Large amount of P1 backs for sales

[Juanito]

Yeah I've been shooting Hasselblad with a Phase One back for a long time. I am set to buy the X2D and make the switch but I will likely keep the H for the time being and run the systems see by side. That also means using Phocus instead of Capture One but really, a raw developer isn't enough to keep me from switching. All I need is a reliable tether connection and the basic exposure colour and curves palette to be honest and Phocus seems pretty decent these days.

Tethering with the X1D is solid and easy. Tether Tools recently came out with longer, heavy duty USB C cable so you're not stuck with the small one that comes with the camera. Phocus is okay. Never really bothered to dig into it though. I use it for capture but then do all of my adjustments in Lightroom. Would love to be able to shoot directly to Lightroom.

[pschefz]

Tethering with the X1D is solid and easy. Tether Tools recently came out with longer, heavy duty USB C cable so you're not stuck with the small one that comes with the camera. Phocus is okay. Never really bothered to dig into it though. I use it for capture but then do all of my adjustments in Lightroom. Would love to be able to shoot directly to Lightroom.

have you tried a "watched folder" option in LR? focus to shoot into a folder and open the files directly in LR.....dont see why that should not work? fuji provides a plug in for LR actually works great and my workflow is all in LR these days anyway, so C1 is not really an issue for me....
Phocus is ok but i would not be surprised DJI pulling the plug on that pretty fast, not sure how much sense it makes to try and compete and put money into a piece of software that wont bring you customers and nobody else can use, especially when everybody really wants to use other software anyway....

[pschefz]

The film comment is probably the most interesting and relevant today I find. It's popularity is continually growing and it's getting to the stage where in some segments of the market it's what is becoming most common. To the point if you're not shooting film then you're not really keeping up.

The H is the last remaining system that allows you to shoot film and digital with the one system and going forward, once we've consumed all the legacy Contax 645's, RZ's, Mamiya 7's and Pentax 67's, then what? Theses cameras are already getting crazy expensive.

it's a little like CD being dead and not coming back.....and records (and record players!) are making a huge comeback....

[ErikKaffehr]

Yes,

But that is because CD-s have been replaced by new technology, like spotify.

Best regards
Erik

it's a little like CD being dead and not coming back.....and records (and record players!) are making a huge comeback....

[eronald]

Regarding the competition between very high-rez SLRs and crop MF,  it is one between fast 24x36 and slowish 33x44 cameras and in the end I think it's a lot about 2/3 or 3/4 aspect ratio.

As the sensors are mostly from the same stable, I would think the 24x36 is competitive with the bigger cam if you want a longish 2/3 format or all those PDAF, eyefocus, 3 frames/sec or frame-from-4K tricks (all useful in fashion), while the 33x44 is a really clear win on image quality if you shoot 3/4 and can live with low fps and slow focus, as in landscape or travel. 

Lastly, the really big sensors are a clear win on anybody in terms of image quality, so I guess they won't go away completely for a long while, especially for anything that is static or aerial - so Phase are going to stay in business with their existing designs and archival solutions for some time even if they muddle up their transition to mirrorless.

Edmund

[pschefz]

Yes,

But that is because CD-s have been replaced by new technology, like spotify.

Best regards
Erik

to get philosophical about it....nobody liked CDs....people had a connection with their albums, staring at a CD cover while its playing just isn't the same....and streaming is just so much more convenient then anything else....
in a way nobody really loved digital MF....i personally never liked 35mm film that much but always loved big negatives....and 645 was always a little bit of a compromise for MF and at this point is pretty much clear that we will never have those big beautiful optical finders we enjoyed in 6x6, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9 film cameras.....there is no reason whatsoever to not have huge EVFs though.....i would much rather have a 100mpix 33x44 sensor with a huge EVF (along with all advantages mirrorless brings) then a 100mpix 645 size optical finder on a system that is 3 x the size, weight and is a **** to focus.....
we can search back in these forums to look for everybody asking for bigger and bigger area sensors.....it hasn't happened and it wont happen now anymore.....
so people shoot film to get the huge negative satisfaction along with a finished look in (or out of) camera....or smaller sensors to get 5 tack sharp shots per sec at f1.4.....or just to get the job done faster because the shot list is 25 these days....not including video...

which btw is another point.....a larger sensor with huge DR shooting 4K is very interesting for the motion crowd which is blowing up as well....and a good camera bringing a little "extra look" to a production under 10K is definitely interesting....
the GFX is very limited because of the sensor but it shoots very, very nice HD....i havent seen the raw files from the X1D but i am sure they are very nice.....and neither camera is made for this, video is a complete afterthought with these 2 but with the next sensors video will be a feature...

