Paintress is looking for a medium format brush set

[Paintress]

Hello (again). Some very kind and helpful members of this forum pointed out that I chose a wrong thread for my rantings. In short - I'm in portrait photographer and would like to climb from full format 35mm (EOS 5D) to a Medium Format Digital system. A huge step. So first I wanted to sort out, which routes make sense. Before I fill this forum with repeated details, please click on my name and then "members last postings".

Now I'll try to answer those who found me in the wrong thread. First Dennis:

"With Photoshop we don't need an expensive camera at all nowadays"

Dont agree with that statement at all.....people rely too much on photoshop....

If start with crap all you get is crap thats been photoshopped  

I for one hate the current " Models with no skin " look...so smooth they look like plastic...just look silly to me...but then again what do I know..I shoot Architecture .....LOL

What I'm talking about is shown in this video. Have a look at the girl on the produced photograph. I know it's not the camera, it's bad lightning. Or bad powdering. Somewhere on the web there's another video, again by a Pro, for a company of lightning equipment with similar results.
And I agree with Fred (I often do) - architecture also has a tendency to walk down the plastic alley.

Quality doesnt have to mean expensive either - You can buy complete MF kits on Ebay for peanuts with some of the best lenses ever produced !

I'm aware and sometimes very tempted. The majority of my camera collection is from ebay - it's like playing Russian Roulette, so never throw more than 30 Euro in it.

[Imaginara]

There are MF kits from dealers that can be had for peanuts aswell. I got a P25 demo kit directly from a Phase One dealer for €3500 (+ vat) earlier this year and run it off my "old" Mamiya 645 AFD.

As for Photoshop wont save a bad image, thats not necessarily true. In the end a good picture and a bad picture ends up as pixels on your harddrive, and you re-arrange those pixels with Photoshop so you can create whatever you want given enough time and resources.

Having said that, you also realise that this is in real life not true. Allthough a bad starting image doesnt mean you end up with a bad image in the end, it puts you at a severe disadvantage at the start. This means that you will spend more time retouching than you do shooting and thats when you have to ask yourself the same question i have done, am i a photographer or a retoucher first? I can retouch with the best of them, i just think it's slightly more boring than watching paint dry so i tend to spend more time in the studio than infront of the computer.

And if the client is not willing to pay for the extra retouching time then it's a really easy decision wether or not you will "fix it in post" or not.

Ps. The current trend im seeing with my clients right now is a move away from the plastic doll look and back into more natural looking skin. Big yay for that and i hope it holds for a long time, especially since it means more studio time and less computer time for me
Ds.

[Paintress]

Fred, we agree and I envy you for your life without TV. My family doesn't allow me to throw it away

James Russell, the photo and the movie - wow! Very very authentic, touching, breath-taking. Feels like being there. Having known a former car racer personally who dissapeared the way everyone had feared, I'm not a fan anymore. In my eyes it simply wasn't worth not seing his son grow up. But this movie gives me a little idea, what fascinated him.

Keith - I love my car and won't buy a new one for hopefully many years.

Rob - my personal fascination for a camera is satisfied by my collection of photographica. I admire these old ladies and they're true eye-openers concerning what determines value in our society. The still perfectly working 70-year old robust working lady with a great lense is only worth 1% of what you have to pay for a bitch with pink bellows, a tiny no-name piece of glass (or plastic) whose still intact exterior is due to the fact she never was used for what she should have been created for. Or 10% of a lense cap, if Leica is printed on it.  

As much as I share your fascination about the tactile aspects of using film, I'm glad you're aware of the time-pressure. Film starts with finding the dealer who delivers fresh chemistry, figuring out the chemistry that is likely to last for a few more years. I grew up in the world of Polaroid, Velvia et al - don't want to spread more tears. Those days are gone and what remains is only an option for a (quite expensive) hobby. Maybe when I'm retired. Right now I'm looking for a working horse delivering a certain image quality, headlines: tonal range & bokeh.

