bcooter
New member
I agree about your disagreement, which is why BC should really look at each system himself, before potentially dropping a serious amount of cash on something he will use to earn his living. Everyone has a completely different opinion of systems.
Not to bore anyone, but at this stage I thought we would have found time to test a few cameras, but as usual life or better put . . . work gets in the way.
Deadlines become more compressed every year.
In between working, my search has been like most people's where I've talked to a few dealers and got price quotes.
If I go Hasselblad I'll go through Steve Hendrix. Steve did a great blog entry on the H5d which is a good read for anyone thinking of changing.
Actually he mentions the plus side of the H5D and address the looks of the camera. I think it's a good read.
I'm very interested in the Pentax and the Hasselblad H5. Of the few people I know who have used the Pentax they all love the camera, but are all somewhat frustrated by the tethering software and write times for review and to cards.
Of the few people that have used or tested the H5D you hear great things, (including the spiffy paint job), like cleaner files, much less mirror bounce and better firewire connection.
The new Phase One back is kind of the wild card of the bunch as it's new and I don't really know what camera I would put it on.
The DF+ seems good, but I don't know if I want to go that direction without really knowing what the next Mamiya will be and a new Phase, body and three lenses can easily get close to 50k.
I also don't want to go through Hasselblad's complicated system of first you buy an old H1, trade it in to buy a new H4x.
Pricing is important. A first glance the Phase seems way overpriced, but if you look at 2007 dollars vs. today, Phase really is the same price, the issue is the professional image making industry is squeezed. It's not so much that budgets are completely cut . . .
it's just that clients expect so much more in a given day.
Given the fact we shoot still photography and digital video, we could easily spend 15k a quarter and not really be over stocked on cameras, lights and supports.
Anyway, what is obvious about these specialty cameras is how scarce information is.
In my Pentax search I only found one dealer that had a stock of the cameras and the dealer actually uses one every week in his professional work. With that he didn't know there was tethering software and no dealer that sells pentax knows that there is a deal where the 55m lens is added for free when you buy a new 645d.
Overall medium format marketing is not the best except for Hasselblad. I love the fact they do the Victor book and feature photographers from different genres. It's nice to see them invest in the industry.
Most of the sample photography from the other makers is not either relevant to my work, or very rough from an event, or over retouched.
In fact I'm amazed that there is such a small amount of professional imagery, considering so many high end projects are shot with medium format.
Actually, when I run the numbers, think of use, I'm just about to wash my hands of the whole thought of a new mfd camera I pull up a file like this that was selected for addition use last week.
It's from a p21+ a small back but working it in post it never ceases to amaze me how well easy and well the file works.
This image has very little retouching, with the only clean up the legs, some of the background and two spots on the chest.
It's just daylight with one hmi kicker from the right of frame and I shot this session in about 10 minutes.
IMO
BC
Last edited: