RZ67ProII strange behaviour

[Frank Doorhof]

I don't know if I read it correctly but what you write down is the exact opposite as you write it down.

I shot ALOT with Canon DSLRs tethered.

The problems I had with the connection was regulair, the camera would stop responding when it filled up the buffer, meaning I lost shots and had to reconnect and boot up again.
Sometimes I even had to reboot the PC completly.

With the Leaf Aptus (I'm still using the Aptus 22) I shoot tethered.
With the first shot I set white balance and color/tone I want for the set and sync this with the back (one press of a button).
After that ALL shots coming in will have that look, so I don't see your point there.

Also when shooting tethered with the Aptus 22 I have no buffer issues or hanging camera/PC/Mac.
You can keep on shooting untill you drop dead or the drive is full.

On location I shoot compressed raw and again have no buffer, where with the Canon I had to wait for a few seconds up to several seconds for the buffer to clear after for my feeling way too little RAWs.

On the act of the big money and the trusting a system.
I would trust my MF setup more than my Canon.
Understand me correctly the Canon is great, but I just get better results with the alternative and my tethering is rocksolid and when I stand on a cable just plug it in again and keep on shooting without the need to reboot.

Than on workflow software, that's also what you make of it yourself.
I use Aperture but also know lightroom, both work with the Leaf files (even the compressed ones (except the compressed on the card ones)).

The time that MF cameras were the black sheeps in software compatibility, handling etc. is behind us.
They will not (yet) shoot noise free on high ISOs, they are still not as fast with AF as a DSLR (although the AFi is quick, and my 645AFD/III also) but than the disadvantages stop for me, what we get then are just advantages.
Or at least for my workflow.

I still own a DSLR, and will buy the 5DII as it's released, I sometimes still shoot an assigment with the the DSLR but overal especially when I know it counts on quality I grab the MF system, that system never crashed on connections during a shoot, and I never lost a shot due to a filled up buffer (VERY annoying).
Try shooting with wifi on the 5D and you know what a frustation the buffer becomes.

I think it's also the person/photographer himself what will happen.
I dove into MF with eyes wide open en wanted the system to become part of me, and it did.
Now I love the spray and pray DSLR options but somehow my best work always comes from the MF.
Go figure

[bcooter]

I don't know if I read it correctly but what you write down is the exact opposite as you write it down.

I shot ALOT with Canon DSLRs tethered.

The problems I had with the connection was regulair, the camera would stop responding when it filled up the buffer, meaning I lost shots and had to reconnect and boot up again.
Sometimes I even had to reboot the PC completly.......................................................................
................

I think it's also the person/photographer himself what will happen.
I dove into MF with eyes wide open en wanted the system to become part of me, and it did.
Now I love the spray and pray DSLR options but somehow my best work always comes from the MF.
Go figure

I find a lot of discussion on this forum to be brand or format bias.  Some is logical some is just to prove a point, or some because the poster either has or is looking for a relationship with the manufacturer.

I even appreciate the manufacturer's participation, though the other night I looked at the most recent topics and noticed out of 20 in the medium format section at least half of the last responses were written by someone who had a vested interest in a specific brand.

It was like the battle of the car dealers.

I wrote what I wrote to start thought and to get some simple answers on the same things we've been asking for years.

OK your Leaf tethers well, but would you bet $200,000 that what you see on the lcd screen is correct, can you judge lighting subtitles, color?

Can you shoot at high iso without major issues in noise in shadows and would you set any medium format down and compare the iso's to a dslr.  I've done it with most and that don't match, never in favor of the larger cameras.

This week was a prime example of the new economy.  We're shooting a very expensive project (as I mentioned the crew not including clients and talent is 20 people) though because of last minute budget restrictions,  time has been compressed to 1/2.    Thursday start time was 6:30am finishing at 10pm, (which puts us back into the hotel at midnight)   yesterday we started at 6am and finished shooting at 9pm.  First day we worked three separate locations moving from cafe, to downtown streets that are blocked off, to a residential location.  

