New Member Switching to MF (Intro and Samples)

[fotografz]

Ask yourself what kind off shot(s) you like to make under what kind of condition(s) for what aims and what effects...for what audience and what use at what return ..

I think the word "switching" is a very dangerous word - because no MFD camera can do what a 35mm DSLR can do as well as a 35mm DSLR can do it

Likewise no 35mm DSLR can do what a MFD SLR system can do for you

Each system and the choices within each system are better at something and more compromised at other things

Most replies you got here so far are very good observations based on experience from quite a few pro shooters.

Funny thing is that most use both 35mm and MFD.

Think about adding MF to the arsenal - rather than ditching 35mm, less chance for regret - my guess is you will end up buying a 35mm something if you sell what you have anyway...this can be a needlessly expensive exercise.

love my MF gear - but it can't be a 35mm camera and vica versa.

Pete

Yep, that should have been said up front Pete. Besides, even if one did want to move directly to MFD it would be also be dangerous move because one needs to learn the system. Heck, when I moved from Nikon to Sony, I waited a year before unloading the Nikon stuff just to be sure.

-Marc

 

[Guy Mancuso]

In the same breath they are backups to each other as well.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Lighting and sync speeds is another subject, and I also disagree that it won't last many more years ... In fact, I believe if one doesn't get with that program, it will be you who is dead in the water in a few years. After all, it is the last bastion to distinguish yourself from the growing herd of shooters that often have as good or better camera than you do, and because of the wide-spread info and instruction on the web, know how to use it.

Really not sure Marc, when done for lightings sake it looks incredible, when done for effect, that's already getting rather old. I heard that Zack Arias said 'when everyone is shooting ambient, shoot off camera, when everyone is shooting off camera, shoot ambient'. He's got a point. You have to choose a look which is used to say something about an image not just because that's the look at the moment. In the wedding business at least, I don't know enough about the portraiture business to comment though from what I see it is the same, the latter rather than the former is far more common.

I've partnered with a guy now and we're shooting the wedding scene here in Jerusalem. Here everyone is and has been using the flash kill ambient look for a while now. We use it when it suits the image but only then, preferring ambient with a touch of fill if necessary. We have the highest prices in the city at present for wedding photography and we only started shooting together last year.

Not that I think we disagree at all, I just think that the flash kill ambient look for portraiture as a style has its days numbered. My partner is actually writing an article for the blog at the moment on the subject of not getting married to a 'look' but rather having a style which is independant of external factors to create that look. You use external lighting when you want to give a certain look Marc and I think that, far more than the fact you use it and the wannabees aren't, is why you will still be head and shoulders above the rabble whatever cameras and lenses they buy.

I did a quick engagement shoot for a couple a few hours ago. 5D with 50mm lens. The guy is a photographer, he couldn't believe what I could accomplish with such simple equipment on some rain soaked steps near my house. They can buy all the gear they want, until they can do magic with it, it doesn't mean anything. Heck just how hard is it to learn off camera lighting? Strobist has pushed it to the forefront till the point that it doesn't take much to do or even to do pretty well but however fast your lenses, however FF your camera, however good your off camera lighting, without vision, without experience it don't mean squat.

 

[johnnygoesdigital]

In the same breath they are backups to each other as well.

+1

 

[David Schneider]

BTW, My 2¢ ...I think shooting Seniors is more like fashion than portraiture anyway.

Yes and no, in my experience. There are usually two clients with seniors; the senior and the mom. So while you need to display and present a fashion look, if for no other reason than marketing and creating an "experience" for the senior, often mom's credit card comes out only for traditional portraiture. I've had good luck in combining the two into a wall composites so I make everyone happy and have a bit larger sale. Still, my most popular seller is a well crafted yearbook photo in old fashion drape.