[Jeffery Salter]

the only time anyone i know has used an H or phase system is rental....this goes for the last 10(?) years...before that people (including myself) actually owned these things....product and high end car advertising is probably the exception....for all commercial (advertising, fashion, catalog, celebrity...) photography DSLR and lately mirrorless has replaced MF systems for years....one of the reasons is that budgets have been trimmed left and right and it just makes more sense to buy a 3K camera and charge a rental fee and have the thing paid off with a few jobs...much easier then trying to do the same with a 30/40/50k system that is 2 generations old once paid off and really offers no real advantage other then the "wow, we are shooting with a hasselblad" on set....
which brings me to another point: almost everybody i know and most people coming up whose work i admire shoot film....in commercial setting....hipster/analog trend whatever it is or whatever you want to call it....people are doing it and art directors and agencies are eating it up....having a film project going and/or having that pentax 67 on set is the way to go these days....
it used to be that the H or phase systems were sitting on set and everything was really shot with a 5D (I,II,III).....nowadays everything is shot with nikon (and slowly) sony and still a lot of canon.....but the hasselblad on set will be a 500.....and if it is a hasselblad it definitely is a 500 and not a H6 with film back....not retro enough! lots of polaroids (instax is ok) and there I even heard of someone shooting old digital cameras (?!) as in bad old casio and who knows what first gen digitals "for the look"...
mainstream photography sites providing instructions on how to make wet plates for large format shooting!

Hmmm.  I don't know if I agree with any or all of the above.  Just too much picking of specific cases to make a lot of broad claims.  Here are a few of my thoughts on this post.

For example  on "all" commercial ......MFD systems being replaced by 35mm sized DSLRS? 

Charging the client for "rental" on a Canon/ Nikon when the Art director's son/daughter has the same camera?  Perhaps you mean adjusting the overall production equipment budget for a bit of flex to cover them....

What about "ecommerce" studios or celebrity portraiture for movie posters?  Do you think the client of who commissions this type of assignments wants it shot of film?  Highly unlikely. 

Yes it's easy to find specific individuals using film.  The portrait photographer Platon has created a style, using film along with lighting and his ability to connect with the subject and he's hired for that.  Clients will wait because that's why they hired him for.  However I would hardly say "art directors and agencies are eating this up"?  if you can produce compelling imagery or execute interesting concepts which will help the  AD or Ad agencies produce campaigns that make the client's product look great or sell, then it doesn't matter what you shoot.  Sure if you want to have a film camera on set or polaroid cool, but you better back it with a digital camera.  The real truth is once you have lost a client it's extremely difficult to get them back.  Oh.  Blaming the lab, or the delivery service for losing the film or the airline sercurity for fogging the film just won't cut it.

And speaking of the 6x7 Pentax, in the film days, you needed at least three to five on set, in order to keep the shooting flow going, an assistant could keep loading them while you were shooting and it was nice to have a back up camera in the event of a  malfunction.  Not to mention you were limited by the flash sync speed of only 1/30 of a second.  Nonetheless the camera in the right situation could produce some images with a great appeal.   The iconic fashion photographer Bruce Webber produced quite a bit of work with the  Pentax 6 x 7.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I would guess that clients hire photographers on competence.

Best regards
Erik

Hmmm.  I don't know if I agree with any or all of the above.  Just too much picking of specific cases to make a lot of broad claims.  Here are a few of my thoughts on this post.

For example  on "all" commercial ......MFD systems being replaced by 35mm sized DSLRS? 

Charging the client for "rental" on a Canon/ Nikon when the Art director's son/daughter has the same camera?  Perhaps you mean adjusting the overall production equipment budget for a bit of flex to cover them....

What about "ecommerce" studios or celebrity portraiture for movie posters?  Do you think the client of who commissions this type of assignments wants it shot of film?  Highly unlikely. 

Yes it's easy to find specific individuals using film.  The portrait photographer Platon has created a style, using film along with lighting and his ability to connect with the subject and he's hired for that.  Clients will wait because that's why they hired him for.  However I would hardly say "art directors and agencies are eating this up"?  if you can produce compelling imagery or execute interesting concepts which will help the  AD or Ad agencies produce campaigns that make the client's product look great or sell, then it doesn't matter what you shoot.  Sure if you want to have a film camera on set or polaroid cool, but you better back it with a digital camera.  The real truth is once you have lost a client it's extremely difficult to get them back.  Oh.  Blaming the lab, or the delivery service for losing the film or the airline sercurity for fogging the film just won't cut it.

