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Considering the H3DII-31

yaya

Active member
I don't know guys... I haven't gone through the list but seems like Hassy and Leaf are both claiming Julia Fullerton-Batten. I thought she was shooting Sinar :)
JFB doesn't own a DB but she regularly rents an Aptus from Peartree with H1 and 503CW (hence the Blad connection).

Yair
 

David K

Workshop Member
Just teasing Yair, but thanks for clearing it up. Whatever she shoots with she is a remarkably talented photographer.
 
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andershald

Guest
Hi Everyone.

Thanks a lot for all the useful feedback and suggestions.

Mark, I adjusted the brightness of the viewfinder and I now find it excellent! Thanks for helping me out. I increased brightness and contrast. Obviously it affects batterylife, but I don't know how much as I didn't exhaust the battery today. Extra batteries are an obvious must.

Thanks for the suggestion of the ND filter, it will be a good tool to get, but I think that I need to choose a system that 'works' for me, without thirdparty accessories. But I think it would be nice to have one anyway.

My dealer didn't inform me that the offer has been extended, but I'll ask him tomorrow. He did say that it was Hasselblad's intention to have a camera at this price level in the future and this offer was a test to see how the market responds. Appearently the market has responded very well and this is good news for all of us as the competition is obviously forced to follow suit. So it might be a good idea to keep chequebooks in pockets until Photokina, to see what news are in store for us.

I am aware that I can use V-system lenses on the H-system, but I like the AF for my purposes, I shoot kids (and they move, quite often a lot). I don't shoot products and so only use a tripod with the older kids, when I need to. Tripod before increase in ISO.

Fotografz, thanks for the info on Phocus. Hopefully the pc version will appear soon, so I can test it on the files I have shot this weekend. Aperture is strictly Mac, I think.

Like Mark I also like CS3 a lot and that is my preferred workspace. So phase and Leaf files that open up in CS3 are an obvious bonus. I have been working with Flexcolor and I can use it but I would hate for that to be my only option. It's ok to process a handful of images, but I'd hate to have to complete a big commercial shoot, processing 50 or 100 files under time pressure in Flexcolor. I also like Iview media pro and again both Phase and Leaf files are supported.

Yair thanks for reminding me of the Leaf option, would I go to Peartree to set up a test of the Leaf/Mamiya system? I handled the AFI briefly and I am sure it will grow into a great system, but I feel it's too early for me to buy into a brand new system. Funny you should mention Spiros, we used to print next to eachother at Rapid Eye when we were still shooting film, he is Danish too. CAV is the Leaf dealer in Copenhagen and I have bought a lot of Elinchrom gear from them, they give really good customer service. I guess I could give Kenneth a call. I downloaded LeafCapture 11 and a couple of raw files, processed them in both LC11 and CS3, both are great options! Bravo Leaf.

One of the things I ran into today, shooting kids, and H3D/31 users, please comment, I used the 50 and the 100 a lot. The 50 is a perfect "35'er" and the 100 is such a lovely portrait lens, it sits somewhere around the 85/90mm mark, equivalent to 35mm. But the 80 I hardly used...when I compared it to my Canon, it was exactly equal to a 70mm lens, too tight for a 'normal' lens. This is a problem, the lens I use most now, working with Canon is my 50mm lens...and there isn't an equivalent in the H-system. I know I can buy a v-system 60mm, but that would be manual focus, so not for me. Or buy the zoom, which will not give me the low apertures. I am sure the zoom is great optically, but it kind of goes against my way of working. I know that changing system is also in a way changing style, but not having a 'normal' lens is not so nice. It might help to choose one of the larger sensors, but it seems that Hasselblad are phasing out the 22, and that leaves the 39, which is still quite expensive...

Shooting with the Hasselblad today has convinced me that the camera is really very good. The ergonomics are great, the lcd is great, the autofocus and shooting speed is good enough and the batterylife is not as bad as I feared. So altogether a very positive experience. I just have a few concerns about software, being locked into Phocus, and about the lenses available in this system.

