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Author Topic: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format  (Read 79039 times)

Dustbak

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #80 on: October 03, 2012, 05:47:42 am »

Live view on the D800 lets you focus right upto the instant you shoot, right off the sensor and anywhere in the frame.

While True Focus does have it's merits it has it's limitations too. It requires focus and recompose... that alone can be annoying and distracting for the subject and a real pain when on a tripod.

Also true focus DOES NOT account for any camera movements other than the angle of the lens. It cannot detect if the camera moves forward or backwards. Recomposing hand held with a heavy camera will almost always result in camera movement other than lens angle.


I actually work almost daily with the HB and know about what it cannot do. Using the focus on live view on my D800 (which I also use) I personally find a pain in the ass certainly when working handheld.

I can tell you from first hand experience that using TF with for instance a heavy lens like the 50-110 while hand holding the camera works like a charm. Naturally this applies when you know how to use it and know what its weaknesses are but doesn't that apply for everything? Recomposing is no problem as long as you keep in mind how to do it and really when you use it a lot it becomes more natural and easier. For me up to a point I often prefer it over the Nikon AF and don't get me started about live view which is nice on a tripod but useless handheld.

All IMO naturally.
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FredBGG

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #81 on: October 03, 2012, 01:37:16 pm »

I can tell you from first hand experience that using TF with for instance a heavy lens like the 50-110 while hand holding the camera works like a charm. Naturally this applies when you know how to use it and know what its weaknesses are but doesn't that apply for everything?

The 50-110mm at 4.5 has 4 times the depth of field of the 100mm 2.2. This will make True Focus performance less critical and will most likely get you close enough.

With the zoom at 50mm you are in the more useful focal length range where focus and recompose will work better.

True Focus could be much better. A few more focusing points would reduce the correction required and reduce the wiggling infront of the model for focusing.
Forward and backwards movement needs to be added to it, but it was not added in the H5D update.

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FredBGG

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #82 on: October 03, 2012, 01:49:36 pm »

OMG, it is about learning and working within the limitations of the gear. If not one type works for you, then move on, stop fussing and enjoy working with the tool you prefer to use. Simply many others may find e.g. True focus or one focus point on medium format cams much more prefferred.

Is this the behind of this personal "hidden agenda crusade against all mfdb" ?? :)

Why do you get your pants in a twist if I simply point out the limitations of True Focus AS DOCUMENTED BY HASSELBLAD THEMSELVES
I think that pointing this out is useful for anyone either thinking of renting or buying a Hasselblad.

I also think it's relevant that if someone prefers a single focus point one can set a 35mm DSLR to single point too.

More modern focusing systems like that in the Pentax 645D offer both multiple and single focus points.

Quote
it is about learning and working within the limitations of the gear.
Exactly why I point out the limitations.
For many it is also about knowing all the pros and cons and then deciding what to work with. The more one knows the better.

I also happen to use cameras with no autofocus, but I choose to do so with cameras that have high magnification viewfinders.
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JV

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #83 on: October 03, 2012, 02:26:52 pm »

Exactly why I point out the limitations.

Fred, no matter what the circumstances may be, luckily we can always count on you to point out the limitations of Hasselblad,
an average of 5 times a day, 7 days a week...
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 03:13:12 pm by JV »
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Nick-T

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #84 on: October 03, 2012, 02:41:45 pm »

I use true focus on the 100 2.2 all the time and can state with absolute certainty that it works. I was also one of the original beta testers for the feature and had to test and document my findings. Of course this is only my opinion based on what I have seen over the past  three years.

I can only assume that Fred has a great deal more experience with true focus than I....
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Dustbak

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #85 on: October 03, 2012, 02:44:17 pm »

The 50-110mm at 4.5 has 4 times the depth of field of the 100mm 2.2. This will make True Focus performance less critical and will most likely get you close enough.

With the zoom at 50mm you are in the more useful focal length range where focus and recompose will work better.

True Focus could be much better. A few more focusing points would reduce the correction required and reduce the wiggling infront of the model for focusing.
Forward and backwards movement needs to be added to it, but it was not added in the H5D update.



Geez.... Fred. I gave the example of the zoom because it was YOU that mentioned TF would be difficult with a heavy setup... Now, as for the 100/2.2. This lens is almost glued to my body (camerabody that is) and yes wide-open it works too.

Now, what other example would you like to mention now? It seems you are determined to convince me TF does not work which makes me wonder why? I use TF almost daily for the last 2 years and it has made focussing a non-issue for me. I get focus where I want at whatever aperture and it works with every H lens I use.

No, I would most certainly not want more focusing points! It would mean I have to select points and mean a system that is now working very well would become more complicated to use. I like TF as it is, I just wish it would acquire a little bit faster. Oh wait! That is added in the H5!....
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 02:50:26 pm by Dustbak »
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FredBGG

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #86 on: October 03, 2012, 03:39:28 pm »

Fred, no matter what the circumstances may be, luckily we can always count on you to point out the limitations of Hasselblad,
an average of 5 times a day, 7 days a week...

Interesting that you attack me for pointing out the limitations of True focus as documented by Hasselblad:

http://www.hasselbladusa.com/media/2234814/when%20true%20focus%20makes%20a%20difference.pdf

I also find it interesting that users here claim it is better than Hasselblad claims in their own article.

You are right that I point out the limitations... many actually appreciate it especially when it is documented by the manufacturers themselves.

As far as I know a discussion forum is not supposed to be "a place of worship".
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HarperPhotos

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #87 on: October 03, 2012, 03:39:55 pm »

Hello,

I would just like to say that the you Hasselblad guys have made me convinced that True Focus does what it was designed to do and do well and I don’t even own a Hasselblad. Our friend Fred seems the sort of person who will not concede when he is miss informed and should respectfully back off. Alas I don’t think that is going to happen.

Well I’m off to my studio to make images.

Cheers

Simon
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FredBGG

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #88 on: October 03, 2012, 03:44:31 pm »

Hello,

I would just like to say that the you Hasselblad guys have made me convinced that True Focus does what it was designed to do and do well and I don’t even own a Hasselblad. Our friend Fred seems the sort of person who will not concede when he is miss informed and should respectfully back off. Alas I don’t think that is going to happen.

Well I’m off to my studio to make images.

Cheers

Simon

Simon... I'm not inventing or making up anything here... and if you say I am miss informed... well I guess I was miss informed by Hasselblad then

http://www.hasselbladusa.com/media/2234814/when%20true%20focus%20makes%20a%20difference.pdf
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #89 on: October 03, 2012, 03:50:05 pm »

Hi,

For what it is worth, Diglloyd has tested the Hasselblad H4D50 and was not complaining about AF accuracy, but he complained a lot about both Leica S2 and Pentax 645D regarding AF. On the other hand he found both lenses he tested on the blad pretty bad.

In his limited test the Nikon D800 with Zeiss Macro Planar 100/2 outperformed the Leica S2 with Summicron 120/2.2. Nikon was focused using live view and Leica S2 with focus bracketing. The area the Leica lost out was corner performance. The advantage the Nikon/Zeiss combo had was very visible in actual pixel crops.


Best regards
Erik




Hello,

I would just like to say that the you Hasselblad guys have made me convinced that True Focus does what it was designed to do and do well and I don’t even own a Hasselblad. Our friend Fred seems the sort of person who will not concede when he is miss informed and should respectfully back off. Alas I don’t think that is going to happen.

Well I’m off to my studio to make images.

Cheers

Simon
« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 04:49:32 pm by ErikKaffehr »
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Nick-T

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #90 on: October 03, 2012, 04:10:23 pm »

I'm not inventing or making up anything here...

Fred I'm not suggesting that. You are clearly a talented photographer but perhaps not one who has used Hasselblad digital extensively..
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Dustbak

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #91 on: October 03, 2012, 04:15:23 pm »

Interesting that you attack me for pointing out the limitations of True focus as documented by Hasselblad:

http://www.hasselbladusa.com/media/2234814/when%20true%20focus%20makes%20a%20difference.pdf

I also find it interesting that users here claim it is better than Hasselblad claims in their own article.

You are right that I point out the limitations... many actually appreciate it especially when it is documented by the manufacturers themselves.

As far as I know a discussion forum is not supposed to be "a place of worship".

Sure, I don't mind discussion but what am I discussing with you? You quote a document selectively and make it appear whether that is the absolute truth. Yes, TF does make a difference in that example but it does so in other examples too, like with the 100 or 150 wide open. I can only state what I have seen in 2 years of usage. TF works and works well if you know how to use it. No, it does not like lateral movement of either you or the model and no it does not work well on a tripod. It is great hand-held if you know how to work with your wrists. No mentioning of it working better than HB mentions, count to think of it HB doesn't give qualifications on how well it works so there is not much to compare with.

I kind of resent the remark about 'place of worship', I do not worship HB. It is a tool that does what I need it to do in most cases and there is a number of things that I would like to have improved.

I also resent that you only point out the limitations and easily dismiss the possibilities or even ignore them. I think this is the part people 'attack' you on. I actually use the stuff and completely agree on the limitations of that system but despite its shortcomings I find it extremely useful. BTW, I don't particularly feel I am attacking you. I simply feel that you are showing a severe form of tunnel vision for whatever reason.


« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 04:18:52 pm by Dustbak »
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FredBGG

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #92 on: October 03, 2012, 04:24:05 pm »

You quote a document selectively and make it appear whether that is the absolute truth.

I quoted a part that is relevant to the discussion AND LINKED TO THE WHOLE ARTICLE.
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Anders_HK

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #93 on: October 03, 2012, 04:38:11 pm »

Fred, no matter what the circumstances may be, luckily we can always count on you to point out the limitations of Hasselblad,
an average of 5 times a day, 7 days a week...


Exact, not only Hassy, it is like attack all on medium format digital wize. Whats up with such an agenda?? And no posts of any good images shot even though asked to. Seems the gent is on revenge rampage on industry or something...

Reading, sure makes me want TF for my Hy6 as well. I sure do not need more focus points. At least with DHW my contact is with CEO. Now how is that compared for support? Perhaps they can at for the Mod 3 upgrade... ;)
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Dustbak

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #94 on: October 03, 2012, 04:39:35 pm »

Quote from the article:

"The effect of focus shift as a function of camera movement is more apparent with short focal length lenses at close distances. E.g. a HCD28 used at 1m will show a much larger focus shift than a HC150 used at 15m."

and

"When the camera is tilted for composition, the point of maxi- mum sharpness falls just behind the eyes. However, the DOF is almost large enough to render the eye sharp making the difference hard to see. A camera movement closer or further away from the camera even as small as 1 cm will change the result and True Focus might not fully correct the focus.
"

Which is something different from:

For example with the 80mm at 1m from the subject they say this:
The gist of the article is that True Focus is effective with wider angle lenses and marginal with normal lenses.
With longer than normal lenses it's of little or no help at all.
Totally unusable with tilt shift.

The comment on the 80mm from 1mtr basically says, do not move forward or backward and neither should your model. This is a shortcoming that you do need to learn to work with. I did...

The gist of the article is that the effect most noticable at wider angles which does not mean it does not work with longer focal lengths. It actually works well, again. It does not say anywhere that it is of no help at all with longer focal lengths than normal. Maybe you should have put a little more effort in learning how to use it than just a couple of hours! I have seen people start using TF but it took them a bit longer to learn how to most effectively use it. A couple of hours might not have been enough. Sure it might be the case that TF is simply not for you. Nobody is saying it is an end-all solution.

« Last Edit: October 03, 2012, 04:47:03 pm by Dustbak »
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ripgriffith

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #95 on: October 03, 2012, 04:45:28 pm »

My first experience of Medium format was a fuji 6x4.5 and, compared to film, Digital backs are just epic jokes. I sold my S2 because of that. After realising it was just a plastic tool, with a tiny sensor and that a real MF, a good MF film, do far better in global rendering at an artistic level.

The S2 is just a toy for rich in our actual world. The real soul is in film. Leica are just arrogant marketers, nothing more, aiming ppl who drive Hybrid cars and smoke up their a**.