Marc is exactly correct in saying it takes some time to be totally comfortable moving from dslr to mf. On Saturday I was to photograph a group on location made up of several adult children, grandparents, children. I set it up the background and lighting so I could do the families separately and planned to stitch them together. In an instant my contact person said we had no time to do what we had discussed and I could only do the whole group of all 27, ages 2 1/2 to 82, at one time. I knew I had to switch from 100mm to 35mm lens, get up on ladder to minimize differences in head sizes, I bumped up the ISO and f-stop so I had more dof without changing the lighting. I did all those technical things just fine, but in thinking about the technical things, I did a substandard job posing the group. If I was using my dslr, I probably just would have taken out the ladder and zoomed out a bit and concentrated more on the posing of the group. A clear case of me still getting use to the mf tools. I admit it. No question I'll do better the next time that happens and client probably won't notice, but it's pretty obvious to me I should have done better. But a valuable learning experience.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Possibly David, but possibly what makes you a pro is that you can get the shot when things change suddenly on you.

 

[Shelby Lewis]

Yes and no, in my experience. There are usually two clients with seniors; the senior and the mom.

This is a make-or-break realization in the senior market.

Even those who don't shoot drapes most likely sell a disproportionally high number of quasi-traditional headshots in comparison to the more edgy fashion work. When I shot seniors basically full-time, I almost never sold the shots that would have won awards for compositional or lighting prowess. It was always the tighter headshot that showed a connection with the eyes.

Moms love them.

I can say, however, as I move more towards shooting primarily faces... MF gives a sense a dimensionality and connectedness with faces that the 35mm can't touch, generally... given good lenses and technique. So, from that side of things, it has the potential to work well in the senior market, even if the clients can't quite tell what it is that makes the images so special. In this regard, flash sync is not so much an issue as is lens drawing style and sensor size (though IMO 44x33 is still closer to MF "look" than it is to 35)

 

[David Schneider]

Possibly David, but possibly what makes you a pro is that you can get the shot when things change suddenly on you.

Ben,

That begs the question of "what makes you a pro" and that's a never ending topic for a different thread. lol That would hijack Mario's thread for months.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Being broke qualifys very well. LOL

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Guy, just a matter of interest, if you'd stuck with your 1DsII and canon lenses all those years ago and kept on shooting them till today, just how much would you have saved?

No I'm not in cahoots with your wife...:ROTFL::ROTFL::ROTFL:

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Great question and really afraid to answer it but 75k sounds pretty damn reasonable. You tell my wife I'm coming after you bud. ROTFLMAO

The problem is when i started back up on my own again in 2001 when I left the corporate photog gig, I really wanted to go straight to MF digital but it was a 50k buy in than and nowhere near what we have today. One of my biggest mistakes was selling off the 1DS the original and as many here may tell ya it was the best one they ever made as far as look in images, after that it was painful for canon. Its better today no doubt but they had a terrible span there IMHO now if Leica with the DMR was 18mpx i may have never done anything after that , thats if it was similar in newer LCD , sensor and such. Back than things are nowhere near what they are today with so many decent choices even the 4/3rds stuff is really good. Really bad timing for those that started the revolution back than and I go back as far as 1991 I believe with digital. Things are much better today and the gaps are getting tighter and tighter. Im not willing to give up on MF as I see many huge advantages of it as far as image and clients as well. Downsides sure there are some for sure an it takes a lot more work than I think many want to give it. The big one is you controlling it than it controlling you. Ben everyday we have folks like Mario that want to move up and improve and I see these folks as wanting to take there art further and jump in the gate. Folks like us that are so wonderful here are huge assists to these folks. As a Pro and to my fellow Pros here we need to help guide these folks so they learn from our mistakes and I have made plenty along the way and I don't look back going ah **** i really screwed up. The reality is it helped me grow and it was one of the reasons Jack and I started this place was to give back and the members here are the best of the lot. We don't always agree and we should not as well but its fun to chew the fat and make friends. I still learn everyday here, now that is what it really is all about. Sometimes that learning curve digs deep in our pockets no question about it.