I'll spend the next few days going through the files I shot today, looking at higher ISO shots etc. So more on that later.

Thanks again for all the great suggestions, this forum is awesome!

Best regards,
Anders
 
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andershald

Guest
Hi again. Just fired off the last images that the battery would give. With the LCD set to values: Brightness 7 and Contrast 7, which makes the lcd useful in bright daylight, I got approximately 200 frames. When they where set ot 5 & 5 I got almost 300. So extra batteries is a requirement. Wouldn't it be great if Hasselblad would do a multicharger, that would charge say 4 batteries at once or in sequence, so that I wouldn't have to get up every few hours the night before a shoot to charge all my batteries :)

I think the Phase charger does two batteries at once, how about Leaf and Sinar?

Anders
 

yaya

Active member
Yair thanks for reminding me of the Leaf option, would I go to Peartree to set up a test of the Leaf/Mamiya system? I handled the AFI briefly and I am sure it will grow into a great system, but I feel it's too early for me to buy into a brand new system. Funny you should mention Spiros, we used to print next to eachother at Rapid Eye when we were still shooting film, he is Danish too. CAV is the Leaf dealer in Copenhagen and I have bought a lot of Elinchrom gear from them, they give really good customer service. I guess I could give Kenneth a call. I downloaded LeafCapture 11 and a couple of raw files, processed them in both LC11 and CS3, both are great options! Bravo Leaf.

Peartree and CAV are two of our best dealers world wide and are both committed to providing the best service and support. I recommend choosing by where the back is going to spend most of its time.
A call to Kenneth or to Lawrie @ Peartree is the best way forward, IMO

All the best

Yair
 

woodyspedden

New member
Hi again. Just fired off the last images that the battery would give. With the LCD set to values: Brightness 7 and Contrast 7, which makes the lcd useful in bright daylight, I got approximately 200 frames. When they where set ot 5 & 5 I got almost 300. So extra batteries is a requirement. Wouldn't it be great if Hasselblad would do a multicharger, that would charge say 4 batteries at once or in sequence, so that I wouldn't have to get up every few hours the night before a shoot to charge all my batteries :)

I think the Phase charger does two batteries at once, how about Leaf and Sinar?

Anders
Anders

Just a reminder that if CS3 is your preferred editing software that you can simply import the files into either Phocus or Aperture (Phocus preferred because it is free and has the DAC corrections) and then literally export them as DNG's immediately for use in CS3, Aperture, Lightroom, Silkypix etc. Since you are doing nothing but importing and exporting (i.e. no edit adjustments inside of Phocus) and since the import and export are batch functions so simple and quick, CS3 can easily remain your editor of choice.

I would say thought that since AF is a mandate, and you want the high shutter speeds for your type of work, I think your choice is simple..........the Phase One (Mamiya) is the only modern focal plane body now on the market. Your criteria would seem to favor that above others. And if Mamiya do come through with a small portfolio of leaf shutter lenses for those that need them, you can do both on one body. I am a Hasselblad user as you know but I still hope that Hassy will come out with an H3 type of body with a focal plane shutter that can do all those neat tricks and allow use of the great FE lenses as well. Hell I would buy one just to make optimal use of my Hasselblad 110 2,0 portrait lens.

Hope this may provide some additional guidance

Woody
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Hi again. Just fired off the last images that the battery would give. With the LCD set to values: Brightness 7 and Contrast 7, which makes the lcd useful in bright daylight, I got approximately 200 frames. When they where set ot 5 & 5 I got almost 300. So extra batteries is a requirement. Wouldn't it be great if Hasselblad would do a multicharger, that would charge say 4 batteries at once or in sequence, so that I wouldn't have to get up every few hours the night before a shoot to charge all my batteries :)

I think the Phase charger does two batteries at once, how about Leaf and Sinar?

