Synn, it seems that we do not understand each other. I am not saying that one camera is better than the other or not, I am saying that your pictures are insufficient to prove that whatever difference there is comes from differences in the sensor only.
I actually own a MF back (an H3DII-50, as I have written) and a Nikon D800. I have pointed both at young ladies with fair skin. I will be the first to acknowledge that Phocus with the Hasselblad gives me more pleasing skin tones out of the box. I have even written in this forum that this alone would be sufficient to buy the camera for a portrait photographer.
But what I am not writing is that the difference comes from the sensors. The D800 or H3D colours can be very different, depending on the software used. Even worse: the D800 internal jpeg engine can be set up to give you about any kind of look you want, in-camera (you can upload colour parameters in the camera). That makes a comparison of the camera colours rather pointless and an analysis of the cameras sensors almost impossible without writing demosaicing software myself. Which I am not prepared to do.
See: we are talking about very different things. We don't even disagree. If you were saying that "the complete solution (camera and software) from Hasselblad or Phase One give better skin tones out of the box", I would readily agree. Of course they do: you are paying big money for that feature alone. But you are not saying that, you are saying that the difference comes from the sensor while you have no way to actually find out.
BTW: I can insure you that Kodak, Dalsa, Nikon, Hasselblad and Phase One engineers have run a spectrum analyser on a large amount or people to insure that their camera produce the skin tone they want. The problem is not with the technology or with the analysis method.
This is a far more reasonable response.
The first thing I want to address is, I have indeed tried every processing solution out there including the "Official Nikon" one(Except Irridient. I don't use a Mac), used color checkers, custom profiles... you name it. But no, the D800 files come nowhere close to that of that of the medium format. Even when both are processed using the same software (C1Pro, for instance). So yeah, my belief is that what comes out of the camera is inferior to begin with and no amount of spit polishing can make it equal or superior. So no, it's not the complete solution that makes it better, the difference starts from the moment the data is captured.
I also don't have any interest in doing lab tests with everything equalized. If I check on ebay, I might be able to find one of them chairs that photographers used back in the day whereby the subject's head was held in place tight. Set the same lights, same exposure, same everything... and shoot a human brick wall.
I have no interest in doing any of that. I like to test things in real life, in real usage scenarios. And in those scenarios, one is clearly better than another.
BTW: I can insure you that Kodak, Dalsa, Nikon, Hasselblad and Phase One engineers have run a spectrum analyser on a large amount or people to insure that their camera produce the skin tone they want. The problem is not with the technology or with the analysis method.
I know they do. And they do it so that people like me can worry about making pictures and nothing else.
But to see every picture ever posted on the forum turned into metrics rather than having qualitative discussions? Eh, not my thing.
I joined this forum to get advise on my medium format purchase as there aren't too many places on the internet that discuss this topic. But as the days do by, it is becoming clear to me that while there are talented people shooting great images here, there are also a lot of voices that would rather make every discussion about numbers and metrics rather than about the image itself. And one of these categories is far, far more vocal than the other.
