Natasa and guys, thank you for your insight !
FYI I am no pro, I have a day job, and I do some copying work for my wife who owns a gallery here in Moscow and we own a gallery in France ( with a local partner). I was the first person who bought an eMotion 22 in Russia (from Jenoptik, not from Sinar!) I briefly owned an eMotion 75, a db20 Phase One and I am more or less familiar and comfortable with Sinar and Phase One workflow.
I will try to explain why I am so interested in the Digital Tech stuff. Recently we decided to rent out my digital backs and some of my cameras to public. My daughter is a designer and she runs her own company (
http://www.scruplesbranding.ru/en/news/); the renting of my equipment is dealt by her. It supplement her cashflow a bit.
Because I own two Sinar backs ( the eMotion 54LV and an SB 54H) and because I have access to an eMotion 75 I previously owned, it was quite logical and scary at the same time to let people lend our equipment. Previously I was asked by the Rollei and Sinar sub-dealer to help some photographers who were renting their Sinar digital backs and I helped them with to set the Sinar and Brumbaer software.
I discovered that there are two types of photographers who were interested to part with some money and pay us rent.
Some of our clients are mostly interested in my SB54H multi-shot. Two of them are owners of the Sinar-P3/P2 with Sinarback 54M and they rent only when they shoot fabrics and moire prone materials. They know the trade and they understand the software and they have no desire nor need to touch my eMotion backs.
Gradually we brought new customers of a different type, people who own and shoot DSLRs and need (or want) something better, sometimes to impress their clients. Some of them are young people who never had any experience with MF and they want eMotion 54LV or 75 and my Sinar-M with the AF lenses;
they have very limited understanding of RAW workflow and we do conversions for them in-house. If they shoot at our studio we assist them, if they need to shoot outside we send a person to keep an eye at the gear and to provide some assistance on location. Then we can be sure that no "yellowish" files leave the studio/location. It looks like a sort of digital tech work free of charge.
Very often we are asked to do the TIFF or DNG conversions; I do not like to be involved in this part as I am sure that all the conversion stuff is very subjective. I am a control freak myself and I cannot understand how this part of creative process can be delegated to a stranger.
The concept of a dedicated person responsible digital troubleshooting was unknown to me and now I understand it better. Hopefully I will not be involved in a frightening big scale production to worry about it.
Thanks again,
Yevgeny