17tse compared with 23HR

[Christopher]

Sorry Christopher, but this is simply nonsense.

For the most part working pros purchase their equipment based on hard practical realities. If a $3,000 DSLR could deliver equivalent image quality to a $30,000 MFB few such systems would be purchased. But the reality is that thousands of pros purchase medium format digital backs because they do deliver what is expected and required, and they don't need to prove the wisdom of this to anyone except themselves (and maybe their business managers / accountants / bankers).

About 30% is MFB sales are to wealthy amateurs and fine art photographers, and some 70% to working pros. There wouldn't be a MFB business if the products didn't deliver what's promised. But there is and they do, and notwithstanding the poor global economy over the past 18 months, my sources inside the industry tell me that sales are coming back very strongly in recent months, especially in the Pro segment.

Since this forum is unique in that it is home to a great many of the world's leading commercial photographers who use medium format digital, it's insulting to them to suggest that they have anything to prove by their purchases. For most of us these are tools, not toys.

Michael

Well Michael, I never said a "$3,000 DSLR could deliver equivalent image quality to a $30,000 MFB". I clearly stated that I prefer the quality of my P65 files to my Canon files. However, it's nothing magical. A huge part is post work. Here I only stated that when done right, the difference in SMALLER print sizes is not that big. I am honest, that if I only needed files for a magazine spread or similar, I would not take the hassle of shooting with a LF camera and P65. A d3x would do just fine for most jobs. The biggest difference still is RESOLUTION, that is what MFDBs deliver mostly. (Besides pretty crappy usability compared to modern DSLRs ;-) )

I think I really need to point out again what my mine point is. The files are not equal, but many people really underestimate how well a d3x or similar can actually do when shot right. I think Reiner's comparison and conclusion shows that quite well.#

edit, just a note on the quote:

Well as pro's we don't have to justify anything, we have to make our living using the stuff. So in the end it does not matter whether we do that with a 3000 or 40000 camera, as long as it works for us. However, the statement, that MFDBs are playing in a different universe than DSLRs are made often not by pros owning a MFDB system, but by rich amateurs.

And I think here we can end it, because it could go on and on. We won't really have any actual proof, because as most I don't feel like shooting any side by side test just to prove something. I know what I have in my Canon, Leica and P65 and each does a great job at certain things.

[pcunite]

Why are people like Ryan Schude, Annie Leibovitz, and Rainer Viertlböck making use of Canon 35mm systems? I think it is insulting to say that MFD is needed when your customer can't tell the difference if shot in good (appropriate to the system) light and the output is not large.

Why aren't all of you absolute quality only people using 8x10s? Because of workflow.  One reason DSLR is preferred is... workflow! ... and the fact that you can smash 10 of them for fun and not touch the cost of MFD. When MFD gets its act together and starts thinking about workflow (real LiveView, real LCD screen, real performance) then I will beat the drum that it is truly superior.

Until then MFD produces a better file with diminishing returns that are lost on all but the most demanding printed outputs and $4,000 monitors.

[cunim]

So in the end it does not matter whether we do that with a 3000 or 40000 camera, as long as it works for us. However, the statement, that MFDBs are playing in a different universe than DSLRs are made often not by pros owning a MFDB system, but by rich amateurs.

And I think here we can end it, because it could go on and on. We won't really have any actual proof, because as most I don't feel like shooting any side by side test just to prove something. I know what I have in my Canon, Leica and P65 and each does a great job at certain things.

"Rich amateurs" are easy targets, but they have a role to play.  We should not disparage their motives.

I agree with those who say we are hard wired to appreciate technology, and an analogy can make it more clear.  In the Victorian era, the microscope was fairly equivalent to the computer of today.  It was the epitome of personal technology and was in widespread use by professionals and better-off amateurs.  The professionals tended to look at workflow and did not usually obsess about the tools.  Darwin's microscope, for example, was a rather pedestrian instrument.  The amateurs were much more involved with resolution and "composition".  They would spend a week arranging tiny sea creatures (diatoms) to make an attractive geometric pattern, and the finest points of this pattern could only be resolved with the finest optics of the day, set up to a fare-thee-well.  They traded these things about, sent drawings, had contests, published books.  Sound familiar?

This apparently irrelevant tool using comes into play when we have enough food that we can think about more than killing it.  Fine cars, horses, cameras, bonsai, etc.  None of them matter except that they give us a channel for tool use.  Let's give that need to use tools some credit, as it has done much to create our technological society - and it is the wealthy amateur that often drives the most frivolous technologies.  Really, who needs an HR lens or the entire fashion industy?  The people back home just want you to bring in the meat.

We can respect a pro for making money at photography, and for creating fine images, and for using tools well.  We can respect the amateur (or bankrupt pro) for making fine images and using his tools to the limits of their ability.  Difference is the pro still has to eat with his tools, and so is less obsessed with them.  The amateur - and some wealthy pros - have leisure to see the tools themselves as part of the art.  I regard that as valid.

Clearly, I have too much time on my hands.

[uaiomex]

In this very forum I've seen far more "insulting" posts about dslr's than mfdb's.  
Eduardo

Sorry Christopher, but this is simply nonsense.

For the most part working pros purchase their equipment based on hard practical realities. If a $3,000 DSLR could deliver equivalent image quality to a $30,000 MFB few such systems would be purchased. But the reality is that thousands of pros purchase medium format digital backs because they do deliver what is expected and required, and they don't need to prove the wisdom of this to anyone except themselves (and maybe their business managers / accountants / bankers).

About 30% is MFB sales are to wealthy amateurs and fine art photographers, and some 70% to working pros. There wouldn't be a MFB business if the products didn't deliver what's promised. But there is and they do, and notwithstanding the poor global economy over the past 18 months, my sources inside the industry tell me that sales are coming back very strongly in recent months, especially in the Pro segment.

Since this forum is unique in that it is home to a great many of the world's leading commercial photographers who use medium format digital, it's insulting to them to suggest that they have anything to prove by their purchases. For most of us these are tools, not toys.

Michael

[gwhitf]

.

[James R Russell]

Sorry Christopher, but this is simply nonsense.

But the reality is that thousands of pros purchase medium format digital backs because they do deliver what is expected and required,

Michael,

Yes, but that depends on genre and market and quite honestly a lot of "pros" find it easier to invest in cameras than new work, or better put work in a new way that might be uncomfortable.

There might be 10,000 medium format users but for money making professionals their are about 50,000 whose medium format cameras sit on the shelf in 2009 and bought a 5d2. (probably 50% of them live in Brooklyn and Silverlake).  

Someone here mentioned workflow and hit the nail on the head.

Workflow is king.

On set and in post production, the dslr rules, the specialty cameras are just slow and cumbersome.  They're fine for the amateur but in commerce and editorial the numbers have been ramped up so far, so fast that you'd have to be on a masochist to use anything that slows you down.

All this talk about the "camera" is nice but nostalgic.  Today the camera is about 1/4 of the equation, what we do in front of the camera, in front of the client and  after the shoot is what drives our art and our business.

If you shoot for a living,  you have to turn a profit, be efficient, get it done and go on to the next sessions, gig, city, country.

It's all about time.  Time on set, time management, time to deliver.  

You have to have files that fit on portable drives and can be backed up on the fly.  You have to have software that is dead stable and will run on laptops, Imacs and towers and do it without fail.  You have to have a virtually universal file format that can go to multiple retouchers and you have to have a camera that just makes all of this easy (easier), which means the ability to move iso, see the image on an in camera lcd screen, focus through live view (quickly) and a system that is adaptable to video.

You have to be able to travel with one camera case, not 4 and if both bodies go down, be able to walk into any store from Delhi to Little Rock and buy a camera body so you can keep working.

2009 proved it was a no excuse world.  If your in the communications/commercial arts business and turned a profit in 2009 you worked fast, probably for tighter budgets and produced no excuses content.  Nothing can get in the way.

2009 put the same pressure on everyone and nobody escaped easily.  The rich and famous down to the beginning student all saw the crunch and most of them reached for the appropriate tool.

I own a lot of equipment, in multiple studios and cities and can tell you that the most profitable equipment I own are the Canons, (well next to my laptop I do business on).

These forums can compare the difference between a 24tse and a 35mm rodenstock until the lcd's dim out on their Eizos, but at the end of the day it's not about the camera, it's what you shoot with the camera or better put what camera doesn't get in your way of shooting.

They're is no nostalgia left in the industry, at least not with digital.  A pentax is not a pentax it's a computer with a lens, a "film" format is a 24" computer screen and today the most adaptable systems are the ones that will continue.  The others will be marginalized.

This will be more true in 2010 than 2009.  2009 shook a lot of people and made them run lean, 2010 will see an increase in business, but the demands to produce more content, faster, better, easier even more intense.  

I wouldn't have dreamed to try to produce the level and quality of work I did this year with slow cameras.

It's all about speed AND quality with no excuse and just as the news cycle has changed from 24 hours to 4 minutes, the advertising cycle has changed from 3 weeks to 3 days, sometimes 3 hours.

