Well, it appears that the architectural guys, the still life guys, the landscape guys, the car guys, and the food guys now have their back, either in the Phase 60 or the Hasselblad 50. They're happy as clams, I'm sure. If you're only shooting fifty frames a day, who cares if every frame you shoot is 300megs of storage. And obviously, the sports guys and the wedding guys have their 1dsIII or their D3, so they seem happy too.
But what about the people shooters who do location advertising, or editorial, or fashion, but who also prefer to shoot medium format? I still insist that the perfect system has not been devised. There is a Sweet Spot in the development of this camera. We're not there yet. There's money to be made. Please, somebody design this camera/back/software:
* About 28-30 megapixels. That's all we need. Seriously. We're throwing away most of the data already, even from the Canon or the P21, when it comes time to size for repro size. Make a big sensor well, or whatever it's called, to reduce noise or diffraction, but only give us 28-30mp. Anything else will get thrown away.
* Multi point autofocus. Personally, I manually focus everything, everyone seems to want multi point autofocus, so that should be added to the list.
* One frame per second, minimum. We don't need a Canon/Red motor drive at 24fps, but we do need to capture spontaneity, so no slower than one frame per second.
* Process in any software. No more of this Hasselblad craziness, with whatever they're doing that forces you to convert all those files before you can open them. Make the file where you can easily open it in ACR, Lightroom, CaptureOne, Raw Developer, or whatever. More more Hocus Phocus.
* Easy operation. Make it fast and intuitive, like a Canon or a Nikon. Personally, I'd love to see this body be a unibody, with no removeable back, but many would not agree with me. I just want to be "turn it on, pop in a card, format it, and start shooting". One power switch; one set of batteries.
* Full frame 645. Yes, full frame, like the P65, but only 28-30 megapixles. No cardboard masks, no hyped-up reduced finders. Just full-frame 645.
* ASA ranges from 25-1600. You need 25 in order to do flash fill outside with Profotos, but you also need 1600 in case you find a great window in the back of a dark warehouse. No idea if this is technically possible, but the truth is the truth: we need 25-1600, in one back. Please figure it out. (Edit, see post #49 later in this thread. Appears that 25-1600 is reaching for the moon, so let's reduce the dream to maybe ASA 50-800. I listed the ASA ranges to show the two radically different types of photographers -- fill-flash-bring-down-the-sky guys, and Available Darkness guys).
* A great LCD, like the Nikon. I think Hasselblad is starting to understand about the importance of the LCD. Obviously Phase does not. If that P65 was five hundred dollars, I'd never buy it, due to the LCD quality. What they don't understand is: If you've got a usable, really good, DAMN good LCD, you could actually shoot a real job, with a real art director, without a $1500-a-day Digital Tech. You could actually bring the AD over to the back of the camera, point to it, maybe even zoom in, and say to him/her, "Hey, this is what I'm shooting, check it out". I wonder if Phase even understands this issue; that we have to get a shot approved. That it's just not us, standing behind the back, looking at a histogram, knowing that we're not clipping endpoints and knowing that we can deal with it in post. We've generally got a lot of money on the line, and it's us, standing in some tick-infested field somewhere, sweating, in bright sunlight, with a motor home, four C-Stands, three Profoto packs, and we're balancing strobe to ambient, and you NEED a trustable LCD to be able to SEE the relationship of the Strobe to the Ambient. And in this challenged economy that we're all in, sometimes it's hard to justify adding in a Digital Tech, for multiple days, not to mention all the ball-and-chain he adds, with his cart, and his G5, and his multiple Eizo monitors, and his Honda generators. Sometimes, honestly, you'd love to just be able to shoot a real job without a Tech. I know I would. I have nothing against Techs, but once they drag their DogPonyShow onto the set, something just changes. And for me, not in a good way. I would pay thousands of dollars extra for a camera that had an LCD that was about 4 inches or so, with great great color, and tight resolution. I have not seen the Nikon D3 screen, but everyone raves about it. It seems to be the only game in town, seriously. It needs to be roughly the same size as an old 669 Polaroid; big enough for a nervous art director to look at, and say, "Ok, I get it, it looks great, let's shoot". Anything short of that, and it's simply a failure. What Phase needs to hear, and what Sinar needs to hear, and what Leaf needs to hear is: Add an extra battery, if battery life is shorter with a good LCD. Yes, megapixels are important, (but only up to a certain point), but MORE THAN ANYTHING, a really usable LCD is just absolutely essential. Until they make an LCD that's four inches across, all of these backs are, for the most part, unusable by a location photographer. My opinion is that people will, more and more, migrate to Nikon and Canon MERELY for the LCD alone. (I know I did).
Edit: * A leaf shutter body, with flash sync at 1/500th or so. I'm adding this, from another suggestion. It could be that the days of focal plane shutter bodies are just in the past. Everyone seems jazzed about how the H bodies sync at 800th. Maybe that is what is needed from now on. No more focal plane.
Edit: * More Canned Presets/Profiles/Styles. Of course you'd have the standard white balances, ie Strobe, Daylight, Tungsten, etc, but I'd also love a submenu for Skin Tone presets as well. I'd love about ten Skin presets alone. Maybe you'd call them Presets, or Styles, or whatever, but I'd love these companies to ship a back that nails skin tone right out of the box. I know with Canon, they tend to skew red, and with Phase as well; always fighting red in skin tone. I just wonder if these companies tweak their color with a bunch of brightly colored packages thrown down on a table, lit by strobe, and they're going for that punchy color. But I find that, with skin, it's a very skilled science, to fight that color crossover from yellow to magenta.
Edit: * A back that shoots embedded previews large enough for a web gallery. (I don't know how many times I can edit this post, but as people respond here with good points, I'm adding them). Yes, there is nothing more frustrating than shooting a three day lifestyle job on location, (without a tech in tow), and then as you're packing the van at the end of the job, the AD comes up to you with that congratulatory beer in his hand, and says, "OK, we're outta here, we're headed to the bar. And oh by the way, this job is pretty hot; we'd just love to see web galleries by tomorrow afternoon, to begin the edit". It's at that point that you realize that you've now got to batch three days of eight setups per day, from the RAW into a 1200x900 sRGB JPG. So let's just mention: You won't be joining him in the bar.
----------
I know that this is a medium format forum, and everyone seems to get upset at the mention of anything 35, but, if the truth were known, I think that there is a race toward this Sweet Spot Camera; something that balances speed and ease of use and portability, with high resolution. In my honest opinion, Canon and Nikon are winning that race. When this 24MP Nikon comes out, I think a lot of MF companies are going to be nervous. I think Phase and Hasselblad are clearly choosing their market segment, and recent announcements seem to show that they're not choosing Location/Portable photographers; they're going for the studio guys, and the dog/pony show guys. Or, they're going for the Clueless Photographer Who Always Rents From A Tech, who generally thinks, "More Megapixels are Always Better".
All I'm attempting to do here is to hold up a flag to these MF companies, and say, "Hey, don't forget the Location Photographers".
