question of choosing h4d-60 or phase one iq180

[torchiam]

to HarperPhotos

hi there.i learned that too .i am a chinese,here in china people give a lot credits to german lens.and i play with leica a lot.i am kind like believe in European optics too.but i do know Fuji made excellent glasses.so that is why i come to this forum to ask professionals for help.

what i want to say is that photo is a kind of visual creative art.it is not about those lenses analysis data.it is all about the output,the look.so my question gose to is the new Schneider lens really stands out?and are they going to made more?like wider than 55 and longer than 110?

thanks?

[David Grover / Capture One]

O. Ok, so Hasselblad has developed magic? But no details on what it is or how it works. Just that it produces great color in all situations for all needs, all subject matter, and all priorities.

Perhaps you could elaborate.

How would Phocus handle a scene with skintone and a purplish-red shoe (assuming the color of the shoe was important for advertising/marketing/client-needs purposes).

Thanks Doug, you have described it perfectly.

As I said, relying on ICC profiles to deliver good colour we believe is flawed, and results in the need for multiple profiles which don't necessarily suit perfectly all elements in the scene.

Therefore our colour rendering is dynamic, changing shot to shot based on content.

We have only two modes.  "Normal" and "Reproduction".

Reproduction is only used for Art repro work (or similar) where a more linear curve response is given.  There are some colour rendering changes too.

Last time I went head to head on colour was with Leaf at a European Art Institution.  The H4D50 gave a better colour response compared to a Leaf Aptus after it had been custom calibrated.  This was measured by an independent expert, not myself.

Doug, we simply have to disagree and let photographers make up their own minds about what they prefer.  

It is not so bad if Hasselblad does something better.  

David

[Frank Doorhof]

One question David, and this is not an attack. Because I love it when there is real progress because one day it will also drip through to the other brands.......

Let's say I shoot a catalogue for red shoes and those same shoes are worn by 3 different models in three different outfits against 3 different backgrounds or locations.
When I shoot that now I will use a color checker and make a custom profile in the end the shoes will look exactly the same in all shots.

When I use software that uses "magic" I will always end up with a "better" avarage, in other words IF the shots look better than a color checker created profile it will look better in shots compared head to head, but not in the series that have to be equal.

I have the same problem with the phase one "magic" skin tone corrector.
All these "magic" features are in my PERSONAL opinion all aimed at confusing the customer who doesn't understand the matter and let him/her believe that the problems we all face can be magically solved by some enhanced voodoo while in reality all they need is a proper understanding of color management and a good color checker ?

Again don't read this as an attack I love all MF manufacturers and the better they do, the more they have to push the other ones and we all benefit from this, but I'm rather into the technical stuff and sometimes I read stuff that I would love to hear more about but often don't get a response that is correct and is more aimed at keeping the readers in the mist thinking it's really the best solution for their problems

[EricWHiss]

Frank,
In Phocus you can select the reproduction mode, and then use your custom profile. 
Eric

[paul_jones]

i didnt read all the posts, so sorry if someones already mentioned this-

if you are wanting to shoot people, more important than any amount of pixels, is capturing a decent expression. I have had a H1 with a p25, and now have a p40+, and it shoots way faster than either system you are considering, but its still too slow often. I do use the p40+ for people, but when time is critical, the speed of a canon guarantees a shot more often. subtle expressions can only last for a split second, you dont want to miss that expression waiting between shots.

the hassy shoots only 1.4 sec per frame, the phase .7 frames a sec (i guess that works out the same).
my p40+ shoots 1.2 frames a sec. resolution has never been questioned by any retoucher with my 40mp, and ive shot many international campaigns, often with the shots blown up on very large wall areas.

so, my opinion is get something that gets you a better hit rate for shots, than completely obsessing on every pixel. and as far as a "look" of the back, you can make many of these files look identical with a tweak in CS5. Ive shot campaigns that hasn't allowed me to shoot the whole think on the same digital back, and ive had to use an A22 along side a P25, or a 5d file alongside a P40+, with some careful tweaking the shots look like they are shot identically.

paul

[Dustbak]

One question David, and this is not an attack. Because I love it when there is real progress because one day it will also drip through to the other brands.......

Let's say I shoot a catalogue for red shoes and those same shoes are worn by 3 different models in three different outfits against 3 different backgrounds or locations.
When I shoot that now I will use a color checker and make a custom profile in the end the shoes will look exactly the same in all shots.