It also about allocating your resources where it has the most effect.  $40,000 in personal work, building a video reel, broadening your repertoire, has a lot more positive effect on your business than any piece of camera equipment.

There is no going back and not just for the specialty camera makers also Canon and Nikon.  Canon shook everyone with a 22mpx $3,500 still camera that shot video (probably surprised themselves) and if you don't believe me look at the price of last years $7,000 1ds3's, because they're going for 1/2 the price today and sitting on shelves.

This one is a no brainer.  The 5d2 does more, costs less, so it sells more, is used more often.

IMO

JR

[lisa_r]

Nice work rainer.
As to: "the canon looks excellent, but it still is a bit inferior in terms of sharpness"

Did you mention which software you used to convert the Canon files?

(I have found that recent versions of DPP are the best with Canon files in terms of sharpness, detail, noise...better than C1 I.M.H.O.)

Thanks again for the very useful and rational test.

And I agree gwhitf, all this should be taken in the context of that article you linked to (and others like it.)
Michael, it might be interesting if you are to comment on that article...

re:
http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

"The Results
In every case no one could reliably tell the difference between 13X19" prints shot with the $40,000 Hasselblad and Phase One 39 Megapixel back, and the new $500 Canon G10. In the end no one got more than 60% right, and overall the split was about 50 / 50, with no clear differentiator. In other words, no better than chance.

In fact it was the H2 system's narrower depth of field that occasionally was the only clear give-away. Some viewers eventually figured out that the prints with the narrower depth of field were from medium format, while other photographers chose the G10 images because with its wider depth of field it created an overall impression of greater sharpness."

[tesfoto]

Since this forum is unique in that it is home to a great many of the world's leading commercial photographers who use medium format digital.

Michael

Michael,

I am still waiting to see "world leading commercial photographers" posting under real name here at LL.


Please name commersial photographers from PDN top 100 list who post in this forum.

Please name LL fine art photographers, presented at Paris Photo 2009.


This is a great and unique forum, thanks to some very high standard commercial photographers, who are willing to share their knowlege, and this is absloutly fine for me.

[Kirk Gittings]

Michael,

I am still waiting to see "world leading commercial photographers" posting under real name here at LL.


Please name commersial photographers from PDN top 100 list who post in this forum.

Please name LL fine art photographers, presented at Paris Photo 2009.


This is a great and unique forum, thanks to some very high standard commercial photographers, who are willing to share their knowlege, and this is absloutly fine for me.

hmm........Michael can speak for himself, but in my field, architectural photography, there are. As I teach architectural photography at the university level, I make it my business to know of the work of world class architectural photographers. There are two contributors here who's work I followed before I joined this forum because they are two of the best, and who I consider world class in their field, Rainer Viertlböck and Christopher Barrett. Whether they make the PDN list is irrelevant to me. It is who they photograph for, the projects they shoot and their unique styles that matter.

[jessegoff]

http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml

I just checked out this link: http://luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml.  This is not a very clever test if the point is to compare the quality potential of two cameras.  The author concedes that he/she just used photoshop.  To see the quality you would have to process each file with the software best suited to it.  Photoshop can barely output quality from a Phase file.  You have to use capture one.  So if you use Photoshop to process a Phase file and compare it to a G10 file and say "look, they are almost the same!", it is, no offense, completely ridiculous.  It would be like trying to compare the clarity of different pieces of glass but they all have mud caked on them.  Why even write the article?  I like to think I can get useful info from this site but I guess sometimes not.  I guess there are not too many pros here.  To make my point I just processed two different P45 files in both Photoshop and Capture One.  I did each in Capture One first.  I just hit auto to keep it simple.  Then I opened the same file in Photoshop and matched the settings.  It looks like garbage.  On one of them I hit the auto button in Photoshop too.  It looks bizarre.  It has to really ratchet up the exposure even the the sensor was exposed within a quarter stop accuracy in-camera.  A G10 would blow away a P45 using this flawed method of a comparison.  But who in their right mind would buy a P45 and use the wrong software to process the files?  It would be like putting cheap tires on a Porsche.  I posted the results for you to see.  One of the files was for a job and was crisp so I also put in a 100% sample.  

Download the files and open in PS to really see.  Here is the link:
http://www.jessegoff.com/luminous/

[gwhitf]

.

[jessegoff]

Exactly.  Michael get's it. Maybe the two systems look close to some eyes but not to mine.  If there is a $100k budget to produce two shots for worldwide advertising I'm going to use the P45.  If the budget is $2k to shoot a ton of corporate PR shots I'm going to use the Canon.  

Sorry Christopher, but this is simply nonsense.

