645z Tethered Shooting

[Steve Hendrix]

Steve,

 As you are handing me a soapbox, I would say that paradoxically it doesn't matter if  Phase puts a  new bodybox in front of an IQ back, their real problem and need for investment comes with the necessity of revamping their back's architecture completely to deal with the challenges and abilities of mirrorless, EVFs and on-sensor focus, and burst-video Medium Format frame rates.

 The pro photo market is pushed by the consumer tech, and video is undergoing a huge acceleration that will unavoidably up the expectations in the advertising and live-shot business. The problem is not that Pentax might tether a bit faster, it is that the customer might demand that a Phase back do 60 images per second frame rates like a RED or ARRI, at least in bursts of a few seconds,  with fast preview and preview scrolling on the back's monitor and on an attached PC. The real future competition for Phase in advertising is not Pentax, it is the video camera crowd who historically have had  access to very similar albeit smaller sensors, but who also have developed and perfected the technology for offloading, previewing and storing the data at a much higher framerate.

Edmund

Yeah, well that's kind of a different topic direction, since you brought up Pentax and Phase delivery dates, I was only trying to get a free sip of France's finest beverage on your behalf.


Steve Hendrix
CI

[Doug Peterson]

Until Pentax fully understands that part of the reason to buy this camera, is to tether it for pressure advertising jobs, I think the software will be considered an afterthought. Like Doug said, it takes a major commitment of enthusiasm and money to develop working software -- look how long it took Capture One to be really stable -- years and years.

My article on Building the House of Capture One covers some of those dark years. They were dark indeed and there were several of them; did anybody use Capture One 4.5? Sorry about that  . And that was with a quite large team of programmers, and strong pressure from the head of the company.

Or look at LightRoom; Adobe is one of the finest programming companies in the imaging business and has a huge team of programmers, but because their focus is more on the middle 75% of the market you'll find Capture One is still the tethering tool of choice in most high-end studios, rental houses, and production facilities (whether for Phase or for Canon/Nikon/Sony).

When you look at hardware it is easy to understand why it is complicated/hard to do well. It's easy to look at software and think that "basic functionality" and "minimal features" would be fast and easy to do well. It's just one of the inexorable facts of life that nearly every job is more complicated and requires more skill/talent/time than it appears from the outside.

[eronald]

Yeah, well that's kind of a different topic direction, since you brought up Pentax and Phase delivery dates, I was only trying to get a free sip of France's finest beverage on your behalf.


Steve Hendrix
CI

You can do me a really good deal on a cheap Hassy or Leica  someone gave away, and I'll throw in a free Magnum
If you're desperate, I can ship one to you anyway, just so you get some relief from your high-tech monotony out there in Kansas ...

Edmund

[Chris Valites]

You can do me a really good deal on a cheap Hassy or Leica  someone gave away, and I'll throw in a free Magnum
If you're desperate, I can ship one to you anyway, just so you get some relief from your high-tech monotony out there in Kansas ...

Edmund

Hey, send some of that up to our New England branch, I need to, um, test it. Yeah, that...

The video is making progression; even in my personal experience I rarely recommend a P+ back if people are used to Live View for any sort of focus checking. The IQ live view was better, and the CMOS better even so. Hopefully soon this translates into some sort of a video mode, as it had originally around the Canon 5D Mark II generation of cameras and their Live Views

[eronald]

J,

 I know the cine cams don't cut it, yet. But  I was trying to say that *all* the new MF backs *already* have CMOS chips similar to those used in video in them, with the same interfaces, so it's a *solved* engineering problem to get the images much faster, especially if you don't need full rez. The problem is that we're still stuck with what engineers call "horseless carriage" mentality, ie when the first engine driven vehicles were made people wanted them to look as if a horse was pulling them, minus the horse

 The original interframe CCD chips could do a lot of stuff, because they were video designs, but they lost this capability when the market got segmented into stills and video, and the "full frame CCD" designs got used which couldn't be read out  quickly, and never during exposure. Now the wheel has turned and we again have video designs in the still cameras.

link to Panhard Levassor, image musée des arts et métiers.

