Advice sought on P45+ tethered shooting

[tashley]

Hi All,

I'm having problems shooting tethered - after a long session at my dealer in a gloomy basement today, we eventually (and with no thanks whatsoever to P1's ragtag of instruction manuals for kit, back, body, C1) got live preview to work.

When I got it home and tried to use it with a daylight subject, I found that I have to stop down to F22 and with fastest virtual shutter speed and no virtual ISO gain, with the back set at ISO 50, before the virtual exposure meter drops out of the red. That's with subject matter being interior and lit by daylight from a window. At that point the subject matter is too dark to see on my monitor properly.

If I point the camera out of the window then everything goes blank or if I am really lucky, most of the screen is filled with coloured striations or bands and maybe a little glimpse of the actual subject somewhere in frame.

In an interior room lit by soft light through a white blind, I can just about get the subject visible but most of the frame is usually still taken up by coloured stripes and I am b******d if I can use the focus window to focus because the image it shows is so jerky (even on a tripod) and so full of noise that focus is impossible to guess.

I assume that I am doing something wrong (though I am doing AFAIK what the dealer did) and would be deeply grateful if anyone has any ideas!

Tim

 

[dougpeterson]

Hi All,

I'm having problems shooting tethered - after a long session at my dealer in a gloomy basement today, we eventually (and with no thanks whatsoever to P1's ragtag of instruction manuals for kit, back, body, C1) got live preview to work.

When I got it home and tried to use it with a daylight subject, I found that I have to stop down to F22 and with fastest virtual shutter speed and no virtual ISO gain, with the back set at ISO 50, before the virtual exposure meter drops out of the red. That's with subject matter being interior and lit by daylight from a window. At that point the subject matter is too dark to see on my monitor properly.

If I point the camera out of the window then everything goes blank or if I am really lucky, most of the screen is filled with coloured striations or bands and maybe a little glimpse of the actual subject somewhere in frame.

In an interior room lit by soft light through a white blind, I can just about get the subject visible but most of the frame is usually still taken up by coloured stripes and I am b******d if I can use the focus window to focus because the image it shows is so jerky (even on a tripod) and so full of noise that focus is impossible to guess.

I assume that I am doing something wrong (though I am doing AFAIK what the dealer did) and would be deeply grateful if anyone has any ideas!

Tim

I don't know how many times this is going to come up, but Phase One delegates the majority of support and training to the dealers. The lack of hand-holding documentation for live preview is not an accident; they want the dealers to have a one-on-one relationship with the users unlike the "heres-the-box-now-good-luck" attitude of the box movers who sell lower end cameras.

If you bought from a good dealer than they explained in advance that Live Preview is an extremely useful and pain free tool in a controlled light environment such as table top where you can dial up and down the light.

Outside of table-top you'll need to combine ND filters and, if there are areas of relative bright, lens flags. Often this is not worth the hassle and using any of your other focusing options would be better (shoot&check, focus by the numbers, or focus through the lens).

If you were over-sold on the abilities/capabilities/applications of LivePreview then you'll need to speak to your dealer about that.

And before anyone says otherwise the bottom line is that no MFDB has a LivePreview which can be used in the lighting situation TAshley describes. They are all limited to hassle-free use in controlled table-top style shots and with-a-pit-of-finagling-and-annoyance in semi-controlled lighting situations via flags and filters.

The technology of CCDs does not allow for good live preview. For that you have to go to CMOS which currently is not a good option for final IQ for MFDBs.

All that bluntly said, the degree to which LivePreview can speed a still-life or table-top workflow is amazing. Art directors and stylists love it and photographers love it for the ultra-accurate focus.

Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer | Personal Portfolio

 

[tashley]

I don't know how many times this is going to come up, but Phase One delegates the majority of support and training to the dealers. The lack of hand-holding documentation for live preview is not an accident; they want the dealers to have a one-on-one relationship with the users unlike the "heres-the-box-now-good-luck" attitude of the box movers who sell lower end cameras.

If you bought from a good dealer than they explained in advance that Live Preview is an extremely useful and pain free tool in a controlled light environment such as table top where you can dial up and down the light.