For the most part working pros purchase their equipment based on hard practical realities. If a $3,000 DSLR could deliver equivalent image quality to a $30,000 MFB few such systems would be purchased. But the reality is that thousands of pros purchase medium format digital backs because they do deliver what is expected and required, and they don't need to prove the wisdom of this to anyone except themselves (and maybe their business managers / accountants / bankers).

About 30% is MFB sales are to wealthy amateurs and fine art photographers, and some 70% to working pros. There wouldn't be a MFB business if the products didn't deliver what's promised. But there is and they do, and notwithstanding the poor global economy over the past 18 months, my sources inside the industry tell me that sales are coming back very strongly in recent months, especially in the Pro segment.

Since this forum is unique in that it is home to a great many of the world's leading commercial photographers who use medium format digital, it's insulting to them to suggest that they have anything to prove by their purchases. For most of us these are tools, not toys.

Michael

[gwhitf]

.

[jessegoff]

That kind of thinking is what keeps Phase One in business. Yet you don't even mention what the content is in each of those illustrations above. What if the "worldwide advertising" was sports, or something requiring autofocus, or high ASA? You'd just blindly get out the expensive camera because the budget was more?

Eh, obviously the kind of shoot where you spend all day trying to get one or two perfect shots that have been comped by an ad agency and that have been signed off by the client in advance.  You probably set up the day before.  You use a tape measure to measure your focus.  You have marks on the ground.  You train the talent to hit their marks.  You have a gaffer, a key grip, a digital tech, a couple of assistants and you shoot it over and over again with small variations until you get the perfect shot.  This isn't documentary, photojournalism, or sports photography. Who would use a Hasselblad for that?  Did you really think I was entertaining the idea of a guy with a hasselblad on the side of a football game trying to pull focus on a runner catching a ball?  That is a kind of a silly question/comment.  If an ad campaign uses sports photography they license the photo from the sports section at Getty and it was probably shot by a Canon and that is perfectly appropriate for that.  Think Tiger Woods - Accenture (now in the toilet).  As for low light- there Canon had something on MF for sure, until now.  But it looks like that advantage is going to be lost soon due to new MF sensor technology.  You can now squeeze clean 3200 ISO out of a P65+ back at 16mp.  and I'm very excited about it to say the least.  Phase One stays in business because if you are working for a company that spends millions of dollars on their media buys, then you will know that they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of year on their photography budgets. And if you happen to have one of those accounts, you don't show up to the job with a camera designed for photojournalism.  You show up with the best camera in the world. because the extra cost of it is completely inconsequential the relative budget.  Besides, the camera pays for itself pretty quickly anyways.

[LiamStrain]

There are two contributors here who's work I followed before I joined this forum because they are two of the best, and who I consider world class in their field, Rainer Viertlböck and Christopher Barrett. Whether they make the PDN list is irrelevant to me. It is who they photograph for, the projects they shoot and their unique styles that matter.

And of course, Kirk Gittings.

I joined to pick up the pearls these guys drop.

[jessegoff]

Why are people like Ryan Schude, Annie Leibovitz, and Rainer Viertlböck making use of Canon 35mm systems? I think it is insulting to say that MFD is needed when your customer can't tell the difference if shot in good (appropriate to the system) light and the output is not large.

Why aren't all of you absolute quality only people using 8x10s? Because of workflow.  One reason DSLR is preferred is... workflow! ... and the fact that you can smash 10 of them for fun and not touch the cost of MFD. When MFD gets its act together and starts thinking about workflow (real LiveView, real LCD screen, real performance) then I will beat the drum that it is truly superior.

Until then MFD produces a better file with diminishing returns that are lost on all but the most demanding printed outputs and $4,000 monitors.

I saw that spread of the queen in VF.  I wonder if Annie Leibovitz regretted using a canon on that job.  The lighting looked great but the file did not look too impressive, especially for shooting the queen.  Looked like it was shot with a zoom too.  Weird.  Definitely a step down from the r67.  Maybe it was her financial problems.  In the 90's I shot all my jobs on ectachrome with Hasselblad primes of course.  Pretty common to have $5k or more line items per day for film and processing.  I got an Imacon 848 and held out on digital till 05.  Everyone was all about Canon and I bought in to the hysteria.  I sold all my hassy stuff and shot canon only for 3 years.  Then I looked back at my portfolio of the last 7 years and thought what happened?  3 years ago quality went down a bit...  At the same time some quality in other ways was going up.  I was catching more moments because I was getting more shots due to digital and had more to choose from.  Instead of shooting 500 frames a day I was shooting 1200.  So in 08 I bought a P45 and 12 lenses.  Definitely the right thing to do.  A step up for sure.  And my in-house retoucher seems to be happier about it too.  A lot less problems to deal with.  I see a lot my contemporaries in the ad world coming to the same conclusion now.  It's amazing the german engineering from the 60's is still so good.  I still use the canon for jobs that need autofocus, fast shooting, or are just not that important.  But I find myself using primes more like my 85 1.2.  Zooms look crappy, especially the 16-35.  What a piece of junk.

