I 'd assume Ricoh/Pentax 645* in Japan are more presented among enthusiasts, so to extrapolate what you see among your kind of folks over to them is not entirely correct.
Your right I know very little of the advanced amateur and personal artist world.
We did use some gardens for locations in and around Tokyo and Osaka and I was fascinated to see middle age and up photographers with mostly older mamiya 645 film cameras and a few Bronicas, Pentax (all 645) and all shooting film, though shooting film at the rate of about 3 frames every two hours.
I bet their work was pretty because they spent a lot of time on it and they seemed to have laser like concentration on what they were doing.
Fascinating.
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The one difference I noticed with Japanese clients (well there are a lot of differences) but the one that always surprised me was that they wanted everything delivered on physical media. For nearly a decade we've done this online and through ftp so burning discs, cds, making guide prints was a step back in time.
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C-1 also screws up Leica dngs, though I kind of expected that.
I guess I try to think how I'd feel. I wouldn't offer my facilities and equipment to a photographer that was competing with me, especially at half price.
Even if I wasn't up for the gig, why help to lower the bar and spending a lifetime of investing?
C-1 is the best tethering software and does a great job of processing. I'm sure there fine selling it to 35mm camera owners, because those owners become familiar with c-1 and when/if they step up to larger formats, they have familiarity with the software. Though they draw the line on any larger format competitors.
I can understand that rational.
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But if your really concerned about image quality and look, try Iridient Developer. It's not the most modern interface, though it's also not that complicated and you can really fine tune a custom setting for your files.
They also update for free newer cameras and formats quickly.
So there is options.
IMO
BC