New medium format digital back company survey (please take)

[Brian Hirschfeld]

Hello everybody,

As some of you may have noticed my presence on the forums has greatly decreased lately, because I have been working very hard on a new medium format digital back company that I have created. We received an initial round of funding and have begun the prototyping process. Currently we are looking to raise a second round of funding, as part of that we have created a survey to help us create the best possible product that will appeal to as many people as possible. If you could please take my survey, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

You can take the Survey here at http://www.squarecameras.com

[Doug Peterson]

Best wishes Brian!

It's always good to see more activity in the medium format digital space!

[drevil]

What camera brands do you currently shoot? *

dont forget the contax users

[gazwas]

Good luck with this Brian!

However I stumbled on the question "What features are most important to you in a digital back?" as I wanted all those options listed..... 

[Chris Valites]

Hello everybody,

As some of you may have noticed my presence on the forums has greatly decreased lately, because I have been working very hard on a new medium format digital back company that I have created. We received an initial round of funding and have begun the prototyping process. Currently we are looking to raise a second round of funding, as part of that we have created a survey to help us create the best possible product that will appeal to as many people as possible. If you could please take my survey, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

You can take the Survey here at http://www.squarecameras.com

Good luck! Would love to see some prototype shots, but I'm assuming that's coming through with a marketing campaign.

[Brian Hirschfeld]

Thanks for the support and taking the Survey guys! results have been great thus far.

Thanks Doug for your support as always.

Yes, the Survey has a few flaws in it. @drevil One of them being the lack of Contax related questions, In my mind I was more surveying existing camera brands, but that was certainly an oversight since the Contax community is in fact still vibrant and the cameras are popular (deservedly so since they are excellent) even though the cameras are no longer made. @gazwas yes that was also a slight oversight in the construction of the survey, there should've been a limited number that you could choose (though you were free to select all of them) it made for a relatively weak survey question, but the results have been very interesting hearing from the community about what they want (even if it is all of those things )

@Chris Valites, correct prototypes are being kept very much under wraps at the moment.

Thanks again for your support everyone.

[Theodoros]

Brian, other than complently forgetting the Contax users, you also forgot multishot in you Q about MFDB features... Also, Fuji GX680 users are excluded... So I guess, a good part of the market is unable to participate... Best of luck with your project.

[Brian Hirschfeld]

Yes that is true, though even though it is an oversight, again the survey was more focused on existing cameras.

I can assure you that they are in the pipeline given their lack of meaningful coverage by existing digital backs.

[drevil]

over at getdpi we talked about that lately and doug reported that p1 sales with contax mount are still going strong, i would be very sad if "we" would be left out

[cengel001]

Used Contax 645 prices have never been so high. Very high demand.

[Chris Livsey]

Used Contax 645 prices have never been so high. Very high demand.

Driven in large part I suspect by the "wedding in film" movement who are very keen on the system.

[Theodoros]

Driven in large part I suspect by the "wedding in film" movement who are very keen on the system.

They are... aren't they? ..but I believe saying "wedding in film" restricts things a bit... It's the fast lenses, the body's superb yet modern ergonomics and the quality of glass all combined that keeps the system surprising strong... It just happens that the combination of the above suits wedding photographers too...

[Chris Livsey]

It just happens that the combination of the above suits wedding photographers too...

Indeed, but a small number of those are very "vocal" and without that push, good though the system is, the demand would be much less I suspect. But then that's all guesswork and conjecture on my part and if the backs are selling well that's enough of a push not to leave them out of a solution.

[Theodoros]

Indeed, but a small number of those are very "vocal" and without that push, good though the system is, the demand would be much less I suspect. But then that's all guesswork and conjecture on my part and if the backs are selling well that's enough of a push not to leave them out of a solution.

As is obvious from my previous answer, I mostly agree... but this has to do with the camera's demand and prices rising all the time, OTOH, as you said, wedding photographers mostly use film with it while Doug suggested that MFDB sales for Contax are still strong... So my guess is that demand would still be strong if the camera wouldn't become so popular among wedding photographers... only the prices would be (a bit) lower... Still, it's all guesswork I suppose. 

[Theodoros]

There is so much "noise" around the Contax 645 lately that it wouldn't surprise me if the C645 gets resurrected from its ashes... Dealers seem to love it for a trade... All Ebay offerings disappear and prices keep rising surprisingly high for a now old system... MFDBs for Contax are on very high demand (the same back costs more if it is for C645)... Leica made an adapter for the lenses (I guess to compete with new backs demand for the system)... and there are adapters (like JAS) for Canon, Nikon & Sony A that make possible for one to use the lenses on both MF & DSLR...

I guess if Contax would be resurrected, a new camera body wouldn't be more than double the price of a (now) very old S/H body... It looks like perfect ground... lets see... (fingers crossed). 

[gazwas]

Never used a Contax so these are just Sunday evening rumblings but is the popularity/nostalgia/admiration/notoriety of the Contax system pretty much down to the fact that they don't make it any more much like the Xpan, Mamiya 7, HY6 etc, etc? New sales of the time couldn't support their continued manufacture hence why they stopped being made. If they stopped making the Phamiya DF tomorrow, would in a few years we be all praising this wonderful forward thinking camera with its excellent range of Schneider lenses rather than rubbish is as we do today?

Sorry for being OT Brian.

[Theodoros]

New sales of the time couldn't support their continued manufacture hence why they stopped being made.

The Contax system wasn't stopped because there wasn't enough demand... it was stopped because there was a disagreement between the two parties involved... (Zeiss & Kyocera).

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Mostly because Kyocera left the photography business.

Best regards
Erik

The Contax system wasn't stopped because there wasn't enough demand... it was stopped because there was a disagreement between the two parties involved... (Zeiss & Kyocera).

[synn]

Best wishes, Brian. More choice is always good.

[Kolor-Pikker]

I've jumped on the Pentax ship since I didn't really need a back-style camera for tech cam use, but a friend of mine does, and we both agree on many features for a potential future back.
I'll list the points here since a survey likely won't convey this information.

- sensor as close to full 645 size as possible, but more than 50mp is overkill for most things, work on shallow incident light performance for tech users instead.
- definitely CMOS, because of real-time liveview magnification, it's what kept me from getting into digital backs years past.
- tilt or maybe even a swivel screen, I didn't know how much I needed one until recently. phone/tablet tethering isn't a solution.
- it would be cool if the back had a HD-SDI or HDMI port to allow users to connect their own HD monitors to the back.
- low-latency performance. Waiting an eternity for image preview to show up on the 645D is why I never bought into the system before.
- open source software platform to allow for custom firmware, additions and tweaks by the community - think Magic Lantern for the Canon cameras but as the official driver.
- a big battery.

If this theoretical back were available mid last year and cost less than $10K, I may have not have had the 645Z right now.