Ray and Ray, (just realized, there are two of you) thank you, now I remember. On a technical point of view it makes sense to adjust FL when comparing camera systems. Please correct me if I'm wrong and my lazy brain just wants to avoid more complicated calculations. Most of my portraits must be shot so that you can crop either vertical, square or horizontal format. Resolution has reached a level where I don't compare but say 'enough is enough'. If I'm satisfied with the EOS 5D, there'll be no troubles to expect with a MFD. After inspecting this comparison I'd relax concerning the noise issue. It leaves me unhappy nevertheless. Why don't they answer the question about the f-stop? They can't claim "more depth to image" for the Hasselblad without declaring at which aperture the compared photos were shot. I'm not familiar with the lenses, if I were to inspect two different shots taken by myself, I'd take a side note to shoot at f2.8 next time with the EOS. Which makes me agree with Ray Not-Ondebanks:

Such comparisons are meaningless. (Well, perhaps not entirely meaningless. One might deduce that the photographer making such comparisons is either careless and technically incompetent, or is trying to be deliberately deceptive. There's meaning in that.)

Right now I'm not sure whether the tonal range and bokeh I thought I had noticed are subject to similar tactics. But no, my analog ladies told me so long time ago.

Back to lenses and my wish to avoid complicated calculations and/or testing the entire lens range and ruining my eyes with pixel-counting. As resolution is not my major concern, the diagonal is not as relevant for my personal purposes. If I want a lense equivalent to my 100mm on a FF 35mm with regards of the result and don't care how much I have to cut (by cropping), isn't it the limiting (shorter side) of the new back (not the camera) that I have to divide by the 2,4 cm available in 35mm? And then multiply with the 100mm I'm used to?

Because in general the lenses will have a longer focal length, I'll have to shoot at let's say f4,5 when I used to shoot at f2.8. No need to exactly calculate this, I will figure it out in practice. But is the tendency correct?

[Paintress]

Imaginara, we totally agree about the plastic stuff. I've said it in the other thread. As to the tendency of my clients: some still ask me whether I'll retouch their 'short-comings'.

Two years ago a lady told me the only photos she really liked of herself were by a photographer who declared he had been retouching three nights. She was very hurt and I swore to myself never to do this to a client. Since then I answer that it's my task to put their so-called short-comings into the right light and then they'll realize that there are no short-comings, but a personality.

Up to now everyone accepted not being retouched and was pleased with the result. And himself.

[tho_mas]

first I wanted to sort out, which routes make sense. Before I fill this forum with repeated details, please click on my name and then "members last postings".

well, at least you could summarize the key features you need. For instance a Waist Level Finder and Tilt/Shift...
If both is absolutely important for you I think a Hasselblad-H is clearly the best choice as you can use the HTS adapter with all (or most?) of the lenses.
Mamiya has no removable finders while the Contax and the Hy6 provide WLFs but the TS options are pretty limited (to my knowledge).
There is a new Schneider 120mm TS for Mamiya mount ... maybe there is also an adapter to mount it on the Contax (too, AFAIK the bajonett on the new Schneider lens is removable so that a precission mechanics maybe could mount a Contax bajonett on that lens???) ... and there are the Hartblei Super Rotator lenses and finally the Zörk adapter. Still limited in comparision to the HTS adapter... IMO. As you don't need wide angle the magnification factor of the HTS won't be an issue for you.
As to the digiback...: in conjunction with the HTS you can use all the H-Backs, even those with a microlensed sensor (i.e. H-31 / H-40).
Just be aware that you can't use a microlensed sensor on a view camera (at least the use is very limited) ... in case that some day you would like to use the digital back on your Linhof. If you want to keep that option open... you should take a back without microlenses. AFAIK there are only the H-50 and H60 without microlenses in the current Hasselblad-line.
Phase and Leaf offer more affordable backs without microlenses (i mean mor affordable than the H-50 and H-60...)... but, well, again, the Mamiya has no removable finder and the TS-options for the Contax are limited.