Edmund

[gwhitf]

Good to hear from you, Big Cooter. I agree -- in the big picture, it's moving at a glacial pace. I think Apple is leapfrogging everyone in terms of innovation for the Real World. I'd follow them before I'd follow Phase or any medium format company. And not to let Canon or Nikon off the hook either -- why is there not an Internal Modem option for any of these cameras? If I had a dollar for every time I've had this request from an out of town AD: "Uh, after you do the first few test shots, could you take your iPhone and hold it up to the back of the LCD of the Canon, and 'shoot a Polaroid of it' and text it to me? I'd like to offer up some feedback". For the record I've never done that once; the admission price for getting to give feedback is that you sit your ass on that squeezed airplane, and come to the shoot.

But why can you not text or email from a $7000 Nikon or Canon, in the year 2015?

If you're a journalist, why do you have to download cards to a laptop first, in a breaking news event? Why can't you transmit one or two choice JPG images, from the Cop Shooting, in the street, to the magazine or the newspaper?

Follow Apple; not camera companies.

[Chris Livsey]

Follow Apple; not camera companies.

That's because camera companies don't write decent software (Phase being and honourable exception and Phocus does what the studio set up needs).
They are struggling because the expansion into digital has not stalled it's gone into free fall so there is no money to put in. As has been said here look at how long it took Phase to get C1 to where it is.
Nikon 2015 results are just in:

Interchangeable lens camera (ILC) unit volume down nearly 20%, although market share increased to 34%. (Many others did worse!!)
Lens unit volume down 19%, and now 29.5% market share.
Compact camera unit volume down 31%, with a 27% market share.

It takes bold management to pour money into those figures to develop software when your core business is designing and making lens and camera hardware.
Add to that the lack of engagement with grass roots users. Yes the big companies have ambassadors, champions etc but they are long past being grass roots, the work comes to them now.
One word sums up the issue: connectivity.

Now if Apple bought Nikon 

[eronald]

Add to that the lack of engagement with grass roots users. Yes the big companies have ambassadors, champions etc but they are long past being grass roots, the work comes to them now.
One word sums up the issue: connectivity.

Now if Apple bought Nikon 

Quite true, they have no more contact with grassroots.
They should be crawling all over the enthusiasts - a pro will renew his equipment on plan, an enthusisast can be sold.
One striking thing when you go to a still photography event is how old the attendees all are.
My dealer told me that anyway in France there isn no reason to sell to young people because they have little money.
The aging userbase may explain why the connectivity is so bad.
 
Edmund

[gwhitf]

That's because camera companies don't write decent software (Phase being and honourable exception and Phocus does what the studio set up needs).
They are struggling because the expansion into digital has not stalled it's gone into free fall so there is no money to put in.

Totally agree.

* I should be able to hook my iPhone up to my Pentax 645Z or Phase One camera at this point, and download an image, and then take it into Snap Seed. Even better would be WIFI built into the camera to be able to send to iPhone or iPad nearby. All without a laptop or Digital Tech or any kind of external computer.

* Google just bought SnapSeed and made it even better. Burn and Dodge, using the tip of your finger, on an iPhone. Amazing. It was good before, and Google made it better. Why did Nikon or Canon not buy Snapseed, and put up a barrier to entry to the other brands? Just like how CaptureOne won't allow Pentax 645Z to tether directly into it. They built a wall to protect themselves.

* Go and download ProCamera8. It'll blow your mind how good it is, in HDR B/W. Shoots a 22meg file from an iPhone6.

* The new iPhone6s, in September release, is rumored to have a 12MP camera. Apple is putting horsepower into the camera section of the new iPhone.

Link: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/05/15/rumor-12mp-camera-in-apples-iphone-6s-will-pack-in-smaller-pixels

* The world (read: Apple) is leapfrogging the Nikon and Canon quickly. Witness market share numbers above.

* I truly thought the Pentax 645Z would be a leapfrog improvement over the D. I guess it is, is pixel count is all that matters. But honestly, who would shoot video with a Pentax 645Z? Pentax/Ricoh doesn't have a clue who they are, or who they're marketing to.

