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Author Topic: Ideal MF system for Location/Portable Advertising  (Read 119732 times)

James R Russell

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Ideal MF system for Location/Portable Advertising
« Reply #220 on: July 28, 2008, 10:06:07 am »

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I talked to Phase regional rep years ago, right after buying the P25, at my place. P25, well, yes, that was many years ago. I held up my 1ds1 and my P25, and I asked the guy, "Which camera LCD would you base a $50k P.O. on, if it was your ass on the line?" He says something like, "Yeah, we know that our LCD needs some work".

That's why I started this thread -- here were are now with the P65+ announced, and in effect, very little gaining of ground except for megapixels. Same box; same LCD. (When, truth be told, the P25, years ago, offered more than enough megapixels for myself and for untold number of colleagues).

That's why I brought this up here, publicly -- to ask, "Is it me, or are these companies putting their feature emphasis in the wrong places? Most of us throwing away over 50% of the file for reproduction, and yet, if we shoot the back on location, we can't make out anything on the LCD in terms of higher values."

I just feel like I'm in that gap between 35 and MF -- wanting to shoot the MF lenses, but simply not willing to put up with the workarounds and excuses. (Actually, not really excuses -- mostly, just dead silence).

That's why, for me, I simply bailed on MF, and bought two 1ds3's and some film Hasselblads. The time was up. I voted with my pocketbook, and urge you all to do the same.
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It doesn't take an economist to work the numbers and come down to the point that a $20,000 upgrade or $40,000 back purchase is a lot of investment.

Maybe these new backs are worth it, time will tell, but I know that for that kind of money I want the people that pay me to be bowled over by the results, from capture to delivery.

At this price you would assume that the camera back would have few compromises, but I'm not a digital engineer so I don't know if it's possible to make the camera some of us are looking for.

The p65+, the new Hasselblad and whatever/whoever else makes a new back, may be the very best equipment possible given the resource and the price.

The lcd and the in camera preview is something few of us can answer so I guess we have to take the word of the manufacturer's that this is the best possible.

I do know that the proprietary nature of medium format isn't a technical issue, it's a business decision and I am positive this is where medium format limits itself and is developing a self fullfilling prophecy or low volume, high price.

Even putting up with the limitations of the lcd would be a lot easier to take if your original p25 would fit on any camera you chose, including the Hasselblad F, the Rolleiflex, a Contax, a V system . . .

You have to kind of wonder where all of this is going.  

The RED, in still phtography terms is an expensive system, but they knew that it would make no sense to limit it to just RED lenses.  Almost any lens that was made for 35mm cinema film cameras will fit on the RED and if you want to work the bargain basement you can mount 35mm Nikon lenses.

That's a huge option.

JR
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Khun_K

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Ideal MF system for Location/Portable Advertising
« Reply #221 on: July 29, 2008, 01:10:20 pm »

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It doesn't take an economist to work the numbers and come down to the point that a $20,000 upgrade or $40,000 back purchase is a lot of investment.

Maybe these new backs are worth it, time will tell, but I know that for that kind of money I want the people that pay me to be bowled over by the results, from capture to delivery.

At this price you would assume that the camera back would have few compromises, but I'm not a digital engineer so I don't know if it's possible to make the camera some of us are looking for.

The p65+, the new Hasselblad and whatever/whoever else makes a new back, may be the very best equipment possible given the resource and the price.

The lcd and the in camera preview is something few of us can answer so I guess we have to take the word of the manufacturer's that this is the best possible.

I do know that the proprietary nature of medium format isn't a technical issue, it's a business decision and I am positive this is where medium format limits itself and is developing a self fullfilling prophecy or low volume, high price.

Even putting up with the limitations of the lcd would be a lot easier to take if your original p25 would fit on any camera you chose, including the Hasselblad F, the Rolleiflex, a Contax, a V system . . .

You have to kind of wonder where all of this is going.   

The RED, in still phtography terms is an expensive system, but they knew that it would make no sense to limit it to just RED lenses.  Almost any lens that was made for 35mm cinema film cameras will fit on the RED and if you want to work the bargain basement you can mount 35mm Nikon lenses.

That's a huge option.

JR
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The discussion of the importance over the LCD on the digital back makes me wonder how do we shoot pictures before such thing. I think digital back is more forgivable in this regard because their value is to shoot high quality raw file, I would not rely on checking the LCD all the time for sharpness, it slows down the work. I prefer to trade for more power for operation.  The biggest benefit for the LCD for me was to have a quick check on the exposure and histogram and get back to work quickly.  

I guess all the gentlemen moving from medium to larger format to digital all have good idea about the focus (from viewfinder, at the time pressing the shutter) and DOF and exposure.  View camera or Alpa type camera is another story.

My take on the ideal MF system for location and advertising is the camera we have today, perhaps a bit faster, but I find shooting on my P45+ and H3D39 on CF cards is already very convenient, and acceptable speed. I think if we can have a battery pack with reliable high speed transmitter and can power the firewire port and at the same time getting the digital file sent wirelessly will be nice.  For above ISO 400, I will retire the back and use 1Ds MK3 as back up.
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