DIGITAL Medium Format photography is almost as moribund???

[FredBGG]

Hi Bernard,

Since we had the first camera to offer live view in 1996 and as we often use it as a USP for our backs I cannot disagree that this is a very handy tool. But it is far from being essential to delivering high quality images and it is not always useful (moving subjects etc.)

Yair

I'll take live view auto focusing on the D800 compared to the slow inaccurate auto focusing of the DF anyday even for moving subjects.


Also if we really want to be sticklers the first cameras with "live view" were video cameras that shot stills.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I agree with Bernard. Live view at actual pixels is accurate, AF and manual focus less so.

Best regards
Erik

Yair,

My view is that this applies to all high res cameras. Live view is the only way to get 100% focused images every single time.

Does it means it is impossible to get a sharp image with a back? Of course it doesn't.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I don't feel there is a need to question Bernards credibility. He is entitled to his opinion and he is not on any vendor's pay list. It just that his opinion differs from yours.

Regarding the Pentax 645D, I got the impression that it is a robust and workable camera with excellent weather sealing. It is not intended for studio work and the sensor is built in. That gives less flexibility. Pentax can also probably draw on electronics from the K-series.

It's really for the customer to decide which platform suits their needs best, Leica S, Phase, Leaf or Pentax.

Your definition of the professional market may be a bit to narrow. You think all professionals shoot tethered?

Best regards
Erik

I respect you man but this statement takes away a lot of your credibility, sorry for being blunt...

The 645D was not designed as a true professional camera, hence to low-ish price point, the lack of usable tethering solution and slow previews on the LCD. It does not mean it is not a good camera but it was not targeted at the professional market.

IMHO

Yair

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Fred,

I don't know if Hasselblad has a problem. Perhaps they have a problem, perhaps they have no problem, or may be they even have have multiple problems.

I'm familiar with 24 MP APS-C sensors, as I have been shooting one for about a year. It is quite correct that scaled up to full frame it would be 54 MP. On the other hand, it is not all about resolution. To make use of all those pixels we need very good lenses. It's about the whole system. Also, a larger sensor will collect more photons and will therefore have less noise if the image is optimally exposed "to the right". It may be that modern CMOS has made enough gain in FWC (Full Well Capacity) to compensate for the larger size of the MF sensors.

There may be other, more subjective, factors for using MF. As long as customers buy Hassleblad and Phase One products it is just fine. If the customer find that their money would be spent wiser on competing products, that is also fine.

Best regards
Erik

Hasselblad has a problem.

Nikon just came pout with a 24mp crop sensor DSLR. The same sensor technology scaled up to a full frame
would be over 50MP .

The D700 was 12 MP the D800 is 36MP and with significantly improved dynamic range.
That is a 3x MP count increase in one generation. Hasselblad made zero MP count increase from the H4D to the H5D.

MF sensor development has come to a standstill in both Hasselblad and Phase/Mamiya/Leaf.

Dalsa that makes MF sensors no longer mentions MF photography under the list of applications of it's products.

[FredBGG]

Hi Fred,

......

There may be other, more subjective, factors for using MF. As long as customers buy Hassleblad and Phase One products it is just fine.......

Best regards
Erik

If things were going so well Shriro the ex owner of Hasselblad would not have sold it off.
Keep in mind that Shriro was also the distributor for Hasselblad in the fast growing oriental markets.
If the numbers were there it would have kept Hasselblad. The problem is that the sales of MF Digital
are in decline and the quality level in 35mm DSLRs is growing very fast. New emerging photographers and markets are not already
invested in MFD so they go for high end 35mm DSLR for the most part.

The other problem is development resources and what investors are willing to put into Hasselblad.
I think that the moves Ventiz made are a good indication that they wanted to cash in on the brand and the
Lunar was their big move in that direction. The big mistake was that outside of the pro and small enthusiasts market
the Hasselblad brand does not carry the weight they expected. Hasselblad has been borrowing (paying for) other peoples brands for a while
thus effectively weakening it's own. Pimping the Nex to make the god awful Lunar was the nail in the coffin
for the Hasselblad brand. In the age of the internet you don't
recover from that sort of fiasco very easily.