 

[Mario]

Sorry I haven't put a lot of input in fellas... I've really just been reading and listening. Nothing is going unheard I promise though, just absorbing.

 

[Guy Mancuso]

Read , absorb and do your homework this is a big decision.

 

[FredBGG]

Fred seriously not even in the same league as unleashing full juice on the real strobes out there and more important bringing the sun to desktop light.

While the leaf shutter option is simpler it too has it's limits.

You can use studio strobes with with high speed sync with a Canon and the pocket wizard. You lose a fair bit of power, but a 6 K pack will give you more than enough power. You do have to use a relatively slow flash so that the light output is enough to cover the time required for the shutter sweep.

Something to keep in mind is that you can go faster with a Canon than a Phase Mamiya. It's a bit tricky but once you have it setup for you camera and flash power setting it is reliable.

All I am pointing out is that it's possible to do.

Another important thing to keep in mind though is that the with the Phase Mamiya it is a 1/1600th real durration. With the Canon it is an exposure of upto 1/4000th, but it is carried out over 1/250th of a second, so fast moving objects will have some distortion.

 

[fotografz]

Great question and really afraid to answer it but 75k sounds pretty damn reasonable. You tell my wife I'm coming after you bud. ROTFLMAO

The problem is when i started back up on my own again in 2001 when I left the corporate photog gig, I really wanted to go straight to MF digital but it was a 50k buy in than and nowhere near what we have today. One of my biggest mistakes was selling off the 1DS the original and as many here may tell ya it was the best one they ever made as far as look in images, after that it was painful for canon. Its better today no doubt but they had a terrible span there IMHO now if Leica with the DMR was 18mpx i may have never done anything after that , thats if it was similar in newer LCD , sensor and such. Back than things are nowhere near what they are today with so many decent choices even the 4/3rds stuff is really good. Really bad timing for those that started the revolution back than and I go back as far as 1991 I believe with digital. Things are much better today and the gaps are getting tighter and tighter. Im not willing to give up on MF as I see many huge advantages of it as far as image and clients as well. Downsides sure there are some for sure an it takes a lot more work than I think many want to give it. The big one is you controlling it than it controlling you. Ben everyday we have folks like Mario that want to move up and improve and I see these folks as wanting to take there art further and jump in the gate. Folks like us that are so wonderful here are huge assists to these folks. As a Pro and to my fellow Pros here we need to help guide these folks so they learn from our mistakes and I have made plenty along the way and I don't look back going ah **** i really screwed up. The reality is it helped me grow and it was one of the reasons Jack and I started this place was to give back and the members here are the best of the lot. We don't always agree and we should not as well but its fun to chew the fat and make friends. I still learn everyday here, now that is what it really is all about. Sometimes that learning curve digs deep in our pockets no question about it.

Answering this question always cracks me up Guy. As I was "Spring Cleaning" my studio area the past 2 weeks, and tossing the equivalent of thousands of $ in obsolete gear and outdated junk, etc. etc. I mused how I'd like all that money back. Yet, the reason I wanted it back ... was to buy more stuff for the studio :ROTFL:

We buy gear because it is part of keeping our interest charged up ... to explore different areas, to expand, or just to have creative options at our finger-tips. Photographers are part artist and part MacGyver during some part of the trek.

No matter how business savvy a Pro might be, there is a bit of the enthusiast in them to some degree or another, and most would be hard pressed to justify what they have in their gear vault in pure logical terms.

Working professional or terminally infected enthusiast, photography is what we do.

Quite frankly, people come to sites like this not only to make an informed decision, but sometimes to gather logical justification for a lustful "Want & Gimme"

Marc

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Did I mention the Aptus II 8 with full DF system I ordered last week for the repro studio which is finally on track? I'd wondered how long I could keep shtum about it on this thread while I played devils advocate... :watch:

 

[fotografz]

This is a make-or-break realization in the senior market.