* I bought a snazzy Leica Point/Shoot a few months ago from B&H. It arrived and I didn't even open the box; just returned it. Because I knew I'd only carry the iPhone6 in my pocket everywhere. Leica survives by now by marketing to ultra rich; they have money, but yes, those dudes are old, and getting older. How much longer can they survive when the rich guy with sweater tied around his neck carries the Leica to impress his friends, but only shoots photos with his iPhone6?

* The business is changing very very very quickly. You could make a case that your Instagram Page is more important than your actual Website Page. What does that tell you? Everybody is only on their phone or iPad. Do an experiment: Go and look at your own website on your iPhone and tell me how lame it looks, and how long it takes to load, (using cellular, not WIFI). Look how bad it looks. Like HTML 1989. Then, go to Instagram.com, and watch how fluid and fast everything loads. And then sit there and try to imagine how to position your business even five years from now. It's mindbogglingly hard.

[Doug Peterson]

I guess you missed that Phase One already implemented iPhone/iPad connectivity in the IQ2 series. No computer required. No 3rd party hardware/software required (other than the iPad or iPhone of course); it's all native Phase One. We'd be glad to remotely demo you that feature.

[algrove]

I am not in any of your leagues, but now that the discussion has turned to what it has, does the FLU card have any use here?  It can send a jpeg to an iPad or phone or screen and is it not the same jpeg you would be looking at via wired tethering which seems a bit old school to me. Again no criticism, just wondering what's the future of Flu card and over the air tethering?

[Dshelly]

I guess you missed that Phase One already implemented iPhone/iPad connectivity in the IQ2 series. No computer required. No 3rd party hardware/software required (other than the iPad or iPhone of course); it's all native Phase One. We'd be glad to remotely demo you that feature.

Glad to see that someone out there is listening. It's nice to Phase taking the lead in this respect.

[Paul2660]

As good  as Capture Pilot and an IQ2 back sounds there are problems, problems that have been there from day 1 and also never addressed.

1.  The 100% view on a current iPad with latest verison of iOS and Capture Pilot cannot give you a sharp view, sharp enough to really determine critical focus.  I have found this the case with any retina device.  Supposedly the 100% view on the mini before retina was OK, but I never owned one.  I have tried the view on 2 different versions of retina iPad, and iPhones.  If you attempt to compare the views from the back's LCD and the screen on iPad, there is no comparison.  You can "shrink" the screen view a bit but it still can give you a false sense of true focus.  The view at 100% when tethered is much better and allows for no mistakes.  The "respect retina" checkbox really doesn't help.

2.  The connection via the adhoc wifi link from the back is still flaky and many times requires, iPad hard reboot, back reboot or both.  Sometimes you get a hit and all the images cross over, and other times 50% come across, etc.  When the connection 'works" the transfer is fast.  However with my IQ2 back, most times the connection will break and then a lot of time is spent attempting to require.  

3.  When viewing at 100%, moving around the image can cause a lot of freezes, and disconnections.  There seems to be no reason when this will occur, but when it does it also tends to require a re-boot of one device or both.

I am not using the connection for camera controls as I use a tech camera.  The Capture Pilot/iPad solution really was one of the reasons I considered the IQ2 back as the flexibility  of not being tethered really appealed to me.  If you search out on the web, you will find a lot of detailed information from other IQ2 users where they have found that the tethered solution is better overall, at least for a tech solution.

What has disappointed me, is that Phase One can't seem to address the 100% view issue.  There are a lot of applications out there that seem to be able to do this, with photo viewing in mind.  

I think it's fair to say that no improvements will follow as the application has been live now for quite a while.

Where I have found the wifi useful:

1.  When attempting to send a client a shot from the Phase One, to give them an idea of the scene, it's nice to be able to do this quickly in the field when needed.  Sure it's not worked up in C1 but they get a general idea.

2.  The Wifi and Liveview connection is a great solution for a tech user if they own a IQ250 as it lets you frame a shot with the camera low or in a position where it's hard to get down to view the back's LCD.  I have seen this work in the field and it's a excellent solution basically giving you a tilting LCD screen which can be very helpful, especially when combined with a geared head.  This allows you to hold the iPhone in one hand and make the adjustments to the camera (with the gearing) with the other hand.