Shriro in the mean time is doing very well with it's investments in it's See's Chocolates buisness.
Shriro sells 100% of Hasselblad share and makes investments in See's chocolates

It is also very interesting that Shriro is the Pentax distributor in some markets.

http://www.seescandies.jp/fs/seescandies/c/

[erstwhile]

That's interesting trivia, thanks for sharing. Having grown up in California, See's was always a favorite (and still is). They're really very good chocolates, and the stores typically hand out lots of free samples.

If things were going so well Shriro the ex owner of Hasselblad would not have sold it off.
Keep in mind that Shriro was also the distributor for Hasselblad in the fast growing oriental markets.
If the numbers were there it would have kept Hasselblad. The problem is that the sales of MF Digital
are in decline and the quality level in 35mm DSLRs is growing very fast. New emerging photographers and markets are not already
invested in MFD so they go for high end 35mm DSLR for the most part.

The other problem is development resources and what investors are willing to put into Hasselblad.
I think that the moves Ventiz made are a good indication that they wanted to cash in on the brand and the
Lunar was their big move in that direction. The big mistake was that outside of the pro and small enthusiasts market
the Hasselblad brand does not carry the weight they expected. Hasselblad has been borrowing (paying for) other peoples brands for a while
thus effectively weakening it's own. Pimping the Nex to make the god awful Lunar was the nail in the coffin
for the Hasselblad brand. In the age of the internet you don't
recover from that sort of fiasco very easily.

Shriro in the mean time is doing very well with it's investments in it's See's Chocolates buisness.
Shriro sells 100% of Hasselblad share and makes investments in See's chocolates

It is also very interesting that Shriro is the Pentax distributor in some markets.

http://www.seescandies.jp/fs/seescandies/c/

[BJL]

There is an important difference bewen film and digital for the larger, high end formats: a new film emulsion from major film makers could routinely be coated onto films in many formats, from mainstream up to 120, 4”x5” and beyond, but new photosite designs do not scale up nearly as easily, and in fact the companies at the cutting edge of sensor design are so far not scaling beyond 36x24mm. That greatly increases the ecomomies of scale gap, and contributes to the far greater price gap.

[sgilbert]

"Shriro in the mean time is doing very well with it's investments in it's See's Chocolates buisness.
Shriro sells 100% of Hasselblad share and makes investments in See's chocolates."

Really?  Exactly how well are they doing?  See's seems to think that they're owned by Berkshire Hathaway.  http://www.sees.com/index.cfm/about_us/history 

[Doug Peterson]

The problem is that the sales of MF Digital are in decline and the quality level in 35mm DSLRs is growing very fast. New emerging photographers and markets are not already invested in MFD so they go for high end 35mm DSLR for the most part.

Just to correct some misinformation FredBGG always likes to present as facts...

Sales for Team Phase One (Leaf, Mamiya, Phase One) are up several years in a row now. I strongly expect this year to continue that trend.

From my observation of them Leica and Pentax's entries into medium format have both met moderate success, and given that they are new to the market they can only be considered increases/expansions from several years ago.

[Steve Hendrix]

If things were going so well Shriro the ex owner of Hasselblad would not have sold it off.
Keep in mind that Shriro was also the distributor for Hasselblad in the fast growing oriental markets.
If the numbers were there it would have kept Hasselblad. The problem is that the sales of MF Digital
are in decline and the quality level in 35mm DSLRs is growing very fast. New emerging photographers and markets are not already
invested in MFD so they go for high end 35mm DSLR for the most part.

The other problem is development resources and what investors are willing to put into Hasselblad.
I think that the moves Ventiz made are a good indication that they wanted to cash in on the brand and the
Lunar was their big move in that direction. The big mistake was that outside of the pro and small enthusiasts market
the Hasselblad brand does not carry the weight they expected. Hasselblad has been borrowing (paying for) other peoples brands for a while
thus effectively weakening it's own. Pimping the Nex to make the god awful Lunar was the nail in the coffin
for the Hasselblad brand. In the age of the internet you don't
recover from that sort of fiasco very easily.