[Paintress]

tho_mas - sorry, I didn't want to bother you but look up, what exactly you were telling me.

I finally managed to enter the Hasselblad website and try to understand what is what. Putting every information in a spreadsheet and only then ask you (if necessary). All these letter combinations are very confusing, it's a new world or a new language.

I've been thinking about the large format question since yesterday and now I'm fairly sure that if I invest in MFD, I want to use the back on my Linhof. If this lane is too expensive I'd rather buy a digital back to reactivate my Linhof and stay with my 35mm system.

[tho_mas]

I've been thinking about the large format question since yesterday and now I'm fairly sure that if I invest in MFD, I want to use the back on my Linhof. If this lane is too expensive I'd rather buy a digital back to reactivate my Linhof and stay with my 35mm system.

the costs depend on the camera and lenses you already have. If everything is in place you actually only need a digital back.
In this case - me personally - I'd clearly favor a Leaf or Phase back as the Hassy-H-backs need external power supply.
Would you shoot portraits with the Linhof (as you did with film)? In this case you should consider the "shutter lag"... some digital backs need a wake up signal prior to exposure and whilst there are cables that trigger both the wake up signal and the exposure there is of course a lag... which is maybe an issue shooting portraits? On the other hand there are also backs that don't need a wake up signal (I am not quite sure, I think Leaf backs and P40+ and P65+ don't need a wake up).
I don't know in how far such a kit is suitable to shoot portraits (as you are experienced shooting portraits with your Linhof you are better able to judge about that) ... but in general the option to use a digital back on a tech camera and on a SLR type body is one of the real strengths of medium format digital backs... IMO.
Surprisingly there are much more makers of tech cameras than MF-SLR cameras and they all developped further (more or less) to meet the requirements of shooting with digital backs on their cameras.

[eronald]

Paintress,

Before you get into MF digital, figure out what you really need to do, and set it up. If you want to use a view camera, try to set one up.

Old view cameras will often not come up to the micrometric rigidity and parallelism tolerances which are expected with digital backs. This is why Alpa and the new Arca products have suddenly appeared. Also, yes there are wakeup issues, there are lens issues. Lenses intended for 4x5 may come up short when faced with a 36x48mm sensor.

35mm digital has liveview as a huge advantage for the person doing tripod-setup shooting. One can view immediately at 100% and check focus, or see the whole image on screen. If you are moving to MF, make sure you can live with the viewing kludge supplied by your chosen MF manufacturer.

BTW, there is some software called Dragon Stop Motion, intended for things like clay-figure animation film making, which is reasonably priced and INCREDIBLY practical for tethered liveview-to-screen shooting with an SLR. It should be practical because these guys need to shoot 24 images for one second of film

Edmund

tho_mas - sorry, I didn't want to bother you but look up, what exactly you were telling me.

I finally managed to enter the Hasselblad website and try to understand what is what. Putting every information in a spreadsheet and only then ask you (if necessary). All these letter combinations are very confusing, it's a new world or a new language.

I've been thinking about the large format question since yesterday and now I'm fairly sure that if I invest in MFD, I want to use the back on my Linhof. If this lane is too expensive I'd rather buy a digital back to reactivate my Linhof and stay with my 35mm system.

[Graham Mitchell]

If you really love tilt/shift then I would take a good look at the view camera options. You won't get such a good range of movements and focal lengths on an SLR but it will mean getting a second platform. However, it doesn't have to cost that much if you look around the used market.

As for the SLR, the Mamiya platform doesn't interest me because there is no WLF, and very few leaf shutter lenses (and you have to buy them new). As a portrait photographer you might share these concerns. The Hasselblad at least has a full range of leaf shutter lenses, but you still don't have the ability to shoot in portrait mode with a WLF (afaik).

