Shooting Beauty w/ Tech Cam vs. PhaseOne

[drucifer]

I currently shoot beauty and fashion with a PhaseOne 645DF, Leaf Aptus ii 6, and a Schneider 80mm LS lens. Would there any difference shooting with say a Cambo with a Schneider lens of the same perspective made for a tech camera? I guess what I'm asking is are the Schneider lenses made for PhaseOne sharper than those made for tech cameras?

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Not sure you REALLY want sharper . I spent 6 hours airbrushing the other day with shooting the IQ 160 and a 110mm . It was painful. In all honesty and i have done a few comparisons the 55mm LS, 80 LS and 110 LS and they are maybe a touch and I mean a touch less sharper than the equivalent tech cam lenses. These lenses are damn good and shooting fashion you don't want really any better. For landscape guys yea there is a slight edge shooting the tech cam lenses over the 55mm LS lens and above but where they real heart of the matter comes in with tech cam lenses is wider than the 55m LS. Reason i bought the Cambo and a 35mm for the moment. People need to realize these LS lenses are damn good but there world right now starts at 55mm and above its below that or wider is where the tech cams excel. Going head to head with say a 72SK and a 80 LS you will see the 72 a little better but you need to be looking for it too it is not worldly difference .

 

[drucifer]

Not sure you REALLY want sharper . I spent 6 hours airbrushing the other day with shooting the IQ 160 and a 110mm . It was painful. In all honesty and i have done a few comparisons the 55mm LS, 80 LS and 110 LS and they are maybe a touch and I mean a touch less sharper than the equivalent tech cam lenses. These lenses are damn good and shooting fashion you don't want really any better. For landscape guys yea there is a slight edge shooting the tech cam lenses over the 55mm LS lens and above but where they real heart of the matter comes in with tech cam lenses is wider than the 55m LS. Reason i bought the Cambo and a 35mm for the moment. People need to realize these LS lenses are damn good but there world right now starts at 55mm and above its below that or wider is where the tech cams excel. Going head to head with say a 72SK and a 80 LS you will see the 72 a little better but you need to be looking for it too it is not worldly difference .

Thank you so much Guy for this. I didn't think it could be that much better, but you never know. I don't mind spending 6 hours dodging and burning skin, so I would welcome the increase in quality. Not that I'm lacking in quality now, but I imagine I'm like the other readers of this forum striving for the best possible image quality possible. After all, that's why we spend ridiculous amounts of money on these machines. Good enough just really isn't good enough. EVER!!!!

 

[dick]

Does no-one ever use tech-cam movements for beauty/glamor/nude?

I currently shoot beauty and fashion with a PhaseOne 645DF, Leaf Aptus ii 6, and a Schneider 80mm LS lens. Would there any difference shooting with say a Cambo with a Schneider lens of the same perspective made for a tech camera? I guess what I'm asking is are the Schneider lenses made for PhaseOne sharper than those made for tech cameras?

 

[Graham Mitchell]

Tech camera lenses are generally the best there are, so I would expect equivalent Mamiya lenses to be a little softer, as Guy said.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Yea it's kind of tough on guys like me that shoot lots of things. For me it's like a combo outfit wides use the tech cam than use the DF and glass for everything else. Strictly landscape folks than maybe tech cam kit only. But for shooters like Graham that shoot a lot of people and models than they would lean MF DSLR style cams. I'm kind of in a sore spot I use both but would like to build my tech cam kit more for just using that kit on some shoots than bringing the whole combo kit in. I want 2 full kits but I also need to rob a bank to do that. Lol

As we all know this stuff is not exactly cheap. Tech cam lenses start around 2600 to 9000 and generally the average is about 4300 per lens

But in general and I would say Hassy and Rollie glass as well as Phase and Leica all would do very well against the tec cam lenses but in general your going to see more distinction in IQ coming from the wides and the tech cam lenses will be better. Lets be clear though none of this stuff is garbage either they are all very very good. We are talking at a level as the best glass in its class and the world as well. Theses tech cam lenses are considered the best of the best but our DSLR lenses do pretty good against them above the wides.

 

[Thierry]

Just as an information, there obviously are photographers shooting fashion, or even beauty with tech cameras, e.g. the Swiss-born photographer Raymond Meier using an Alpa 12 SWA:

Alpa Gallery - Raymond Meier, NYC

One can actually find almost any type of photography on Alpa's website, nicely classified in 9 categories with each time and for each photographer a list of the camera(s), lenses or accessories used:

Alpa Gallery



Thierry