This is a very stylized project with every location being either reworked or rebuilt, there are nine production vehicles and in the first two days, 32 models,  so this doesn't fall into your "spray and pray" method of working.  I don't need 5fps, but I do need a very moveable system that offers all kind of options.

I started the first day as normal and started with medium, format, using window light, HMI and some strobe for light fill.  It worked though the medium format is just on the very edge of usability due to iso.  but we continued with medium format.  As the day wore on we went more to the 1ds3 to the point that by afternoon it was all Canon.  Yesterday I never touched the medium format backs and we just didn't shoot portable, or just tethered.  We're tired, under tremendous pressure, some shots you just can't tether, others must be, I have two AD's one CD and two clients.  

I have to have a system with fast lenses, high iso, low iso, good detail, great skin tones, (without a lot of fussing) and more than anything I MUST get the shot.  

Yes I would prefer a medium format file, but late last night, reviewing the imagery with all the creatives, they never looked at an image and noticed it was shot with medium format or a dslr.  

They just wanted to see the shot, wanted to make sure it was beautifully lit, the models reaction natural and was in focus.

So my point, is all medium format needs to get to the ease of the Canons is just higher iso, faster lenses and a better lcd.  That's it, and for some reason those two requests seem to be a huge hurdle.  

And BTW:  If you tether the new canons they are very reliable, the software starts quick and unlike your current Aptus you can see the image on the back of the camera and in the computer.

Yes, Apple's usb drivers are slow but using a PC changes that.   EOS utility may not be as elegant as some of the medium format solutions but probably takes about 10 minutes to learn and has no problems.

But, I didn't write this to say the Canons were better or the Aptus was bad, but to ask the question as to why the Canons have so much more versatility.

There is a lot of talk on this forum about pricing, started mostly by Hasselblad's announcement and the new economic news.

Well, this year I've been very busy and the only change I've seen is no client has really cut budget, they just want twice the volume they got before without a drop in quality or style.  I can and do afford cameras and will buy any camera I want as long as it does what I need.  I just wonder why the medium format cameras are limited.

And for the record, I don't have any relationship with Canon.

Big Cooter

[Frank Doorhof]

I shot tethered with the PC with my DSLRs, I switched to the Mac when I bought the Leaf simply because I always shoot tethered and needed a powered firewire connector.

When doing a 200.000 job YES I shoot tethered, I have and will never trust the display on my camera, be it the Canon or the Leaf, they are all limited.
And when doing such an important job I have an assistant looking at the shots when they come in and checking the focus, when he/she says I nailed the focus I know it's there.
On the other hand, I never do 200.000 jobs to be honest.
that kind of budget is something I think most people can only dream off.

For my own situation.
when I shoot a commercial job, being it 1000.00 or 20.000 I will shoot tethered just to be 100% sure that I nailed the shot.

For me it's very simple, my pacing on the DSLR was already what some consider slow, I always think about my shot before I press the shutter, so if I will get 1-2 frames in 10 seconds that's normal.

I also wouldn't defend MF or DSLR, it's for me horses for courses.
The reason I responded was that you seem to have mostly negative experiences with your gear, and I have the opposite.
I LOVED my DSLR setup, and never had problems with it, I bought a MF system to complement the DSLR setup and find myself only shooting MF.

I think it's very depend on what you're used to.
Give a photographer that only ever shot on film a digital back or DSLR and he/she would never do a paid job with it.
I'm totally used to my MF gear so when I have to switch back to my DSLR setup for me it's more work and more change of blowing the job than when I just use what I'm used to.

But again that's personal.
Give an American a stick shift car and he will probarbly be killed in heavy traffic, I always need a day to get used to an automatic.
If I would need to race NOW I would choose a stick shift, and the american would choose the automatic, it's what they are both used to what they use in stress situations.

The good thing is that nowadays you can do the paid gigs with whatever camera you feel comfortable with.
However the feel of your post was that a MF system is nice if you want to freak arround or play arround but when the moment counts it's unreliable and that's not true for me.
Tethering is rock solid, even my customers can work with leaf capture within 2 minutes to play arround them selfs, and I never missed a shot.