Even those who don't shoot drapes most likely sell a disproportionally high number of quasi-traditional headshots in comparison to the more edgy fashion work. When I shot seniors basically full-time, I almost never sold the shots that would have won awards for compositional or lighting prowess. It was always the tighter headshot that showed a connection with the eyes.

Moms love them.

I can say, however, as I move more towards shooting primarily faces... MF gives a sense a dimensionality and connectedness with faces that the 35mm can't touch, generally... given good lenses and technique. So, from that side of things, it has the potential to work well in the senior market, even if the clients can't quite tell what it is that makes the images so special. In this regard, flash sync is not so much an issue as is lens drawing style and sensor size (though IMO 44x33 is still closer to MF "look" than it is to 35)

No different for any portrait session, newborn session, pregger session, or wedding scenario ... not just seniors.

However, that isn't what necessarily gets you the job these days.

I get hired for the creative stuff, and then print sales are the standard stuff usually from Moms and Grandmas, or a portrait taken on the fly of a couple at the wedding, etc. I may shoot 500 pics at a wedding, 450 being PJ and at most spend an hour out of an eight hour gig spent on directed shots ... and 90% of the print sales are from that hour's work. But, I've never once been hired for that type of work ... that isn't the criteria of most clients, they don't hire you for that.

Same for family portraits, seniors, pregnant photography, even some corporate work I've done.

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

Mario, I've been doing this for a looooog time. I've run parallel systems since before digital. Medium Format and 35mm have always been complimentary as opposed to conflicting ways of working.

Only because of the more recent cost of Medium Format digital has it become an either/or scenario for some shooters. IMO, if you have to sacrifice having a decent 35mm solution to afford MFD, then MFD is too expensive an option. The caveat to that is if you know MFD can do everything you want, or you want to focus entirely on mastering MFD and have the luxury of time to do that.

My advice is to think of it as complimentary ... structure a MFD system that does more of what the 35mm can't ... and think longer term not just for now.

Sync speeds is one of those "complimentary" things ... either the Hasselblad H or Phase one IQs that offer that higher sync ability. Select a faster camera if that's the way you work. An H4D/50 is nice, but a H4D/40 or IQ140 is much more appropriate to your style. It doesn't have to necessarily be bank busting ... there's a guy selling a H4D/40 kit in the F/S section for $14K. I sold one for about that much.

Best of luck,

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

While the leaf shutter option is simpler it too has it's limits.

You can use studio strobes with with high speed sync with a Canon and the pocket wizard. You lose a fair bit of power, but a 6 K pack will give you more than enough power. You do have to use a relatively slow flash so that the light output is enough to cover the time required for the shutter sweep.

Something to keep in mind is that you can go faster with a Canon than a Phase Mamiya. It's a bit tricky but once you have it setup for you camera and flash power setting it is reliable.

All I am pointing out is that it's possible to do.

Another important thing to keep in mind though is that the with the Phase Mamiya it is a 1/1600th real durration. With the Canon it is an exposure of upto 1/4000th, but it is carried out over 1/250th of a second, so fast moving objects will have some distortion.

Interesting. Pretty exotic, but interesting. Maybe off topic a bit ... but the OP did say he also uses strobes.

What gear can do this Fred?

The least expensive 6,000w/s generator I could find is the Hensel Tria 6,000-S (Speed) with a MH6,000 head. The duration at full 6,000w/s out-put is 1/330 with one head ... with a turtle slow recycle time of 4.25 sec. Bet this sucker would trip the circuit breakers at most location sites

Hensel Tria 6000-S Power Pack (120-240V) 3660 B&H Photo Video

HENSEL-VISIT GmbH & Co. KG: MH 6000

Seems like everything else costs more than a MFD kit would.

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

Did I mention the Aptus II 8 with full DF system I ordered last week for the repro studio which is finally on track? I'd wondered how long I could keep shtum about it on this thread while I played devils advocate... :watch:

"Don't do as I do, do as I say" ... :ROTFL: