Trust me, there are folks on this forum who might well not even notice an extra $60k in the bank if it were there. (And I dare so also on any boards, including Leica, Canon, Nikon, M4/3rd etc). It's not the important consideration when it comes to enjoying life. :facesmack:
All right, I'll bite. I shoot medium format because I can. And I want to. And I get pleasure from it.
That's fine and that's the reason I said that if you, or anyone says: "I shoot MF because I can", that puts the entire discussion to bed. That says to me that you do it for no practical reason, but for reasons that have to do with the feel, the zen, the this, the that, all kinds of reasons except practical ones. In that case, there's nothing to discuss, everything becomes pretty clear.
On the flip side I live in a modest home with no desire to keep up with the neighbors. I don't have a boat. I don't have an ex-trophy wife and alimony and child support either.
I have a feeling a lot of folks out here have had their trophy wives stuffed and their trophy heads are now hanging in the cabin, in the woods somewhere. :ROTFL:
3:2 ratio isn't a pleasurable format for me to shoot with. If I don't enjoy using a system due to the image proportions, or usability, or just simply getting on with it, then I choose to use my moments on the planet to decide not to. It's called choice.
I'm not too keen on 3:2 ratio either, but I can live with it.
I'm not sure I am entitled to an opinion about anyone else's photographs, but looking at these, I wonder whether one couldn't manage to make these images using ONLY photoshop. ie, no camera at all. This isn't a criticism, this is just a suggestion. Looking at these, I think you might want to stick to point-and-shoots, if at all. Why bother with even 35mm?
Understand that I am in no way trying to demoralise your artwork, but honestly, if these indeed are your flagship artworks, then you have bigger fish to fry than debating MF vs 35mm. Again, no criticism intended, simply trying to widen your perspective about your art (since you asked).
Really, I don't see any place for MF digital as a tool for you to improvise (if they need improvising in your opinion, that is). You will notice that the tech cam thread puts up photos that are far far different to what you have uploaded. Sure there are some with ICM (intentional camera movements) but not many.
Cheers man !
Funny enough, I'm not very good with Photoshop. One of the things that I really admire about a lot of folks on these forums is their ability to use photoshop to make their photographs sing. I was following an old thread where Jack Flesher was testing iq180 and he took, what I thought was a lack luster photograph and then he massaged it and voila! That image just came alive. The guy is obviously a PS magician. One of the things that makes him a magician is that you wouldn't say that he did a lot of PS work looking at his photographs. He makes them look natural and beautiful.
Conversely, my photographs are straight out of camera. If there is a way to do them in Photoshop, I wouldn't know how. The most that I do to them is clean the spots and sometimes adjust the contrast curves.
The thing that drew me to digital format is the ability to mount the backs on tech cams and have the proper movements. Besides, since my work is mostly about color, I was hoping that MF allowed for greater color tonality. Alas, from what I have seen, I'm not sure that's the case.