Jeeze Doug, stop thinking of the botton line for once. This guy is a student not charging for the shoot and IMO not the best advocate of MFD at this stage in his career.
I'd agree with you whole heartedly that for
most college students just starting their career would be better served spending the money on marketing, workshops, travel (especially to meet with photographers, art directors, art buyers etc), and expenses for shoots to build their portfolio. For many students the ability of a camera to do many things pretty well (rather than a select number of things excellently) is usually a strong consideration as well, since it's not always clear what area of photography they'll end up doing.
I just don't think this student falls into "most students" based on his post.
- He has a Fuji 680 he enjoys using, so clearly he doesn't need to be warned about the slower pace and lower automation of medium format, nor about the fact that medium format won't do everything (video, high ISO, low light, fast action tracking etc)
- He has a Nikon and doesn't enjoy using it
- He's looking for a back in the $3k range and it sounds like he'll be buying it outright and not going into debt for it
- He's looking for a way to rent/try one, not just buy one sight unseen, so if it isn't right for him (e.g. the crop factor off the 680 format is too much) he'll find out pretty quickly
The guy is in Australia (which we don't normally sell into) and looking to buy a back in a market segment we don't normally participate in (early gen P backs). And I'm not even on commission or in sales (though obviously as an employee of a company that sells gear/education/service I have an inherent interest in sales). You really think I have green clouds in my eyes? :facesmack: You must really have a low opinion of me.