And speaking of the 6x7 Pentax, in the film days, you needed at least three to five on set, in order to keep the shooting flow going, an assistant could keep loading them while you were shooting and it was nice to have a back up camera in the event of a  malfunction.  Not to mention you were limited by the flash sync speed of only 1/30 of a second.  Nonetheless the camera in the right situation could produce some images with a great appeal.   The iconic fashion photographer Bruce Webber produced quite a bit of work with the  Pentax 6 x 7.

[Bo_Dez]

There are commercial projects I would never shoot on film - it's just not right for some things. Also, some clients just want digital.

Medium Format digital is very prevalent in fashion / commercial. No denying film's resurgence though.

I use 35mm digital and film, medium format digital and film and some large format too.

[eronald]

Hi,

I would guess that clients hire photographers on competence.

Best regards
Erik

Sure, just like women buy their clothes for their convenience and durability

Edmund

[Rob C]

Bruce Weber may have a Pentax 67 somewhere, and so did Sante d'Orazio and, unfortunately, for a while so did I. I have watched a video of Peter Lindbergh fighting one slip around the tripod head as he tried doing verticals... That nice Mr Testino also played around with them

My opinion? Unless you used one of the two shuttered lenses, you were fighting yourself. Never mind mirror bounce: the friggin' focal plane shutter was its own worst enemy in that regard.

Frankly, I have become so suspicious of public displays of names using brands that I hardly believe anything I see.

[BernardLanguillier]

The resurgence of vinyl in audio was supported by a huge inflow of turntables, that I would qualify as unheard of even in the grand days of record replay.

I find it very strange that the resurgence of film isn't backed up by innovation in scanning.

Scanning has never been this poor, with existing drum scanners barely surviving thanks to some remaining few skilled technicians, Hasselblad not having releasing anything significant in years and still charging 5 times too much... and Epson continuing to market consumer products to photographers who don't know better. Yes, you can get a decent scan on the latest Epson (I own one), but it is nowhere near what I used to get from my 15 years old SCSI Imacon.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BJL]

The resurgence of vinyl in audio was supported by a huge inflow of turntables, that I would qualify as unheard of even in the grand days of record replay.

I find it very strange that the resurgence of film isn't backed up by innovation in scanning.

Firstly, I suspect that both of these resurgences are more about big year-on-year percentage increases in what are still small numbers. (Sort of like Nikon's recent profits?!)  Secondly, I have no idea of the relative magnitude of these two "comebacks".

Can anyone compare compare vinyl album sales now to say 1983 (when the CD arrived), or film sales to those in 2000?) And are there revenue figures for either of these "historic formats"?

Also, film cameras themselves are scarcely being made, and they are essential whereas a scanner is somewhat optional: maybe a lot of the new film users are purists, using only chemical processes, not scanners? That is the case with the photography students that I see on my campus: a lot of them are silver halide all the way.

[BernardLanguillier]

Firstly, I suspect that both of these resurgences are more about big year-on-year percentage increases in what are still small numbers. (Sort of like Nikon's recent profits?!)  Secondly, I have no idea of the relative magnitude of these two "comebacks".

Can anyone compare compare vinyl album sales now to say 1983 (when the CD arrived), or film sales to those in 2000?) And are there revenue figures for either of these "historic formats"?

Also, film cameras themselves are scarcely being made, and they are essential whereas a scanner is somewhat optional: maybe a lot of the new film users are purists, using only chemical processes, not scanners? That is the case with the photography students that I see on my campus: a lot of them are silver halide all the way.

For the vinyl revival:

- in 1994: 680 millions CDs were sold in the US vs 600,000 vinyls -> ratio of 1,100
- in 2017: 87 millions CDs were sold vs 13 million vinyls -> ratio of 7 (yes, I know, CDs were replaced by downloads and then streaming)

Speaking of vinyls alone, they went from 300,000 in 1993 to 13 millions in 2017, meaning 43 times increase in 25 years.

Today, vinyls represent about 7% of music sales in the US.

I don't have the global figures, but we can probably multiply the US figures by 3.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Juanito]

There are commercial projects I would never shoot on film - it's just not right for some things. Also, some clients just want digital.

Medium Format digital is very prevalent in fashion / commercial. No denying film's resurgence though.

On the streets of NY, every "photographer" under 30 has a film camera slung around their neck. Lot's of old Canon's and Nikons. Saw a kid with a Nikon F3 and motordrive yesterday. That was a brief skip down memory lane. I think for that generation, it's just a cool thing. Plus they can't afford $3,000 DSLRs so they buy a thrift store special and go to town. On the other hand, when it comes to pros, every pro shoot I've seen on the street is all digital. For most pros and most clients, speed and cost is primary. No time nor budget for film. 