Paul

[Doug Peterson]

Paul, in the last year all of our demo and rental systems have shown rock solid wireless performance. If you're still experiencing issues please contact our support team and they will help troubleshoot.

[george2787]

Don't you love when people know what they're selling? 

Last presentation I went to was profoto's tungsten/HMI, and they knew their stuff, but part of the design team was there, normally people from sales team do this things ant they just don't know because they aren't going to use the product ever and just memorize the brochure 

[eronald]

Cooter,

  Hmmm, I would expect them to be hiring *you* instead of Vincent La Forêt to do the demo and sing the praises of this thing -
  Maybe there is some lemonade to be made from this lemon?

Edmund

Hey gwhitf glad to hear/kind of see you.

I get it.  

I bought a couple Panasonics and Olympus 43's.  

Put them on some straps and carried them around London.  

My wife said why do you do that?   You look like a tourist and you don't ever take a picture with them?

She was right, though I love those little olympus cameras, they're so cool but I don't know what to do with them.  

_________________________________


I have always had this feeling that since the start of digital we've been fooled around with.  

(When camera companies made serious coin) I always had this sick kind of feeling when I bought a new camera that that there was always something better, faster, cheaper they had on the drawing board or beta shelves.

Once we saw the Canon 5d, the Nikon D800 and the Pentax that thought seemed to ring true.

_________________________________

deju Vu

Hey Doug are you sure RED and the motion camera world didn't steal your business model?

Got a note from RED when they were trying to sell the "weapon", pre NAB announcement.  It was easy.  Upgrade one of my scarlets to a "dragon" sensor for $9,000 then turn that in for the Weapon camera for $9,000 more, then delivery will be, uh, oh, I dunno someday.

Also the $4,000 graphic cards I own for the RED cameras don't work for the weapon so I'll need a couple of the new ones.   I didn't bother to respond.

deju Vu 2

Hey Canon video, you shouldn't keep talking to the still guys about how to design and price a camera.

Thursday went to a Canon c300 II demo.  I never do these things, but I thought what the heck, I'd love to get a break from these computers so I drove over to Burbank.

Canon guy 1 - Here's the new camera.

Me - Does it autofocus like the $800 70d?

Canon guy 1 - yea does it great.

Me - Can I see?

Result autofocus won't turn on.

Me - what does the viewfinder look like  . . . it's not on.

Canon guy 1 -  fumbles with the menu for 5 minutes.  Uh it doesn't seem to work.

Me - Does it have a touch screen like the 70d?

Canon guy 2 - I don't like touch screens.

Me - You didn't design the camera, so once again does it  . . .

Canon guy 1 - You have to understand we're kind of new at motion picture cameras.

Me - Huh?

Canon woman 1 - NBC just bought a bunch of these.

Me - For what.  Episodic, news, A cam, B cam?

Canon woman 1 - Don't know.

Me - Back to the camera.  Does it shoot a proRes file, or raw and if so how do you process (uh excuse me debayer) the raw?

Canon guy 2 - You can do proRes if you buy a recorder ($3,500 + $900 per media card)  and maybe somebody will make software to debayer the raw.

Me - Huh and btw:   will the price of this camera start dropping like the 1dc.  From $15,000, to $8000, to $6000 (new)?

Canon guy 2 - Hey everything in the digital world changes.

IMO

BC

[michaelbiondo]

Even with the updated LR and IT2 I am getting on average an 8 second import, perhaps it is my late 2012 macbook pro that is slowing things down?
I just bought this LR plugin and allows me to forgo the IT2 thing.

http://dslrsoftware.com/tethered_shoot_lr6_645z_macosx.php

It works faster and imports raw files in 4 seconds which satisfies 99% of my shooting situations.

For the other 1% of shooting situations, photographing Angelina & Brad with publicists & editors hanging over my shoulder I will rent a phase with a tech.
But I do not see that shooting sneer any time soon (nor do I want to, ben there done that).
MB