I always create backgrounds in post. What's the point of wasting massive amounts of resolution on background only to find they wound up retouching more in anyway when they changed the layout. I rarely see an image in a national ad that has not been practically painted over in post no matter how it was captured. If the client wants more background on top or one of the products shifted left, no problem it's all ready in layers and ready for changes.
That's not to say that MF is not the ultimate studio tool but if you don't have a client looking over your shoulder you can shoot a pro DSLR with a top line lens and if you have a handle on capture, lighting and post-production you can produce a 2 page spread competitive with anything produced on any equipment. If you think an ink jet is a big equalizer a web press printing on coated stock can reproduce a grand total of about 1500 colors. A tiny fraction of what you captured.
This may not be the proper place for this specific discussion ... but it's started, so ....
Hank, I'll give you a perspective from the other end of the process ... since I spent 40 years as an art director then Executive Creative Director for places like Young and Rubicam, as well as the last few years as a partner in my own ad agency.
Yes, there are instances that a good 35mm DSLR can be, and are, used for commercial work ... even work published larger.
Depends on the subject and creative objectives going in. Lots of lifestyle subjects and action work is best done with a 35mm DSLR and is actually preferred. In fact, a very good friend of mine in NYC shot a global wide lifestyle campaign for a cell phone company with a P&S.
The last full page, full bleed national ad campaign I created for Unilever was shot by an editorial type "kids" photographer with a Canon 1DsMKIII and 300/2.8L IS ... the intent was more editorial in look and feel ... so pixel peeping resolution wasn't the objective. Since this was an environmental shot with a full bleed background, there was no adding background without incurring huge retouching costs ... an unnecessary line item the Unilever cost consultant and Brand Manager would NOT have been pleased with ... so we shot the key subject loose enough for various print bleed demands. In this specific case, emotion was more important than resolution.
Other subjects and creative objectives demand other tools be used ... and it doesn't matter how much the CMYK printing process dumbs down the result ... despite expert lighting and top talent doing it, if you can't fully capture the chrome on a car, or the specular sparkle of jewelry or faint whiff of steam rising from a baked potato
going in, then it'll never be there without spending a fortune in retouching ... which almost always looks a bit fake compared to the real thing. The age of willy-nilly cost over-runs for retouching are long gone, and photographers that force me to the retoucher's studio unnecessarily piss me off :angry:
Put simply, I'm not a fan of "fix it post" photographers, and neither are my VERY cost sensitive clients anymore. You may not have any idea what a cluster "bleep" it is to go back to a client for a cost over-run these days.
As to MFD applications, many of the food shots and images involving fabrics that I bought in the past few years weren't just shot on MFD ... they were multi-shot MFDs! Minimum retouching was required in post thanks to the incredible fidelity of the original captures.
The last job I personally shot myself (with no art director looking over my shoulder since I was the AD
) was a new dyno room for American Axel ... the use was intended for 9' wide print in their R&D building as well as for print applications and their web site. A 28mm on a H3D-II/39 was used, and I stitched 4 shots for the final lobby display print. It was barely enough for their eagle eyed V.P. Marketing Manager.
Horses for courses. If you shoot one basic type of work, the tool can often be just one type of system ... be it a rangefinder, 35mm DSLR or a MFD system. If you do a variety of work it's nice to be prepared for different demands ... (some of which is better to rent if it's an infrequent demand). Then there are those like Guy Mancusio who would rather use a MFD for everything and not worry about it.
As for me ... I can't wait to get my hands on a H4D/60. :thumbs:
-Marc