When I use software that uses "magic" I will always end up with a "better" avarage, in other words IF the shots look better than a color checker created profile it will look better in shots compared head to head, but not in the series that have to be equal.

I have the same problem with the phase one "magic" skin tone corrector.
All these "magic" features are in my PERSONAL opinion all aimed at confusing the customer who doesn't understand the matter and let him/her believe that the problems we all face can be magically solved by some enhanced voodoo while in reality all they need is a proper understanding of color management and a good color checker ?

Again don't read this as an attack I love all MF manufacturers and the better they do, the more they have to push the other ones and we all benefit from this, but I'm rather into the technical stuff and sometimes I read stuff that I would love to hear more about but often don't get a response that is correct and is more aimed at keeping the readers in the mist thinking it's really the best solution for their problems

As a person who does this pretty often I can assure you that it will be different. Color is not something that lives in a vacuum. Hues vary with type of light, angle of light, surroundings, etc.. (pretty sure you know this too). If your goal is to get these shoes to show the exact same hue & brightness under different circumstances you have to tweak. BTW, not even profiling your camera will give you the exact same results simply because the color of these shoes will actually be different! There is no magic button or profile that will solve this. You can only measure and apply corrections.  

The problem all too often is that your client has no idea how color works but only has a strong perception on how it should look like, my experience is that he will be happy if you can live up to this expectation (unfortunately most of them have crappy monitors and printers , try explaining that something is wrong there).

So, yeah. Hasselblad colors often works but the times I need to tweak with X-rite cards, scan materials with Color munki, correct certain colors are numerous. There are many factors that can play a role in this. The type of light I use (hard or soft light on silk makes a big difference), the angle, the material itself, etc.. Out of the box, being perfect? Point me to a device that will give me that. Sofar I have never came across one.

After that, please.... point me to clients that perceive, view and understand color in the same perfect way (or teach me a way to be perfectly successful in coaching them towards that) because without that is it pointless.

[Frank Doorhof]

@Dustbak,
that's what I meant.
I will shoot in this case all images with the colorchecker in the image and get a very good and solid series.
When the software will "magically" select the best color this will vary a lot.

@Paul,
I found that shooting with anything between 0.7-1.5 frames per second for fashion works just fine.
Only the Aptus12 I find slowing down after 10 frames which makes it a bit too slow for me, but I love the speed of the AptusII7 for fashion, for some more freeform sessions just put it on continues shooting, the strobes have enough time to recycle (on 230V) and the model can choose different poses easily.

@Eric,
I know, but when this is possible why market a "magic" option that will give "better" color ?
When the color is profiled with a colorchecker (done correctly) there is no need for "magic" because the color is good.
When shooting MF I think we are out of the realm of P&S shooters that would really sometimes benefit from "magic".

On the other hand, again I'm a technical shooter, although I always play with my color in the end results

[Dustbak]

Frank,

You will be amazed how many people buy MF and don't even want to know anything about colors. They just want to use the thing, make images and these need to come out looking pretty. For that the Hasselblad solution works pretty well actually.

It also happened fairly often I measured colors and delivered 'good color' and the client did not like it. Today, I know I often deliver images which are too contrasty and have too much saturation but the clients love them (even in print). I sometimes get 'forced' to deliver them too yellow to compensate for the crappy office screens. Even when I explain it will look like shit in print, they reply they don't care because it is solely being used on the web and most people have crappy screens (how can you argue with that  ).

[EricWHiss]

Yes, the hasselblad colors out of the box are really very good. I'm not shot the leaf enough to know how I like that, but certainly its going to take me some time to walk through all the different choices - should I pick Portrait 4, 5, 4HS, 5HS, what's the y one or     To many damn choices and possible combinations - why so many?    For critical stuff like art repo, you have the choice to roll your own but actually I almost always just use theirs.  It's really simple.

[David Grover / Capture One]

to HarperPhotos

hi there.i learned that too .i am a chinese,here in china people give a lot credits to german lens.and i play with leica a lot.i am kind like believe in European optics too.but i do know Fuji made excellent glasses.so that is why i come to this forum to ask professionals for help.

what i want to say is that photo is a kind of visual creative art.it is not about those lenses analysis data.it is all about the output,the look.so my question gose to is the new Schneider lens really stands out?and are they going to made more?like wider than 55 and longer than 110?

thanks?

Hi Torchiam,

To be honest Hasselblad lenses (and I say Hasselblad, not Fuji) are no less European than their Mamiya / Schneider counterparts.

We have our own lens designer, Per Nordland, who constructs the optical design of our lenses.  We also design and manufacture the central lens shutter that we have in every lens.  Fujifilm are the responsible for the manufacture.  So it is very much a collaboration between us.  We have the final say on how the lens will be produced, not Fujifilm.

So in that respect I don't think we are any different to what Mamiya / Schneider can offer.

Except for that all our lenses have central shutters, internal AF drives and the ability to switch from AF to MF without the need for a mechanical switch - instantover ride.

David

[Dustbak]

Anyway, back to the initial question. IMO, you can get excellent results with everything. It is much more important you find something that fits your way of working and makes you feel comfortable doing your work.

What point there is to get an IQ180/H4D60 if your style is doing lots of images, fast shooting with moving objects? You would probably be better served with a faster back or maybe even DSLR.

I think you are working the wrong way around. Better first establish the way you work and find the right equipment for that instead of first getting equipment and finding out how to change your way of working to get to the best results. That might work too but you are in for an expensive lesson...

[design_freak]

Anyway, back to the initial question. IMO, you can get excellent results with everything. It is much more important you find something that fits your way of working and makes you feel comfortable doing your work.

What point there is to get an IQ180/H4D60 if your style is doing lots of images, fast shooting with moving objects? You would probably be better served with a faster back or maybe even DSLR.

I think you are working the wrong way around. Better first establish the way you work and find the right equipment for that instead of first getting equipment and finding out how to change your way of working to get to the best results. That might work too but you are in for an expensive lesson...

Exactly
As I have already written. The camera is a tool. For every job we choose the appropriate tool. There are no universal tools. Should be chosen according to their type of work appropriate tool. (such that will help us.) Sculptor chisels adjusts to the material, his technique, etc. Photographer should do the same.

[torchiam]

to David

  you are the best hasseblade representative !!

 i believe the hasseblade will maintain the European quality,because it is hasseblade,the reputation speaks for itself.

[torchiam]

to Dustbak

i think you said the truth.and i think it works both ways.find the right camera to serve the job best,and try explore the camera in your hand as much as possible.some time people think the camera is not right is only because they do not use it right.

[eronald]

i didnt read all the posts, so sorry if someones already mentioned this-

if you are wanting to shoot people, more important than any amount of pixels, is capturing a decent expression. I have had a H1 with a p25, and now have a p40+, and it shoots way faster than either system you are considering, but its still too slow often. I do use the p40+ for people, but when time is critical, the speed of a canon guarantees a shot more often. subtle expressions can only last for a split second, you dont want to miss that expression waiting between shots.

the hassy shoots only 1.4 sec per frame, the phase .7 frames a sec (i guess that works out the same).
my p40+ shoots 1.2 frames a sec. resolution has never been questioned by any retoucher with my 40mp, and ive shot many international campaigns, often with the shots blown up on very large wall areas.

so, my opinion is get something that gets you a better hit rate for shots, than completely obsessing on every pixel. and as far as a "look" of the back, you can make many of these files look identical with a tweak in CS5. Ive shot campaigns that hasn't allowed me to shoot the whole think on the same digital back, and ive had to use an A22 along side a P25, or a 5d file alongside a P40+, with some careful tweaking the shots look like they are shot identically.

paul

If the shots can always be made to look identical (not my experience) why not just use the 5D2?

Edmund

[cng]

Can everyone just get over the whole Fuji / Hasselblad / Fuji-blad thing?  It's tiresome, and I don't even own a Hasselblad.  Lots of people making good images out there regardless of brand name / country of origin / designer's nationality / ultimate holding company / megapixel count / format size / etc.

Trolls, the lot of you.

[David Grover / Capture One]

One question David, and this is not an attack. Because I love it when there is real progress because one day it will also drip through to the other brands.......

Let's say I shoot a catalogue for red shoes and those same shoes are worn by 3 different models in three different outfits against 3 different backgrounds or locations.
When I shoot that now I will use a color checker and make a custom profile in the end the shoes will look exactly the same in all shots.

When I use software that uses "magic" I will always end up with a "better" avarage, in other words IF the shots look better than a color checker created profile it will look better in shots compared head to head, but not in the series that have to be equal.

I have the same problem with the phase one "magic" skin tone corrector.
All these "magic" features are in my PERSONAL opinion all aimed at confusing the customer who doesn't understand the matter and let him/her believe that the problems we all face can be magically solved by some enhanced voodoo while in reality all they need is a proper understanding of color management and a good color checker ?

