You can't do That with medium format

[darylgo]

Photography only gets better with each passing year, today we can shoot film or digital, choose whatever format and we have access to quality results that could only be dreamed several years ago.  My scanned Nikon F3 Velvia slide yields a pretty decent print.  My Canon Digital trumps F3/Velvia and MFDB trumps my Canon full frame digital.  The Canon and F3/Velvia look pretty darn good but James Martin summed it up so well in the last sentence "When I zoom into an image and it holds together at each step, there’s a thrill I can’t relinquish."  What is not said is that a pixel is not a pixel, they aren't created equal, i.e. we can't assign quality based on numbers of pixels, each and every digtial medium format photographer knows this.  Those medium format pixels are less limited not only in quantity but quality also, they're characteristically more maleable for lack of a better term.  Large format film photography has a beauty that is unmatched, and so too medium format digital.  Inherent in any camera system (format) are strengths and weaknesses, the strengths can be mastered to yield exceptional results and weaknesses can be overcome with practice and familiarity of the equipment and the situation.  This is what James is saying, he has overcome the weaknesses of medium format digital.  For those that say horses for courses, I agree, but it doesn't mean we can't adapt and overcome the limitations with practice and......preparation, when we do we get those rich photographs that gives the thrill.

[Wayne Fox]

And after spending some time with Mark Dubovoy I've come to appreciate the compact and light weight nature of tech cameras and lenses...but the thing I still don't like is the limitation of ground glass/back swapping you have to do. For classic landscape type work that wouldn't be so bad and in the studio is easy, but a lot of what I'm shooting with the P1 system and 1Ds MIII isn't quite so easy to do with a tech camera. So, I'm still on the fence...

This indeed as been the most challenging aspect of using the Alpa, especially for a person such as myself who has never used a view camera or technical camera.  Of course, being a zoom lens addict also adds another level of learning (something which I need to do anyway since I left the world of portrait photography and now pretty much do only landscape)

Most of the time I don't even try to switch to the ground glass, but just get rough cropping with the viewfinder and fine tune with exposures which I delete.  I'm also having a little trouble adjusting to the look delivered by the lenses (although the sharpness is quite amazing).

Overall its a slower more deliberate process, which isn't really a bad thing, forcing one to previsualize and be a little more disciplined when choosing subject matter. I'm sure it will get faster, but I'm still taking the Phase camera gear when I'm not sure what the opportunities will be.

I hardly ever use the canon gear anymore.

[ondebanks]

It's always the same nonsense, going in circles, and has no relevance to pro photography .

This forum is not reserved for professionals. Read the rubric.

these uneducated amateur gear whores are just a waste of space .

I'm an educated amateur gear whore - and proud of it. Does being educated make me an acceptable use of space? I only ask because the laws of physics may be different in your exalted "pro" dimension.

[Fritzer]

This forum is not reserved for professionals. Read the rubric.

The forum title suggests the discussion is supposed to be about Digital Backs .
What can someone without DB experience possibly contribute ?

[Fritzer]

With talent possibilities are endless. Slap some good business with talent and you have a raging bull blowing through the status quo of established shooters.

It might surprise you, but most 'established shooters' started with nothing but cheap gear, and talent . If there was such a thing.

I'm not sure why we have mirrors anymore. 4/3 cameras have shown there's no need.

- There are mirrors for the same reason they were introduced in the first place - and because noone has developed a competitive design yet.
- Countless cameras in all formats have shown there is no need for SLR designs - unless you need what it has to offer.
  With digital, it's different, but again noone could be bothered to develop proper EVs, and everything else that could rival SLRs .

Genuinely, I'd like to see the work from fritzer.

Nope .

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

The following was number one on a Google search for Fritzer.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fritzer&defid=1013249

[Rob C]

Heaven forbid someone comes along with more talent, that's truly what any entrenched pro fears.

John, I don't honestly think so.

What he/she fears is the price cutting that will force him/her to do one of two things: match it; give up.

Talent is not reserved to either am or pro; that's hardly in dispute anywhere. It is money that the pro cannot fight, or fight without. That's the hard reality of the business.

There are a zillion other personal issues, not least a sense of unfairness where experience can be, and often is, replaced by cheapness, quality being largely in the eye of the beholder, a beholder who is often part-blinded by accountants and/or personal issues of his own.

A pro faces competition from his peers from the moment he hangs up his shingle; it isn't competition that is feared, rather it becomes a spur to better work; it is financial murder that kills and breeds the hatred which, often, does exist between the species. And even within the same one, more than some think.

Rob C

[Fritzer]

The following was number one on a Google search for Fritzer.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fritzer&defid=1013249

hehehe   

[rgmoore]

An acquaintance of mine, Richard Blair, was working as a full time professional commercial photographer in San Francisco with a $3000 day rate. A few years ago after over three decades in the business he lost his corporate clients almost overnight to young "talent" willing to work for $500 day rate. Currently he is surviving at least in part from sales of self published books on California and the Bay Area.

From gear point of view, in the film days he used to shoot with 8x10 Sinar and Hasselblad V, but digital work is all Canon. I asked him about it recently, and he feels that MFDB would not help him sell more books or prints.

[Fritzer]

Expected that from reading your posts for some time now. Stand up guy you are. Curmudgeon is the word for the day.

Just keep quoting out of context, choosing the parts that don't overwhelm you, and Bob's your uncle .

