Dan,
I don't care about details or about technical aspecs for that matter, I am just interested in seeing what kind of work is produced by the IQ3-100 owners.
I was in a conversation 2 days ago with a friend who was stressing that second hand backs kept being sold at LL with very low shot count and his claim was that a majority of non pro back owners hardly ever use their cameras. I strongly doubt that and I am convinced that great work is produced with those, but I had to agree that very few images are shown on LL.
Hence the question.
Cheers,
Bernard
It's true - some non professionals turn in digital backs with very low shot counts. In our experience, this is the exception. Most units we accept have a reasonable amount of use. But a busy pro might shoot 2000 frames in a day for days on end, while many non professionals might shoot a landscape scene or a studio project and not take anywhere near the same amount of shots. And that might happen twice a month, or as time allows. Certainly many non professional users are not regular shooters, they may have day jobs or other activities and shoot selectively. In any event, there is plenty of quality work we've seen produced by clients, both professional and non professional. In a lot of cases, some of the best work is often not actively shared by non professionals, we almost have to beat it out of our clients to get them to show us what they're doing. Interestingly, these often end up being some of the most compelling images.
In the spirit of your thread topic - how people are using the IQ3 100 - it has unsurprisingly become my favorite digital back model. While I love the images I've captured with 60mp and 80mp CCD sensors, those generally have been static subjects/environments, and while I appreciate that image quality, I have felt hampered in terms of spontaneity. The IQ3 100 has completely changed that. I love the file latitude and the high ISO performance. But we've already seen similar with the 50mp CMOS sensors. For some reason, I never really warmed to the 50mp, I still would take the 60mp/80mp CCD products out. The IQ3 100 changed that. There is something about the amazing file quality, the latitude of the file, the ability to shoot it in any kind of light, combined with that large sensor and all the details 100 megapixels brings. The combination of all that adds up to killer images, but importantly, many more opportunities to shoot in many more situations.
The attached file is one such example that really wasn't possible for me before the IQ3 100. It's nothing special, but the ability to capture it was a unique experience. Just walking around St Louis, in late afternoon/early evening, close to dusk, hand holding a 100mp camera, shooting at 800/1600 ISO and capturing images that retain amazing detail and sharpness. I almost never have any noise reduction applied at all (I have it turned off by default in C1) - because the noise is so minimal, and the grain so nice looking. And I want to extract every possible amount of resolution and detail.
And cropping capabilities are amazing. Sine I love walking/driving around and just shooting whatever looks interesting to me, the ability to crop after the fact even to the point of creating a completely new and different image out of an existing one is a great added benefit. If I crop 50%, I still have a native, non-scaled 24" x 36" print. If I crop 75%, I still have a native 20" x 24" print.
So - for me, what the IQ3 100 really has done is produce image quality never seen in a capture device in this category, while creating much more versatility and spontaneous opportunities in the environments I like to shoot in. I'm not usually such a "fan" of the products we sell and support, I've always liked them and appreciated them, but the IQ3 100 generates real excitement for me when I'm shooting with it.
Steve Hendrix/CI