I would still recommend you at least take a look at the Rollei 6000 series with a Sinar back like the e75. Great lenses, leaf shutter, good finder options (including full metering with WLF). Some here will probably argue that the future of this system is more uncertain than the other two I mentioned (which is true) but this is a real bargain at the moment, and does what you need it to. If you don't mind 'being different', it's definitely worth a look.

[Paintress]

tho_mas, your suggestion sounds like a huge relief. Having done a rough calculation of H4D50 plus HTS Adapter (costs more than a new EOS 5DII) plus one lense made my knees go week and the so much desired dynamic range shrink to nil.

I have a 2002 built Linhof Technika 4x5``with four lenses, two modern (Schneider and Nikkor), two older, very soft ones. A shutter lag is just a matter of getting used to it. It depends on the personality of the client, some (very few) are very irritated by the Linhof. Most are surprised by the calm and concentrated method and in the end feel more comfortable with it. The only real disadvantage is the extremely heavy but comfortable studio tripod. Never mind, a new transportable tripod really is peanuts compared to a Hasselblad system.

Your observation about LF manufacturers is another reason why I feel more confident with this solution. No bruhahhh, but very reliable, understandable and conservative information policy. With them I know what I get. And it lasts.

Edmund, compared to me my Linhoff is not really old. I used a 6x9 rollfilm and different Polaroid adapters on it (one 6x6), the results were allways better than what I can achieve with a 35mm camera. So if this works, a MF digital back should work as well, no?

Graham, what do you mean by 'portrait mode' concerning the Hasselblad? I'm a bit afraid to ask what a bargain means exactly re. the Rollei 6000. Imaginara called € 3.500 sans VAT peanuts, which sounds true in comparison to Hasselblad. However, I'm not used to these dimensions. And not sure whether I want to become used to it.

[Graham Mitchell]

Graham, what do you mean by 'portrait mode' concerning the Hasselblad? I'm a bit afraid to ask what a bargain means exactly re. the Rollei 6000. Imaginara called € 3.500 sans VAT peanuts, which sounds true in comparison to Hasselblad. However, I'm not used to these dimensions. And not sure whether I want to become used to it.

It's been years since I looked through a Hasselblad H, but I'm pretty sure it has a rectangular viewfinder in landscape orientation, like most SLRs, which means the only way to shoot in portrait mode is to rotate the camera, making the use of a waist-level finder impossible.

I got my 6008AF camera body for $1000 used a few years ago.

[eronald]

Edmund, compared to me my Linhoff is not really old. I used a 6x9 rollfilm and different Polaroid adapters on it (one 6x6), the results were allways better than what I can achieve with a 35mm camera. So if this works, a MF digital back should work as well, no?

No.

Try it, find out. I think chances are even that you won't like what you get. Someone here must have been through that particular grail quest already.

Edmund

[tho_mas]

compared to me my Linhoff is not really old. I used a 6x9 rollfilm and different Polaroid adapters on it (one 6x6), the results were allways better than what I can achieve with a 35mm camera. So if this works, a MF digital back should work as well, no?

as Edmund said: not neccessarily. Digital requires much tighter tolerances and the gears of the camera should be designed to allow extremely fine adjustements and in particular to accurately align the rear and the front standard absolutley parallel (which does not apply to all the "old" cameras designed for film).
Whilst this is in particular a problem when shooting architecture and similar stuff it still might work quite good for your particular purposes in a studio environment + shooting tethered. This is something you could easily try out when a potential dealer loans you a digital back and the required camera interface.
Then again the more current camera models are certainly much better suitable for digital capture (i.e. Linhof's Techno, Arca's Rm3D/i or M-Line, Sinar's arTec, Cambo's Wide RS just to name a few... of course also Alpa's offerings but tilt/swing is limited to longer lenses)

[JonathanBenoit]