Outside of table-top you'll need to combine ND filters and, if there are areas of relative bright, lens flags. Often this is not worth the hassle and using any of your other focusing options would be better (shoot&check, focus by the numbers, or focus through the lens).

If you were over-sold on the abilities/capabilities/applications of LivePreview then you'll need to speak to your dealer about that.

And before anyone says otherwise the bottom line is that no MFDB has a LivePreview which can be used in the lighting situation TAshley describes. They are all limited to hassle-free use in controlled table-top style shots and with-a-pit-of-finagling-and-annoyance in semi-controlled lighting situations via flags and filters.

The technology of CCDs does not allow for good live preview. For that you have to go to CMOS which currently is not a good option for final IQ for MFDBs.

All that bluntly said, the degree to which LivePreview can speed a still-life or table-top workflow is amazing. Art directors and stylists love it and photographers love it for the ultra-accurate focus.

Doug Peterson, Head of Technical Services
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer | Personal Portfolio

Cool Doug, you are a star - that's all I wanted to know! There's nothing more frustrating than thinking that you're doing something wrong when you're not!

Much much appreciated.

Tim

 

[carstenw]

I don't know how many times this is going to come up, but Phase One delegates the majority of support and training to the dealers. The lack of hand-holding documentation for live preview is not an accident; they want the dealers to have a one-on-one relationship with the users unlike the "heres-the-box-now-good-luck" attitude of the box movers who sell lower end cameras.

While fully agreeing that fostering a good relationship between dealers and photographers is a valuable approach, I absolutely fundamentally disagree that this lets the back and camera manufacturers off the hook, wrt. creating quality documentation for all available features. I don't see why there should be any relationship, causal or not, between the two. Any decent product should come with full documentation, period. Anything else is a failure.

 

[tashley]

While fully agreeing that fostering a good relationship between dealers and photographers is a valuable approach, I absolutely fundamentally disagree that this lets the back and camera manufacturers off the hook, wrt. creating quality documentation for all available features. I don't see why there should be any relationship, causal or not, between the two. Any decent product should come with full documentation, period. Anything else is a failure.

Carsten, I agree totally but as I am learning, the rules are different in Medium Format world. If it were me I'd like to see P1's advertising saying things like:

"Live Preview - The scalable focus window supports an effective workflow on large production jobs between the photographer, the art directors and the stylists. This feature only available under carefully controlled lighting conditions."

In other words, some of the detailed truth is only available post-purchase, unless of course your dealer gives you chapter and verse first.

IMHO not all dealers are as thorough as Doug and his colleagues and also with a complex system, there's only so much you have the patience to go over face to face. That means that a decent and comprehensive instruction manual is 100% vital.

Tim

ps I am also p****d off today because my replacement 80mm F2.8 arrived at the dealer and it has no lens hood. I called when I got home and apparently P1 won't ship it direct to me, it has to go first to the dealer. Like I'd done something wrong here! My experience has, as you know, not been good so far and the cruddy manuals really do not help!

 

[shakeshuck]

The technology of CCDs does not allow for good live preview.
Capture Integration, Phase One & Canon Dealer

Has anyone here used Sinar's LC shutter? I'd like to know how well it works.

I also wondered if it works with backs other than Sinar's own?

 

[lance_schad]

Electronic shutter systems such as the Sinar LC shutter and Schneider electronic shutter used with the Sinar/Eyelike back offer exceptional live preview quality. That is because the chip is kept active and the shutter is moving multiple times per second to create the video.

The issue with on chip Live Preview is the bottleneck of moving the data off the chip.

As Doug mentioned there are certain instances where the Live Preview such as that on the P-series works great.

Play with it for a bit and I am sure you will figure out how it may work best for you.

Lance

 

[edwinb]

The sinar LC shutter (Liquid Crystal) acts like a continiously variable ND filter with fine adjustment enabling light control. the filter covers the lens automatically during live image/preview giving a very good image for focus and framing. I dont know of any any system other than sinar that it can be used with.
Edwin