Shriro in the mean time is doing very well with it's investments in it's See's Chocolates buisness.
Shriro sells 100% of Hasselblad share and makes investments in See's chocolates

It is also very interesting that Shriro is the Pentax distributor in some markets.

http://www.seescandies.jp/fs/seescandies/c/

Prove it.



Steve Hendrix
Capture Integration

[JohnCox123]

If things were going so well Shriro the ex owner of Hasselblad would not have sold it off.
Keep in mind that Shriro was also the distributor for Hasselblad in the fast growing oriental markets.
If the numbers were there it would have kept Hasselblad. The problem is that the sales of MF Digital
are in decline and the quality level in 35mm DSLRs is growing very fast. New emerging photographers and markets are not already
invested in MFD so they go for high end 35mm DSLR for the most part.

The other problem is development resources and what investors are willing to put into Hasselblad.
I think that the moves Ventiz made are a good indication that they wanted to cash in on the brand and the
Lunar was their big move in that direction. The big mistake was that outside of the pro and small enthusiasts market
the Hasselblad brand does not carry the weight they expected. Hasselblad has been borrowing (paying for) other peoples brands for a while
thus effectively weakening it's own. Pimping the Nex to make the god awful Lunar was the nail in the coffin
for the Hasselblad brand. In the age of the internet you don't
recover from that sort of fiasco very easily.

Shriro in the mean time is doing very well with it's investments in it's See's Chocolates buisness.
Shriro sells 100% of Hasselblad share and makes investments in See's chocolates

It is also very interesting that Shriro is the Pentax distributor in some markets.

http://www.seescandies.jp/fs/seescandies/c/

Keep in mind that at that time Leica was going belly up. The identity crisis in the industry is over now.

[Schewe]

Barrie Davis wrote:

Apparently, Barrie Davis is a professional poster to DP Review as he has posted 19,990 times when he posted the message you referenced...

about 20K posts does not an expert make, ya know?

Just sayin'

We have our own problems here on LuLa, we seriously don't need DP Review crap here as well.

[FredBGG]

Prove it.

Steve Hendrix
Capture Integration

Well things were not looking good even quite a few years ago when competition from 35MM DSLRs was not as strong as it is today.

According to CIPA (of which Mamiya is a memeber) in 2005 only 5,842 medium format cameras were manufactured.
And that included Pentax, Fuji, Mamiya, Contax.

Sales...

2005   7,950 Cameras (over 2,000 of them comming from unsold 2004 stock).
2004 10,507 Cameras
2003 18,006 Cameras

Sales less than halved in two years.

CIPA no longer publishes medium format numbers on it's main website.



 

 

[FredBGG]

Just to correct some misinformation FredBGG always likes to present as facts...

Sales for Team Phase One (Leaf, Mamiya, Phase One) are up several years in a row now. I strongly expect this year to continue that trend.

From my observation of them Leica and Pentax's entries into medium format have both met moderate success, and given that they are new to the market they can only be considered increases/expansions from several years ago.

Being that the cameras are made by Mamiya and that Mamiya is a CIPA member it should be easy for them to supply some numbers.
I wonder why they don't.
Nikon and Canon report their numbers.

If things are so good why don't they report their numbers. I'm sure it would help significantly towards making sales of such expensive equipment
I the changing photography market.

I also wonder why Dalsa no longer mentions medium format photography as one of the many applications listed on their website.

[Marlyn]

Well things were not looking good even quite a few years ago when competition from 35MM DSLRs was not as strong as it is today.

According to CIPA (of which Mamiya is a memeber) in 2005 only 5,842 medium format cameras were manufactured.
And that included Pentax, Fuji, Mamiya, Contax.

Sales...

2005   7,950 Cameras (over 2,000 of them comming from unsold 2004 stock).
2004 10,507 Cameras
2003 18,006 Cameras

Sales less than halved in two years.

CIPA no longer publishes medium format numbers on it's main website.

Gotta love it when 8 year old numbers from a single source of general, unverified, market information, are presented as 'current fact'.

If you like 'facts' like that,  then I've got this bridge for sale.....

Shouting it from the rooftops, over and over again,  doesn't make it so.

[Norm37]

Apparently, Barrie Davis is a professional poster to DP Review as he has posted 19,990 times when he posted the message you referenced...

about 20K posts does not an expert make, ya know?

