The forum's newest Sinar MFDB owner

[thsinar]

a bit late since away without internet connection for a few days: but sincere congratulations, Stuart!

Best regards,
Thierry

Well, I finally did it. I took the plunge into medium format digital. Somewhat by accident, really. I had decided that I would buy a Hy6 to shoot film after I found a pretty decent deal through Calumet. When I was speaking to their representative, he asked me why I didn't shoot digital. I told him I did not have 30,000+ to spend on a back. He said, "how about 10,000?" Yes please. He had a 54LV that had been used for only one shoot. The photographer made so much money on the first shoot, that he decided to immediately upgrade to the 75LV.

So, I managed to get a basically brand new latest generation (well, at least until Photokina) 22mp back for a price that I could stomach. This is great for me, because I already have the Rollei lenses, 4560 film back and most everything else I need to use the system. The camera is brand new, but at a slightly better price because of the package deal. The total package was a reasonable amount -- covered by my recent sale of the DMR, Leica M and R lenses and other things I have been selling from my apartment.

In any case, I am very much looking forward to it. While I would love the Emotion 75, I believe that 22mp is plenty for me...if I need more I can always shoot 4x5. The real pleasure though will be to shoot the fantastic Rollei lenses with the convenience of digital -- and have the ability to pop on the film back for black and white.

I will not get the kit until some time mid next week, but once I do I am sure I will have some images to post. I look forward to sharing the pleasure and pain (hopefully not too much pain!) of shooting these esoteric, but extremely capable camera systems.

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Thank you Thierry! I just received the camera and back yesterday. So far, so good. I will post an impressions thread soon. I have found the camera much to my liking -- a real improvement on the 6008AF, which is already an excellent camera. The 54LV is working well too. This is more out of my element, so I am still learning how best to use it, but the basic operation is pretty easy. The software is a bit more difficult, but I will have my dealer show me how to use it properly next week. I have not gotten emotion DNG to work well yet...it can't seem to find the proper reference files even when I insert the cd and open the folder with them. Capture Shop seems to work, though I need to learn the workflow. It looks like exposure will be a better program, but it does not seem to open the standard STI files from the camera. Is there any way to open files that are already shot in eXposure, or can it only do things shot tethered?

Edit: Ok, I figured out how to view the shots in eXposure...I need to read the manual...in fact, that is what I am doing at the moment...

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Here is the first photo from it that I like. Very sharp and nice color (at least on my laptop monitor...I have not had a chance to do it on my desktop yet).

 

[David K]

Stuart, as you well know there is a learning curve to any new system. I had my share of growing pains I can assure you. I hope you will share that portion of your experience with us too. I now find the conversion software, both Brumbaer and Exposure, excellent and quite easy to use but certainly it was not intuitive to me. Feel free to pm me offline if there's anything you find you need help with.

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Thanks David,
I will probably do that. The programs look good, but they do not strike me as very intuitive (nor is the manual for eXposure that easy to follow...I wish I had a paper version too...I will have to print them out). The process of getting the files off of the back and into a folder in eXposure is not as straightforward as most other programs. There is no import button or command, and the images do not automatically show up when you plug in a back. I figured it out by blind trial and error -- click on the back and the images show up. Then select them all and manually drag them to a folder. Then it will convert them to DNG's that you can use. Very simple once you figure it out, but I could not find that written anywhere in the manual (which I admittedly have not finished reading yet, but there was no section called "importing images" or "transferring images from the back" etc). Anyway, I will definitely post about my experiences as they occur.
Thanks again for the offer of help.

 

[David K]

Stuart,
I had the same problem with Exposure, simple as pie once you know how to do it, but not intuitive and not in the manual. I spent quite a bit of time looking for an import button or File>Import but that's not how Exposure works. It's a simple drag and drop... who'd a thunk it. Actually, so is Brumbaer so in a way it kind of makes sense to do it this way. BTW, if you haven't downloaded and used Brumbaer you should. It's a great little program. Got your pm and sent you a response.

 

[bensonga]

Congratulations on the great deal and the new gear Stuart! You and I will both be spending alot of time in learning mode for awhile, I'm sure. Look forward to seeing your images and hearing about your experiences with the camera and back. Your first photo looks terrific!

Gary Benson
Eagle River, Alaska

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Thanks Gary. I am looking forward to seeing more of yours too! I like the first one of the 8000 dollar...well, whatever it was. As for learning mode...yes, I think it is going to take awhile before I start posting a number of photos from it. August here is generally pretty unpleasant to walk around with a lot of gear and do a lot of photography, so I will have to wrangle some studio stuff. Outside it is point and shoot season!