethered capabilities of the H3DII-31, along with Phocus, provides the most powerful, feature-rich operation available today. Is tethered operation a concern for you?

Regards,

Jordan Miller
DTG
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202654\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

How stable is Phocus shooting tethered?? how many seconds for a raw preview to show up on the screen?? are there issues working with several hundred files at a time tethered while also multi tasking e.g. processing jpegs and re-naming files on the fly??

My dealer here only has the H3DII-39 so I can not do a hands on preview of the H3DII-31. I tried shooting tethered with the H3DII-39 on my last shoot and gave up as previews took about 10 seconds to show up  on the techs MB Pro  

I do like the current promotion on the H3DII-31 just not so sure about tethered speed/stability and large volume processing under high pressure conditions, especially in front of a client/art director  

[josayeruk]

How stable is Phocus shooting tethered?? how many seconds for a raw preview to show up on the screen?? are there issues working with several hundred files at a time tethered while also multi tasking e.g. processing jpegs and re-naming files on the fly??

My dealer here only has the H3DII-39 so I can not do a hands on preview of the H3DII-31. I tried shooting tethered with the H3DII-39 on my last shoot and gave up as previews took about 10 seconds to show up  on the techs MB Pro   

I do like the current promotion on the H3DII-31 just not so sure about tethered speed/stability and large volume processing under high pressure conditions, especially in front of a client/art director 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202667\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

True to say Phocus is a bit power hungry (like me!), which is why it could have been slow on a MBP.

However, on my MBP, with 4GB RAM + Intel, a preview appears in under a second.

Also remember when you are working under battery the processor is slowed down if you haven't set a preference in the Energy Saver Prefs.

Jo S.x

[j.miller]

elitegroup,
     Phocus is quite stable on the today's current Mac's. Even with older generation Mac's, there is no change to stability, but certainly a slow-down in processing speed. Having personally overseen high-profile productions, with thousands of files being shot per day, without incident or hick-up in both tethered and CF-based capture, I can say that an H3DII / Phocus combo is stable, and product friendly.

Phocus, along with applications like Aperture, Lightroom, Adobe Bridge, etc. are being optimized to perform best on the current OS X 10.5.X, and with current hardware configurations. Naturally these applications will run, and run quite well, on previous generation machines, however the significant developments are being geared to the newest, current generation hardware.

My portable of choice is a current 2.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, with 4GB's of RAM, and a 7200RPM system drive. Tethered with an H3DII-39, via FireWire 800, you get sharp, cached previews in Phocus in roughly one second. Zooming into live, captured images at 100% is instantaneous, and navigating around the image at 100% caches immediately.

Even with a 30" Eizo connected, and my main image view in a separate window on this display, and 3"x5" thumbnails on the MacBook Pro screen, there in no significant loss of speed and processing.

Hasselblad's .fff file has some native, previews export capability that allows for some simple, multi-format exports for web galleries and client contacts. These can be exported almost instantly, and this can be while exporting full-res TIFF's, etc. A full res 39MP, 16-bit TIFF export on the MacBook Pro specified above, is fully saved in under 15 seconds. This same file, processed on a Dual 3.0GHz Quad MacPro with 8GB's of RAM, and 10,000RPM system drive exports that same file in approx 4.5 seconds!

Reliable connectivity with an H3DII or CF-Series system has been a constant with Phocus, as it was with previous versions of FlexColor. Camera / backs can be abruptly disconnected with issue, and limited, if any, file corruption. With Phocus fully running, the camera is recognized and ready to shoot in approx 2 seconds. That means full camera functionality, via Phocus from image capture, mirror lock-up, live preview, exposure control, AF drive, and manual focus drive.

Regards,

Jordan Miller

How stable is Phocus shooting tethered?? how many seconds for a raw preview to show up on the screen?? are there issues working with several hundred files at a time tethered while also multi tasking e.g. processing jpegs and re-naming files on the fly??

My dealer here only has the H3DII-39 so I can not do a hands on preview of the H3DII-31. I tried shooting tethered with the H3DII-39 on my last shoot and gave up as previews took about 10 seconds to show up  on the techs MB Pro   

I do like the current promotion on the H3DII-31 just not so sure about tethered speed/stability and large volume processing under high pressure conditions, especially in front of a client/art director 
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=202667\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]