I would love to see :
better display (useless as it is)
better high-iso performance
faster AF
But to be honest I'm already very happy with what my system brings me,
Frank,
You make some valid points, but you confuse me. Your happy with what you have, but you want more and for less price, but your happy with what you have.
I kind of think that's what most are saying.
I don't know what your business model is, but I know with mine the world has changed and I suspect in some ways yours has also.
I didn't stop caring about image quality, I just became apparent that more than extra megapixels is important to my art and livelihood. Better put my clients began to request more than just extra megapixels. They want a more nimble production that doesn't require 2 and 3 hour lighting set ups and 2,000 watts of strobe to balance a subject and a window scene.
They know that with expert post production and retouching finding the difference between 22mpx and 60mpx takes a jeweler's loupe and they also know that their intended viewers don't use a jeweler's loupe when they walk through Times Square or open up their favorite magazine. In fact they know they're customer's favorite magazine is now becoming a 72dpi web page.
These are very, very, very demanding times and for any photographer to move forward we have to offer more than we ever dreamed possible. In fact I find these times almost a blessing at it forces all of us to get better, produce more, change our way of working.
There is not a paying client on this planet that understands why a photographer's expensive camera has an lcd that is almost non viewable, when their daughters $200 P+S almost looks three dimensional and since most paying clients assume they are paying for the use of the equipment their understanding of anything that gets close to problematic or slow becomes less forgiving by the day.
We're not in the film days. 645 to 35mm may be very important to you but in reality to a client that is moving from printed in-store posters to lcds, pdfs instead of 100lb glossy stock and can track 70% of their sales to the web, 240 megabyte oversharpend files is not important, especially if it requires another 2 hours of on set production to produce what is essentially the same results.
Medium format has moved miles since the first no lcd, tethered only systems, but in that time 35mm cameras have moved light years. The things you request like better lcds, faster shooting rates, multiple focus points and more moveable iso is now a 35mm fact, not a medium format wish and today if your going to spend twice the price for ANYTHING you and your clients demand more than twice the RESULTS.
If Leaf or any medium format company had made a camera that was twice the 5d2, or twice the Sony or Nikon, if the AFI was twice as fast, twice as trouble free and offered twice the results, then they wouldn't have been searching for a buyer or in the position of being assimilated by a competitor.
Let's be realistic. You and others have tried a new Leaf, or an HY6/AFI and many other medium format backs. You gave it a glowing review but for some reason you didn't buy one, you bought a 5d2 instead. Now do we understand why Leaf sold for $19.95 and the HY6, AFI, Rollei's fate is up in the air?
What this means for medium format or the photography industry in general I don't know, but I assume that once a client gets a final production that produces broadcast quality motion imagery along with double page quality stills, that will become the standard. If the medium format companies can deliver this and more they'll be fine, if not they'll become more specialized, more marginalized.
In fact my take on this is just the opposite of yours. Critique or praise, I think all of us that make our living producing images want better equipment and that is the reason for posting. Most of us want to get off the continual upgrade path, because we must value our resources not overspend hoping for something that is promised to may or may not arrive.
But don't think for a moment any professional image maker wants to see any professional camera company go under. Also I don't believe that people that critique medium format wants to move anyone to any camera system. This is a place that the medium format reps and makers visit and a way for the users to give feedback, positive and negative and Ill bet you they all take notes.
We want all of these companies to thrive because that means the equipment is so good it gives us more opportunity, not less.
Wouldn't you love the video file of a RED, the medium format still quality of an Aptus or a Hasselblad, the ease, iso, lens choice and autofocus of a Nikon or Canon? If a camera like this was remotely affordable, wouldn't you buy it today?
I don't think all the DSLRS are 100% there . . . yet. I don't think high end video is exactly there yet, and feel the same with medium format. If someone would combine the three, yes . . . then we are there, but at the end of the day, the person that really decides what equipment I use is me, though the camera I hold in my hand is a reflection of the person that makes the shot list.
Regardless of genre, I believe most professionals want a camera that is not limiting in any way. That's the real motivator for writing a check.
You post a lot of images on this forum and I believe have a lot of fans, but if I was going to take your posts and images as a "buyers guide", I would come to the assumption that a used Aptus 22 and an RZ that today sells for about $6,000 total would probably produce any strobe lit still image I needed.
A photographer that uses third generation cameras and backs and is happy to stand pat can't be the intend market for a camera maker as they have to sell new equipment. Maybe that's what worries the medium format companies.
Photographers did not change the rules of photography, the budgets, the client requests, the intended usage. The market changed and that's where we are today.
http://tinyurl.com/lh6eswJR