True! That is the main reason I came to this forum (my first post here) to get clarification on the comments MR. Barrie Davis made about my reply to Jalmod90 on dpreview.

Just sayin'

We have our own problems here on LuLa, we seriously don't need DP Review crap here as well.

Jalmod90 Started a thread on dpreview.

Is it worth stepping into the world of Medium Format photography? (film or digital)

I mentioned the Pentax 645D (with a link to the review on this site) would be less expensive than going with a digital back.

I also referred him to the forums on Luminous Landscape for information on medium format.

Feel free to ask the moderator to delete my post (or ban me) for dpreview crap if you wish.

Until then! I will continue to refer posters from dpreview to this website for information on medium format photography. Or if someone puts a ? (medium format) in my head I will come to this site for clarification.

Norm

[Doug Peterson]

Fred: I went to your website and looked through your posts and I couldn't find your public disclosure of how many photo shoots (and at what margin) you did per year since you started your career.

I did find numbers related to world wide pandabear stock photo sales from 2002 to 2004. They were not very good.

The only natural assumption I can make is you're going bankrupt.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi Doug,

Poor Fred. Do you think GX680 shooters should be put on the "endangered list"?

For real: The customers you see, are they newcomers to MFD or up graders from elder backs?

Best regards
Erik

Fred: I went to your website and looked through your posts and I couldn't find your public disclosure of how many photo shoots (and at what margin) you did per year since you started your career.

I did find numbers related to world wide pandabear stock photo sales from 2002 to 2004. They were not very good.

The only natural assumption I can make is you're going bankrupt.

[BobDavid]

It is true that some MF photographers are migrating over to 35mm. I count myself among them. I got years of good service out of my CF39-MS, H2f, along with various configurations of tech cams and digitar lenses. My six-year ownership of MF digital handily paid for itself many times over. The quality of MF files is astounding.

My service offerings have evolved, thus compelling me to migrate over to the Nikon D800. I like the flexibility of the Nikon 35mm system. I am having fun exploring ways to adapt the system to suit various requirements. My attitude regarding MF is that if a job requires it, I will happily rent a blad plus a few HC lenses and pass the cost of rental aong as a line-item onto the client. I've done that once over the past few months.

As far as the health of one camera company versus the health of another camera company goes, I haven't let that issue occupy much of the grey matter between my ears. The great thing about the state of photography today is that there are so many options. The marketplace will determine who shall live and who shall die ala Kodak and Polaroid.

[Steve Hendrix]

Well things were not looking good even quite a few years ago when competition from 35MM DSLRs was not as strong as it is today.

According to CIPA (of which Mamiya is a memeber) in 2005 only 5,842 medium format cameras were manufactured.
And that included Pentax, Fuji, Mamiya, Contax.

Sales...

2005   7,950 Cameras (over 2,000 of them comming from unsold 2004 stock).
2004 10,507 Cameras
2003 18,006 Cameras

Sales less than halved in two years.

CIPA no longer publishes medium format numbers on it's main website.



 

 

Fred

Here's the problem. You state MF Sales are in decline as if it is a fact. If you do not know it is a fact (which you don't), then that is a mis-representation. Mis-representation is an obvious sign of manipulating data or impressions to support one's agenda. You have done this again and again - stated declining medium format sales as if it was a fact. You've taken considerable effort to try and prop up your mis-representation by digging through numbers from 8 years ago.

I don't even really want to comment on those numbers, but the fact is, 2 of the companies you mentioned stopped making cameras (effectively went out of business in that sector, or altogether) and never really ever successfully launched a digital version of their medium format product. And the third (Pentax) did not realize a viable digital solution for medium format until 6 years after the numbers you cite. So, citing declining numbers at the point which 35mm digital finally became full frame from 3 of the 4 companies you mention, who were essentially still film-based companies for the most part, tells me that medium format film cameras took a tumble. Wow, there's a news flash.

It still does nothing to backup your claims with anything factual. Medium format film camera production has been in decline ever since the Canon 1DS was released. Yawn.

So I asked you to prove your allegation and you failed. Not surprising.


Steve Hendrix
Capture Integration