To abuse the famous quote : When I wake up in the morning, I'll be sober - but you will still be ingorant .

But by all means, at least do a little reading, and understand why we are still using the exact same camera techonlogy from some 50 years ago.

And begging your pardon if I missed that before : what DB and camera system are you using ?

[Nick Rains]

Heaven forbid someone comes along with more talent, that's truly what any entrenched pro fears. With talent possibilities are endless. Slap some good business with talent and you have a raging bull blowing through the status quo of established shooters.

Talent has a lot less to do with success in the word of pro photography than many people think. A competent photographer with an excellent business brain will do far better than the converse. The 'Pro' bit of the title refers to 'business' not creativity, talent, flair, mojo or whatever.

I have absolutely no fear of talent - I see heaps of this in the club competitions that I judge.

[Alex MacPherson]

These types of discussions remind me of a scene from the movie "Ronin"
where the wannabe Spense quizzes the veteran Sam on weapons.

All you have to do substitute "camera"  for "weapons"

Spense: l'm a... l'm a weapons man. So what do you favour ?

Sam:    Well, you know. lt's a toolbox. You put the tools in for the job.


At the end of the day, it's a TOOL. I don't know anyone who works with tools that uses
just one kind. You use the right tool for the job.

[Nick Rains]

Indeed, but there's the rub, a lot of folks seem to have trouble deciding what is the right tool for the job. Or try and force the tool that they have to do everything.

[Rob C]

Indeed, but there's the rub, a lot of folks seem to have trouble deciding what is the right tool for the job. Or try and force the tool that they have to do everything.

But Nick, in some heads that equates with quality... you know, medium format digi for everything, regardless of ergonomics and suitability. If it can be done, then I damn well will do it with that thing I spent half my capital buying!

;-)

The base problem is that I'm not really convinced that the format analogy between the film culture format/expectation and the assumed parallel one within the digital world of formats really is relevant. Apart from different receptors of the light, the characteristic of workable apertures is also rather skewed - remember, with large format film, very small apartures were usually where you went, which is why you could find f64. No digi that I've heard of goes there... or should.

To conclude, I think a whole new sense of photography has to be learned, probably an easier matter for those without an extensive earlier knowledge.

Rob C

[fredjeang]

Very true. The right tool is much better than a cucumber.

Or, sometimes what was the right tool at one point can become easily the tomorrow's cucumber.  

[Dick Roadnight]

The forum title suggests the discussion is supposed to be about Digital Backs .
What can someone without DB experience possibly contribute ?

People interested in changing to MFD from LF or SFD can ask questions about the benefits of MF, but that is different to repeatedly trying to convince people who have MF kit, or are thinking of getting into MF, that it is a waste of money and space.

[Rob C]

"Jumping into the water."

I often think about that too, Fred. I was only able to get a job in industrial photography (only, means damn lucky, in fact, for too many reasons to enter into here) but my mind was ever on fashion. I was even told it was far too late for me; that nobody outside London did it - all sorts of encouraging stuff!

The one thing that never occurred to me was this: since you haven't worked for a fashion shoooter, what makes you think you can do it?

I just never had that thought; I did it my way and it worked. I think that's probably the best way of all; you don't know enough of how another guy does it to become his poor clone; all you can do is keep buying Vogue, Harper's and (then) Nova and also, best of the lot, Linea Italiana (which seemed impossible to buy - they only became available to me via a manager in House of Fraser). That way, you know how good you have to get, not how to copy. If those mags didn't move you, baby, you were dead!

I watched a few moment of Bloomberg today; a prof from Harvard Business School made a wonderful remark: just get out there and follow your heart; do what you want to do and start a great company! There is no other way; it will not fall in your lap.

Rob C

[Alex MacPherson]

just get out there and follow your heart; do what you want to do and start a great company! There is no other way; it will not fall in your lap.

Rob C

Great quote!

[Rob C]

Great quote!

Like your pictures, Alex, especially the black/whites!

Rob C

[Dick Roadnight]

...the time spent in building mentally and then technically the creative part of the photography is much bigger and important than the shooting itself and whatever camera involved.

I agree... and I have been in part-time or full time pro photo for much of the last 40 years, in addition to being a keen freelance/amateur wildlife/travel photographer.

There are a lot of people who have inverted this process. If it works good for them, fine. It does not work good for me.
I could be happy with any camera, MF included of course.

I have been happy with Kodak Instamatic, Zenith, Practika, Nikon, Mamiya, Hassy film systems, Sinar... and I have spent years on eBay buying bits towards setting up a Medium Format Digital View Camera system

Think also that the situation in europe is very different. I'm european, and here there is not this democratised market about landscape that exists in the US. It just does not work. Mass culture is basically street photography, not landscape. The normal way in europe are very few art galleries that generally are not accessible to the average. In the US, you sell well landscapes, there is a big market for that, so then for the MF products.

I too, am European, and I would like to reap the Euro market for quality landscape.

Most galleries I have come across would rather hang photographers that photographs.

One gallery owner said:

"A photograph is just what happened to be in front of the photographer when he pressed the button"

One methodology would be to take photos in Europe and market them in the US?

There is competition in the US, but there is a market.

My Father said that he could not understand how anyone could be a good car driver I they had not had experience driving a horse and cart,,, but I do appreciate that it would be possible for someone to become a good digital photographer without having mastered film.