Then again the more current camera models are certainly much better suitable for digital capture (i.e. Linhof's Techno, Arca's Rm3D/i or M-Line, Sinar's arTec, Cambo's Wide RS just to name a few... of course also Alpa's offerings but tilt/swing is limited to longer lenses)

if you are going to lump the m-line 2 into the discussion, don't forget about the Toyo VX23D

[Paintress]

tho_mas: I'm in the studio right now and realized it's a Linhof Kardan ST-E with a Technika lens board. Linhof offers a sliding-adapter (groundglass + back-adapter) for 4x5 view cameras, I'll contact them before renting anything. The nearest supplier is a two-hours drive away  

Sharpness does matter to me, when I tilt and shoot at 2.8 - the most frequent mistake is that one eye is sharper than the other. It's nearly impossible to judge the difference between the two eyes with a 35mm. Is it true that Leaf has a better LCD display than Phase? It would help enormously to check the sharpness with a good screen, even if only afterwards.

Tethered shooting - very tempting to experiment how people react.

Graham - when I read 'portrait' and Hasselblad, I was afraid you were talking about a camera portrait program. In German we don't call a vertical photo 'Portrait', I wonder how much influence this naming has in English-speaking countries. And I didn't know that Hasselblad left the square format. You see, I'm a real novice to MF.

The Rollei sounds like a really interesting option. A quick google didn't show up with a camera, I saw a Carl Zeiss lense. Is their lense mount special?
 

[Graham Mitchell]

The Rollei sounds like a really interesting option. A quick google didn't show up with a camera, I saw a Carl Zeiss lense. Is their lense mount special?
 

There are Zeiss and Schneider lenses available for the Rollei and yes it has its own mount.

It looks like this:

[JonathanBenoit]

Is it true that Leaf has a better LCD display than Phase? It would help enormously to check the sharpness with a good screen, even if only afterwards.

The current Leaf Aptus-II lcd is better in every way. The older Aptus lcd has some issues with visibility in sunlight.

[Paintress]

Graham, this lady looks mighty fine to me. Now I found some Rolleiflex 6008 AF available, before I was googling for Rollei 6000. Are the photos on your website taken with this camera? The girl with the freckles and the kids? My family is mad - I seem to talk about cameras in my sleep and they think it's best to distract me.

[tho_mas]

Is it true that Leaf has a better LCD display than Phase?

yes!!!
not only a better LCD, also the operation to zoom in/out is much better.

It would help enormously to check the sharpness with a good screen, even if only afterwards

in any case afterwards.
In MFD the term "live preview" refers to a preview in the capture software, i.e. on a computer monitor when shooting tethered.
it has nothing to do with "live view" of CMOS based DSLRs.

When shooting tethered I think the Leaf backs do not display the last capture on the LCD (but I am not quite sure).
The Phase backs do show the last capture on the LCD even when shooting tetherd.
Another little difference:
you can tether a Phase back and still use the internal battery (which might be helpful when you have to fiddle around with weak FW-cables and FW800 ports on a new Macbook Pro; too, laptops often don't not supply the backs with the required voltage).
On the Leaf you have to remove the battery to attach the FW-cable... so in this case you need a stable FW-connection and a good power signal from the computer.
This is no serious limitation... you just have to make sure that the FW-connection works stable... which is most likely no issue when you are working in your own studio.

[Dennis Carbo]

Hi Paintress,

I also got my Rollei 6008i (2 Generations prior to Graham's) on EBAY for UNDER $1,000 for a complete kit !  Body, 45 degree prism, WLF, 2 film backs , polaroid back, 80mm lens, remote release.  Then I found a Digital back adapter for $200 and a Digital Back for 5K USD (a year or so ago). I have added lenses and only use Manual Focus (6008i is Manual focus) but I am very happy with the Rollei System.  It has been very reliable and fun to use !  Nice thing about the back is I can use it on almost any platform (it came with a Hassy V system adapter as well) should i decide to sell the Rollei.

Happy Shootin !

Dennis