[Juanito]

Back on the topic of MF gear... if anyone is interested in getting into MF digital, now's a great time. Been selling my Hasselblad HC lenses and my H5 40 MP camera. I'm getting killed on price. The prices for used HC equipment used to be fairly stable, but the bottom seems to have fallen out now that the X1D is out there. Wish I had sold my gear last year.

ps: If anybody is interested in my camera here's the link: H5-40 with extra batteries. 

[Jim Kasson]

Back on the topic of MF gear... if anyone is interested in getting into MF digital, now's a great time. Been selling my Hasselblad HC lenses and my H5 40 MP camera. I'm getting killed on price. The prices for used HC equipment used to be fairly stable, but the bottom seems to have fallen out now that the X1D is out there. Wish I had sold my gear last year.

ps: If anybody is interested in my camera here's the link: H5-40 with extra batteries.

I sold my HxD bodies and HC lenses a couple of months after the GFX came out, and I was amazed at how much I got for them. I guess things have deteriorated since then.

Jim

[Bo_Dez]

On the streets of NY, every "photographer" under 30 has a film camera slung around their neck. Lot's of old Canon's and Nikons. Saw a kid with a Nikon F3 and motordrive yesterday. That was a brief skip down memory lane. I think for that generation, it's just a cool thing. Plus they can't afford $3,000 DSLRs so they buy a thrift store special and go to town. On the other hand, when it comes to pros, every pro shoot I've seen on the street is all digital. For most pros and most clients, speed and cost is primary. No time nor budget for film.

Film is the dominant look in fashion for at least 5 years now.

Even the cheapo newspapers are adding film rebates to their pictures. I saw one on the weekend that had a social event with flash on camera with a 4x5 rebate that read ISO 64. 

Conversely it's interesting that the old Film Guard like Juergen Teller and Tim Walker are now shooting Digital.

RZ and Pentax 67 are the most popular. It's irrelevant what the flash sync of the Pentax 67 is because it's nearly all continuous light now anyway. The Pentax 67 is perfectly suited to fashion and the lenses are stunning.

There's no telling how long it will stay like this but most said it was a flash in the pan and wouldn't last. But then, there are others saying that digital photography has had it's day and people had fatigued with all the hideous photoshop that was happening. Nothing was believable anymore and people got tired of fake.

Either way, I think it's refreshing to see someone like Petra Collins shooting all these big campaigns and editorials on a very old and simple Minolta 35mm camera.

[Rob C]

Film is the dominant look in fashion for at least 5 years now.

Even the cheapo newspapers are adding film rebates to their pictures. I saw one on the weekend that had a social event with flash on camera with a 4x5 rebate that read ISO 64. 

Conversely it's interesting that the old Film Guard like Juergen Teller and Tim Walker are now shooting Digital.

RZ and Pentax 67 are the most popular. It's irrelevant what the flash sync of the Pentax 67 is because it's nearly all continuous light now anyway. The Pentax 67 is perfectly suited to fashion and the lenses are stunning.

There's no telling how long it will stay like this but most said it was a flash in the pan and wouldn't last. But then, there are others saying that digital photography has had it's day and people had fatigued with all the hideous photoshop that was happening. Nothing was believable anymore and people got tired of fake.

Either way, I think it's refreshing to see someone like Petra Collins shooting all these big campaigns and editorials on a very old and simple Minolta 35mm camera.

But don't you think the Petra Effect is all about style, regardless of camera?

I did all my distant career on film; today, starting over, it wouldn't make sense for me, anymore than it finally did for Lindbergh. He can make his Nikon pix look any way that he wants them to look.

If you are talking about an ultimate fate as a gallery print, on WSG, then yeah, film is a great idea. But, for commercial reproduction? It's pretty much a conceit, nada mas.

Rob

[Bo_Dez]

But don't you think the Petra Effect is all about style, regardless of camera?

I did all my distant career on film; today, starting over, it wouldn't make sense for me, anymore than it finally did for Lindbergh. He can make his Nikon pix look any way that he wants them to look.

If you are talking about an ultimate fate as a gallery print, on WSG, then yeah, film is a great idea. But, for commercial reproduction? It's pretty much a conceit, nada mas.

Rob

The current dominant aesthetic is film.

Fashion photography has always been about style. Petra has a genuine sensibility to her work that is also tied in with her aesthetic and the camera she uses. Same for Harley Weir who is mostly responsible for the change in aesthetic that fashion has gone though.

Like I said earlier, there are some commercial projects I wouldn't consider on film and there are some clients that wouldn't entertain the possibility of film either.