Anders
The batteries, like most batteries of that type, hold their charge longer once conditioned (fully drained and recharged.)

The chargers are not that expensive ... buy two ... which is a good idea anyway no matter what kind of camera/battery you get ... chargers, like anything else, can fail ... one charger failing leaves you with one, with a single dual charger you are left with none. I've been there and done that, so has Irakly.

As far as liking CS3 ... since you have the H3D-II/31 in hand, try using Flexcolor just to convert 3Fs into DNGs ... I think you will be surprised how fast the conversions are. I shoot weddings with the H3D-II/31, and dump up to 400 images into DNG file format so I can work on them in PSCS3 or Lightroom. Remember, you don't have to wait for Flexcolor to load ... it loads jpeg previews immediately without the Browser selection/import step of Phocus.
 

mark1958

Member
i have set my LCD to 5/5. Even in bright sun, I can see the histogram clearly and that is what I need to make sure I did not screw up the exposure. I do admit that once I turned it down, I was using the LCD image and not looking carefully at the histogram and overexposed shots with lots of shadows. Anyway, I easily get 300 or more shots and I do check most of my shots. I also make sure I turn off the camera while hiking if I think I am not going to shoot for a bit. I am not sure what the tradeoff is in terms of saving battery vs letting the camera go to sleep after so many seconds/minutes. I use two batteries and can shoot the whole day and fill up 16 gb of CF cards and not go dry. It is try what Marc says about the battery life improving after a few charge cycles. I also try to rotate my batteries on a regular basis.

When I had a Leaf and H2, I had 6 batteries for my leaf back and that did not include the battery for the camera. The difference is that the hassy batteries are not cheap.
 
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andershald

Guest
Great news.
- It appears that the H3DII-31 offer has indeed been extended until the end of the year, which will give me time to test Phocus for PC before I buy.
- He also said that he has been given a Phocus PC Beta to test and that the intention of Hasselblad is to either announce a Beta or Final version of Phocus for PC at Photokina.
- My dealer also gave me the Mamiya and a Phase P25+ to test, unfortunately only with an 80mm and a 28mm which is what he had available today.

Best regards,
Anders
 
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andershald

Guest
fotografz, good point about the chargers.
woodyspedden, I will try the DNG route, that could be the way forward, but Aperture is strictly MAC not PC.

Anders
 

fotografz

Well-known member
BTW Anders, I like your work a lot. I am not saying that just as a fellow photographer but as an advertising Creative Director ... that just now is creating a national magazine print campaign for Unilever Foods featuring Kids ;)

I hope your dealer provides you with the Phase One version of the Mamiya 645 camera ... according to reports from other people on this forum, it is faster focusing than the previous Mamiya 645AFD-II ... and to be a fair test against the H3D-II/31 for your applications, the newer Mamiya camera would be better.

That Mamiya AFD-III, which was developed in conjunction with Phase One, comes with a better 80mm AF lens ... as far as I know it is the ONLY focal plane MF camera still in production today ... and provides shutter speeds up to 1/4000th, with a top strobe sync speed of 1/125th. The only other focal plane MF camera is the Contax 645 ... which may not focus fast enough for your applications ... and unfortunately is no longer made. However, my friend the Russian photographer Irakly Shandidze uses a Contax 645 with a Phase One P25 and produces spectacular results.
 
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andershald

Guest
Hi fotografz.

Have you already got a photographer for your campaign? Otherwise give me or my agent a ring, mobile phonenumbers on my website. My agent can get a Portfolio over to you with FedEx right away, or you can download a PDF portfolio from my website (email me to get the link).

