I just recently decided to get my first MFDB and I am extremely happy with it.
I shoot Fashion and Beauty.
(I don't do commercial, weddings, kids, dogs, plants, buildings, interiors, glamour, food, etc, etc. Not hating on those, I just don't have the talent for those types of shoots)
Anyways, since I started I had been using Nikon, upgrading with their new cameras over and over.
And I would consider this the best SkinTones I had ever got with the Nikon:
I was happy as I could with those tones, but there was still something that didn't feel real, I open the magazines and I see something different, more real, for years I thought it was on my workflow and I tried so much to minimize the retouch as much as just the necessary.
Then, A wild thought went trough my head, maybe it was the camera!? I did notice a big improvement going from DX to FX (crop to full 35mm sensor), so how different it would be from at 35mm to MFDB. It took some time to get my hands on it, but when I did, I got a RZ67 Pro II.
There was a lot of fuss about the immortal Phase One backs that can survive everything, of course wanted to try those first:
Then I have shoot the Phase One P40+, P45 and P45+.
Then I saw the video of Giuliano Bekor having an African Elephant step on a Phase One and then a Hasselblad back. In the middle of his shoot for the BeBe Ad campaign:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFnQVnMY3CoSo I tried Phase One first.
P45 (no +, apologies for the BW conversion, the client wanted like that for their calendar, but it was pretty much the same as the other Phase One backs)
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P40+
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P45+
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Tones where much better yes, more detail on the shadows, a very different way to shoot and to think of light. A new concept for me, SHALLOW DOF! (Find out I need to shoot @ F11-22 instead of the usual F4-8 I used to with the Nikon) & more need for light power (with a base ISO of 50 instead of 200 from the D700 loosing another 2 stops there), now I needed 2 or 3 times more power.
But the skin tones did not really convinced me, BeBe's ads like other brands are known for their usual color saturation. But in so many other cases I did not really need that.
I didn't had a back accessible so I went to shoot some film, perhaps Film will give me good file detail:
And talk about detail with a simple Flatbed V600 Scanner!!
Ok, thats beyond what any back offers now, and yeah ISO 160 was not all that smooth.
Ok lets see skin tones, shoot more of that Kodak New Portra 160:
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It was ok, getting closer to something, definitively more details than digital so far.
So maybe another film? Here I got Fuji Reala-100 (100 Iso was nice)
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Ok now I was getting close to something, this was much more closer to the image look I wanted.
I must say, much less retouch needed on skin.
Lastly, I read that Leaf was good or better on the skins, so I got one:
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And I won't ever go back. Over all this photo shoots around the world, at least to me, the Leaf Aptus, even with its humble 22 Mpx blew my mind away.
Yes, the MF is a bit slower and different to shoot. But I never liked the idea of
"Spray n Pray" shooting, having a quick smaller files camera, makes you shoot and shoot and shoot and then pray that you got something good.
During this shoots, specially on film, there where times I only had 20-30 frames for the whole shoot.
Check this video for a 10 pg editorial and cover of Dark Beauty Magazine done in 30 frames on film & polaroid ONLY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3UZuSFPkKMLeaf Aptus 22
Cons
- The Base ISO of 25 (Thats a killer!! with the size of the sensor you need a Fstop of 11-22 to get good detail, most of my beauty shoots their ears where already out of focus @ F 11, crazy!!)
- The screen is big, but the glare under the sun is impossible!!, I learned to relay on the Histogram (for the first time) with this camera back, it does not matter if it looks all dark or all blown out under the sun light, if the histogram shows its good, then its good. The histogram also shows how much is underexposed and overexposed so that was good.
- I guess it was normal, but didn't like that the FireWire port was under the battery, you have to take the battery off to put the firewire, and if you want to change any settings on the camera, like the SOUND!!, you have to unplug the FireWire, put your battery on, wait 15 seconds for it to turn on, navigate through the menus and turn the sound off, and then turn the back off, disconnect the battery and connect to firewire again and wait another 15 seconds to boot. (_-_) #!!
- 15 Seconds boot time
Pros
- Not huge files that you will most likely need to size down for any normal print. I really don't need to handle 80Mpx to print in a 8.5x11 magazine.
- Nice big sensor (some go all with Mpx, there is a cellphone now that shoots 41mpx, of course sensor size counts so the bigger the better, it uses a lot more space of my RZ67 Pro II, the Phase Ones usually feel really horrible cropped into the ViewFinder)
- Skin Tones, just wow out of the Raw file.
- Histogram feature is super helpful, also 1:1 zoom (a bit slow though)
Hope it helps someone. I know I would have liked to read something like this while I was starting.
Ryu
(PS, I'm sure I made many grammatical and orthographic mistakes, please forgive me since English is my 3rd Language, not looking for lessons)