Again don't read this as an attack I love all MF manufacturers and the better they do, the more they have to push the other ones and we all benefit from this, but I'm rather into the technical stuff and sometimes I read stuff that I would love to hear more about but often don't get a response that is correct and is more aimed at keeping the readers in the mist thinking it's really the best solution for their problems

Hey Frank,

Don't worry! I have known you long enough to know that you don't attack.  

I am glad that a few others have chipped in to say that they are getting good results from our solution.

Going back a bit to the Imacon days when the ixpress was launched, you can certainly say we didn't have a great default colour in some situations.  We were adamant that we didn't want to go down the route of multiple colour profiles as we couldn't get our heads round to thinking that this was a slick a solution it could be.

It puts another step in the workflow that we wanted to remove.  Also, as I stated earlier, what do you do if you have mixed lighting or a mixed situation?  We thought it was our responsibility to deliver the best and accurate colours we could out of the box without the need for multiple profiles.  It took about two years to develop with a lot of work from R&D.

I remember the final testing where we invited about ten models to the factory of all different skin types and nationalities (I remember we had more complaints in the early ixpress days from the USA as at the time the models tended to be more tanned as our pasty European counterparts!).  Anyway, we presented the results to our dealers at the time and it spoke for itself really.  Great results on a variety of skin tones out the box.  Yes, its a big claim but I think our customers are happy with what they are getting from the H4D and Phocus without the need for skin editor tools and multiple profiles.

I believe the one of the reasons why the skin editor tool exists in C1 is to compensate against issues with multiple profiles - otherwise, why have it?

Frank, you are lucky that you are capable enough to manage creating custom profiles and using them correctly.  Remember that many people have less experience of this or also do not wish to follow that path so we need to think of all our customer base.  But I don't doubt you are getting great results with your system  .  As I said before, it is hard NOT to be impressed by any MF camera.

Different brands in different industries have always existed alongside each other.  This is our way of doing it which we believe is the preferential solution. Others (Doug!) may disagree.

David

[eronald]

If the shots can always be made to look identical (not my experience) why not just use the 5D2?

Actually agree with mostly everything you say, but when I stopped obsessing about image quality I realized that a D3x was giving me more good shots more easily than the heavy pain-to-use MF equipment, and I started using the D3x for everything. Don't get perfect shots but get pretty good shots.

Last not least, I find it is actually the lens which is responsible for much of the "look" of a shot, at least as much as the sensor after a certain level has been reached and you are flying up there in the best equipment stratosphere.

Edmund

[design_freak]

As for the color. In most cases, the primary tool during the session is a MacBook Pro. (without an additional monitor) In this case there is no question about his work on color. The horror, repeatedly met with a case where the photographer was not happy with the color you see on the monitor (Eizo High-End calibrated) - where the colors were put faithfully. On the glossy screen is more saturated - have not been faithfully handed. Not to mention the detail in the shadows. An analogous situation to the early years - Light Table-slides look fabulously (after scanning a lot of losing.) But this is a topic for a new thread.
We have to realize for whom they are addressed cameras. Hasselblad aims at users who use high-end 35mm DSLR. Partly to amateurs, because the software must be very simple. ONE color profile - from a marketing point of view, perfectly fit the target. Amateur would be horrified to see these all the tools that do not know what they are. I can not attach to the color you get from this system, but some other more sophisticated tools would be appreciated.
I can not agree with David that the Hasselblad system is better in this respect( one color profile) , it really everyone has their own pros and cons, depending on who is using this system.For now, Phase One has a better tool for the job.
David: Add some tools to Phocus, and the situation will change dramatically.
It is also worth reading suggestions from users ...

[David Grover / Capture One]

Can everyone just get over the whole Fuji / Hasselblad / Fuji-blad thing?  It's tiresome, and I don't even own a Hasselblad.  Lots of people making good images out there regardless of brand name / country of origin / designer's nationality / ultimate holding company / megapixel count / format size / etc.

Trolls, the lot of you.

LOL. Thankyou.

Its true.  There probably isn't one technical product out there these days that can truly claim it is British / German / French / Japanese etc etc.  

This MacBookPro I am typing on is made in China, and I really can't fault the build of it.  I imagine it is full of parts from 100's of suppliers.

A product will speak for itself regardless who screwed it together.