I do indeed have the PhaseOne version, it looks brandnew to me. I have only spent about 20 minutes with the camera in hand (work gets in the way of playing with new cameras today) and my first impression is that autofocus speed is a little sluggish compared to the H3DII, and that the P25+ back is too slow, the framerate is considerably slower than the H3DII-31. But I need to test this in a proper shoot situation. I have been having trouble with Capture One 4 (latest version) crashing at start on my PC. I don't know what is going on, but I am deleting LeafColor and FlexColor to see if it me be conflicting with that. When opening the P25+ files in ACR I found that the colourtemperature default is 2700k...although the camera is set to Daylight. Which is a little odd. I will try my version of Capture One Pro and see how that works.

More later.

Best regards,
Anders
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Anders, you have a good dealer. I wish I could get my hands on a couple of different choices to try for a few days instead of buying a "pig in a poke" and paying for it up front ... or having the dealer standing there tapping his fingers on the table and checking his watch every ten minutes, like has happened to me aduring some in-studio demos. :eek:
 

robmac

Well-known member
The more I read Anders' posts the more I admire his relationship, as you say Marc, with his dealer.

Another commercial pro and Contax 645 user of some renown that you may wish to ping is James Russell over at Luminous Landscape if you decide to explore that option further.
 
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andershald

Guest
fotografz & robmac.

The dealer is Goecker in Copenhagen, (rep is Carsten) and they are great! Carsten is the rep for both Hasselblad and Phase One, which means that he can lend me both, doesn't really care which system I buy and I can have an good dialogue with him about the respective systems. I that sense he is very non 'salesperson'-like, which I like.

I have handled the Contax system and i think it is a really nice system, but as it is discontinued and has been for so long that good parts are becoming expensive on ebay, I don't think that option is for me.

I still need to play around with the Mamiya system some more, but I really liked a lot of things about the H3DII-31. It could be that I end up going with that offer and then just learn to live with the few bad points...ND filters for outdoor low aperture work, no good 'normal' lens and Phocus software (which I might like...as I haven't actually tried it yet). It could be that the Mamiya grows on me, and more so when I can try a full set of lenses and perhaps a faster back, the P31+ maybe? We'll see.

Anders
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
The way to get high shutter speeds is to go with focal plane bodies such as the Phase/Mamiya or the older Hasselblad 200 series bodies. The downside is that you can flash synch only at 1/90th second whereas you can flash synchronize all the way to the max 1/800 second with the leaf shutters. Phase/Mamiya have been talking about bringing out leaf shuttered lenses which they are clearly capable of doing. However their shutters, unless something very radical happens, will also be limited to 1/800 second or thereabouts.

Woody Spedden
Very minor correction: flash sync on the Phase One and Mamiya bodies is 1/125th sec.

Stay tuned to Photokina for a release schedule of those leaf shutter lenses for the Phase One body.

- Doug

Capture Integration, Phase One Dealer
Personal Portfolio
 
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andershald

Guest
Hi Everyone.

Just a quick update on my impression of the Mamiya/PhaseOne camera with the P25+. As I said I have only tried it with the 80mm lens, I also had the 28mm, but that is a lens that I would never use, so haven't really looked at it.

I have only spent a short time with the kit, work got in the way, so my experience is not nearly as thorough as with the Hasselblad.

My first thought is that the P25+ is too slow for my kind of work. The framrate feels a lot slower than the Hasselblad. This could be better with the P30+, which is more or less equal to the Hasselblad 31 back. So I will have to try the P31+ before writing off this system. Another thing is that the AF feels a little sluggish and a little less precise than the Hasselblad. It tends to hunt a little more. It is certainly noisier. Again I have only tried the 80mm lens and I couldn't make a decision before trying a broader range of lenses.

Integration between camera and back is not as sophisticated as the Hasselblad, of course. I am not sure this is really a problem for practical purposes. You have to switch the camera and back on seperately, but that is not a problem. I did however miss the histogram in the handle of the Hasselblad. I need to push buttons on the back to see the histogram, a bit like on the Canon. Again, I am sure I could get used to this, but it is a nice feature on the HB. The dealer said that it is the intentions of PhaseOne and Mamiya to increase the integration between back and body on future models, and I am sure that this is a system with a great future, but the level of integration (my guess) might be less than the Hasselblad system as both body and backs must be open to other systems. Again, it's a matter of preference.