Those are my first MF shoots ever.
The real soul is in the photographer, not in the medium, not in the tools.  If you want to see real arrogance, take a look in the mirror.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #96 on: October 03, 2012, 05:12:51 pm »

Hi,

As a general comment to the whole discussion I would say that:

The best cameras today are probably good enough if you put a decent lens on the body, use tripod, minimum ISO, mirror lockup, cable release  or self timer and focus using live view or a 30X loupe on ground glass shimmed into alignment with the sensor. If you don't do that, why care?

If you do all of the above you may find the best lenses. You can buy a Nikon D800E and a bunch of Zeiss lenses for 6-7000$ and feel assured you have about the best of stuff in the DSLR market.

You can choose to spend 3-5 times the amount on MFD equipment and achieve some real or perceived benefits. Obviously there are couple of benefits of a larger sensor. It will probably collect more photons, unless the vendor of the smaller sensor makes some magic with full well capacity (FWC). A larger format makes also less demand on the lens.

Now, Nikon and Sony developers do some magic with FWC. Check http://www.sensorgen.info/

Nikon D4: FWC=117813
Nikon D800: FWC=44972
Hasselblad H3DII50: FWC=38463
PhaseOne P65Plus: FWC=53019

So although the Nikon D800 has small pixels, FWC is similar to some relatively recent digital back. This may mean, if sensorgen information is correct, that the latest generation of Nikons are very good at collecting photons.

But any way,it is your money, and as long you are happy with the results you have, it is just fine.

Best regards
Erik






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Kagetsu

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #97 on: October 04, 2012, 01:18:23 am »

So pretty much what everybody is saying so far, is it comes down to the lens, and the camera itself is smallest part of the equation.
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EricWHiss

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #98 on: October 04, 2012, 01:29:07 am »

So pretty much what everybody is saying so far, is it comes down to the lens, and the camera itself is smallest part of the equation.

Not me!   I'm saying I prefer the big bright viewfinder of my Rollei AFi, the higher flash sync speed, the leaf shutter lenses which allow me to shoot hand held at lower shutter speeds and well a whole lot of other things.   I've tested the d800 side by side and the MF glass produces a different look and the digital backs have superior color.  I prefer the MF crop over the 3::2 ratio of DSLR's as well.   I just find composing much more fluid with the better finders.    Lenses - the way I look at is this - since you can find great lenses for either platform in a way the lenses don't matter, what's left is the usability. Usability depends a lot on the individual and what they are shooting.   btw - I have a nikon F4 camera that I would prefer to the DSLR's they make today because of the viewfinder and viewfinder options.  It's too bad Nikon didn't bring some of that back.
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: People who ask about the D800 have never experienced medium format
« Reply #99 on: October 04, 2012, 02:01:37 am »

Hi,

Yes you definitively have a point. Leaf shutters have advantages and good viewfinder are nicer than bad ones. I guess that one of the reasons that Nikon D has not as good viewfinder as the old F4 may be that they want to display more information in the viewfinder, I guess that there may be an LCD panel over the screen. That technology was used in the Minolta Dynax 9Xi, i liked that camera.

On the other hand, not all MF is alike. The Pentax 67 I have has one of the worst viewfinders I have seen and I was never impressed by the older viewfinders on Hasselblad V. Hasselblad later introduced better viewfinder and a microacute screen made by Minolta, that may have been better. But I have mostly seen old stuff.

Good tools are a pleasure to work with.

Best regards
Erik




Not me!   I'm saying I prefer the big bright viewfinder of my Rollei AFi, the higher flash sync speed, the leaf shutter lenses which allow me to shoot hand held at lower shutter speeds and well a whole lot of other things.   I've tested the d800 side by side and the MF glass produces a different look and the digital backs have superior color.  I prefer the MF crop over the 3::2 ratio of DSLR's as well.   I just find composing much more fluid with the better finders.    Lenses - the way I look at is this - since you can find great lenses for either platform in a way the lenses don't matter, what's left is the usability. Usability depends a lot on the individual and what they are shooting.   btw - I have a nikon F4 camera that I would prefer to the DSLR's they make today because of the viewfinder and viewfinder options.  It's too bad Nikon didn't bring some of that back.
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