What's up with all the haters on this forum?  Is anyone shooting jobs that are in the $20k and up range or is this site dedicated to bitter sideliners?

[eronald]

There was a controversial video made, I believe, showing the talent attempt to explain why she wanted to display her favorite head decoration,  not quite making her voice heard, and subsequently removing herself from the august presence of the photographer. It would appear that some US-based photographers would profit from a course on anthropology and tribe symbolism before venturing among the savages - or maybe some advice from kindergarten kids


Edmund

I saw that spread of the queen in VF.  I wonder if Annie Leibovitz regretted using a canon on that job.  The lighting looked great but the file did not look too impressive, especially for shooting the queen.

[jessegoff]

There was a controversial video made, I believe, showing the talent attempt to explain why she wanted to display her favorite head decoration,  not quite making her voice heard, and subsequently removing herself from the august presence of the photographer. It would appear that some US-based photographers would profit from a course on anthropology and tribe symbolism before venturing among the savages - or maybe some advice from kindergarten kids


Edmund

You are right, that was a bad call to try and get a disarming portrait of the queen of England.  But in reality some of the best photographic portraits of our time came from that same tactic.  Avedon was the master of it, or at least the forefather.  It failed for Leibovitz on this occasion but at least she tried.  Although I agree with Edmund that Americans can be quite lacking in deference and tact, it is a unique American trait to disbelieve in royalty; that one human is so much more special than another they deserve such special treatment.  Leibovitzs' attempt as a portrait photographer to show the real human of the queen, rather than a puppet, is at least admirable to some, although offensive to many traditional Europeans.  In any case, to view the photographer as a fool is to discount the whole reason she became successful; she is a good portrait photographer.  Portraits are interesting when they are real...  Duh.

Besides, my only comment was about why in the world did she try to get a disarming portrait of the queen of england with a less than perfect photojournalistic canon camera.  It seriously watered it down.

[brianc1959]

moiree is very very rare an issue with the e75. in the few cases i got it i shot a second shot with f22 or higher, which eliminates 90% of the
moiree for diffraction and layer it erasing the moiree zones.

Just re-reading this thread.  This technique of shooting a second shot at a small aperture to help later in eliminating moire is a *really* good idea!

[tesfoto]

hmm........Michael can speak for himself, but in my field, architectural photography, there are. As I teach architectural photography at the university level, I make it my business to know of the work of world class architectural photographers. There are two contributors here who's work I followed before I joined this forum because they are two of the best, and who I consider world class in their field, Rainer Viertlböck and Christopher Barrett. Whether they make the PDN list is irrelevant to me. It is who they photograph for, the projects they shoot and their unique styles that matter.

Dear Kirk

Lets go into your field of architectural photography and have a look at world leading photographers.

The question is how to recognize these photographers.

Here are a few parameters (there might of cause be others to add):


1.   A unique artistic and photographic style (not a decisive point but it does help) – In other words, they have to be excellent photographers with an international style.

2.   A client list of world leading Architects (Hadid, Foster, Liebeskind, Zumthor, etc.) or world leading magazines.

3.   Solo exhibitions at major international art museums and galleries (not local college or university museums, local galleries, coffee shops etc). Also represented in major international public collections (again not local museum and university collections).

4.   Monographs published by international publisher like Steidl, Phaidon etc. Self published books, or books by architects do not apply here.

5.   Awards – is not taken into account since these photographers do not even apply. Only shortlisting to awards like Deutsche Börse Photography Prize will work.


I will state that a yes to 4 out of 5 parameters, will hide a word leading architectural photographer. I am talking about names like Polidori, Höfer, Niedermayr, etc.

A level below you will find photographers like Suzuki, Halbe, Bryant, Binet, to mention a few.

I am sure that Rainer and CB who both are excellent photographers will agree that they still need a few steps to get into this league of world leading.

There are other excellent architectural photographers here at LL like Adam Mork, Christopher Hauser and Marc Gerritsen and I am sure that they have the talent to climb up the ladder.

LL is a great forum for exchange, and I like the way photographers here are open to all kinds of discussion.

Kirk this is not against you, but I am challenging Michaels statement that this forum is home to many of the  “world leading photographers “

Michael, I covered architectural photography – now it is up to you to stand by your statement.