The screen on the back is ok, it works. I havent exhausted a battery yet, so I can't say much about batterylife. It is obviously much better than the HB, but the battery in the back doesn't have to power the camera and AF. I guess it's a detail and what camera you own decides what kind and how many spare batteries to buy with the camera. You just need to buy 'enough'.

I was a little surprised that the files from the P25+ with the WB set to daylight came out rated 2700K, with a strange colourcast. When opened in C1 Pro, they adjusted just fine, I was just wondering about that. Also I tried downloading a trial version of the latest C1 4 for PC and it keeps crashing before the software even opens. So I used the C1 Pro for my test shots.

I wasn't so wowed by the bigger sensor size, the 80 feels less tight, but I guess that I need to try a more complete set of lenses before deciding.

So my thinking on the PhaseOne camera so far is: Perhaps with the P31+ back and after more tests with a full set of lenses it could be an option. Certainly the faster shutterspeeds are an advantage.

Probably I will now wait and see what Photokina brings. A Hasselblad HC65 f2.8 would certainly be a strong push towards HB, so would liking Phocus. That would leave me just needing to figure out how to work with ND filters :)

When I make a decision I will post my thoughts on what convinced me. Not in order to pass judgement on one system over the other, they are both competent quality tools, but more as a list of things to consider in relation to different types of photography.

By the way, my wife thinks the PhaseOne camera looks better, more like a real camera and less like a videocamera from the 80s!!!

Best regards,
Anders
 
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andershald

Guest
Oh yes, one thing that I thought was a strange design choice is that the lcd on the top of the camera blanks out while the camera is writing to the back. That means that I cannot see shutter speed or aperture in the 'waiting time' in between shots. That is a little annoying.

Oh, the Area Sales Manager from Hasselblad just wrote me and confirmed that they will present a final PC-version of Phocus at Photokina. That is great news. He also (sadly) said that there is no HC65 on the agenda. But he replied almost immediately after I e-mailed Hasselblad Products through the website. That is the kind of customer support I like to see, and again I am sure that the other companies also offer great customer service, I am just relating my experience.

Best regards,
Anders
 

robmac

Well-known member
Very well balanced commentary - the type of input potential new users appreciate. Looking fwd to reading further.
 
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andershald

Guest
I just spoke to the Leaf dealer in Copenhagen. He has offered to lend me both 28 mpx and 33 mpx backs to test on a Contax kit. He has a 55 and an 80mm lens. I will not have time to test this until next week, so more on that later. So far I get the impression that Hasselblads offer will be matched more or less by PhaseOne. When I asked about Leaf backs, he was more reserved. "Our backs are better" was the suggestion, but he didn't entirely rule out that he could 'get me a deal'. Hmmm. Ok, we'll see when I try the backs. Just "better" didn't strike me as a good argumentation, it seems that every system has it's advantages and they should be related to what kind of work you need them for. He also didn't fail to mention that Hasselblad backs "aren't that good"...and that they need the software to correct for lenses that are not very good either. Hmmm!

I am sure the Schneider optics are awesome, they are also quite expensive. When I asked about the Leaf system, he said that there is no way that an AFI kit could be had at prices competing with Hasselblads prices. So I guess at least the AFI system is just 'to high quality' an option for me, at the price range that I can afford. And the question is, is a Hasselblad or Phase One system good enough for me, well from what I have seen so far, I am quite sure I will be happy.

I will take him up on his offer to try the Leaf backs on the Contax system, although I am not too keen on buying into an obsolete system, but I am not prepared to rule out Leaf backs yet. I could love the Contax system, he might be able to find the parts I need second hand, who knows.

The process is very long, but I enjoy getting to play around with the different systems.

More to come.

Anders
 
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