The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

New MFDB Company Survey

MB100

New member
Hi Guys,

You may have noticed that my internet presence has been rather anemic of late, well that has been because I have been working very hard on a new medium format digital back company that I have started.

We have received an initial round of funding and are currently using that to create a prototype. We are now looking to raise a second round of funding to finish the prototyping process and get to making cameras.

As part of the initial round of funding, I have created an online survey to hear from the photographic community what they are looking for in a new medium format digital back. I would greatly appreciate it if you could take this survey and let me know what products you want us to make.

The survey can be found at SquareCameras.com

Best,
BH
 

steve_cor

Member
Brian,
If there is no product for us even to imagine, no specs or anything, we cannot surmise how much we want to pay for it. This survey doesn't make sense because things don't work that way. Now, if you proposed a product and a price, then people could tell you if they would be interested.

For example, you could ask people if they would pay $20,000 for a back with a full frame sensor for the RZ67, with specs like an IQ140, with fat pixels. Then you might be able to judge interest.

I don't have a degree in business, so I may be wrong.

--Steve.
 

gerald.d

Well-known member
Brian,
If there is no product for us even to imagine, no specs or anything, we cannot surmise how much we want to pay for it. This survey doesn't make sense because things don't work that way. Now, if you proposed a product and a price, then people could tell you if they would be interested.

For example, you could ask people if they would pay $20,000 for a back with a full frame sensor for the RZ67, with specs like an IQ140, with fat pixels. Then you might be able to judge interest.

I don't have a degree in business, so I may be wrong.

--Steve.
I think it's very interesting that the survey is presented in the way it is.

What it actually seems to present is an option to loosely specify your ideal digital back, and what you'd prepare to pay for it. This presumably gives some valuable insight into what people are after.

It's also of course targeted at a very well educated potential customer base. I guess some may well say "give me a 120MP FF CMOS back with 8K full sensor video at 120FPS for $10K", but I rather suspect the responses will actually be a little more realistic, and possibly highlight a potential gap in the marketplace?

Time will tell, but good luck to Brian with his venture!

Kind regards,


Gerald.
 

Ken_R

New member
Hi Guys,

You may have noticed that my internet presence has been rather anemic of late, well that has been because I have been working very hard on a new medium format digital back company that I have started.

We have received an initial round of funding and are currently using that to create a prototype. We are now looking to raise a second round of funding to finish the prototyping process and get to making cameras.

As part of the initial round of funding, I have created an online survey to hear from the photographic community what they are looking for in a new medium format digital back. I would greatly appreciate it if you could take this survey and let me know what products you want us to make.

The survey can be found at SquareCameras.com

Best,
BH
I did the survey.

I think it is awesome what you are doing. Looking forward to seeing the resulting product/s.
 

MB100

New member
Thanks for all of the support guys, and thanks for taking the Survey! The results thus far have been amazing.

Gerald is absolutely correct, this survey isn't meant to specifically test the waters for one particular product, but rather get a small census of the cameras and digital backs that people want to see created. Of course there is a particular product that I am developing and the hope is that that is what people will, on their own say they want; though hearing what people want in general is just as important for future products and creating a product pipeline.

Again, thank you all for taking the survey, and if you haven't PLEASE take the survey! The more response I get the better the resulting products will be!

Best,
BH
 

stephengilbert

Active member
I don't understand this. You say you have a product you're developing, which I assume means now. Having chosen the product to produce, what's the point of asking for people's "wants?"
 

MB100

New member
I don't understand this. You say you have a product you're developing, which I assume means now. Having chosen the product to produce, what's the point of asking for people's "wants?"
Well, as I said initially, we are in the prototyping stage, so it is still possible for us to go through different iterations and add or change features given what users want. We have not entered production on our product yet so it is still possible to change things to meet the demand of our users. Square Cameras has been developed to be particularly agile in responding to market demands.

Thankfully the medium format community has responded excellently and has been very vocal about their wants and desires which will let us strengthen our product.

Best,
BH
 

jagsiva

Active member
Responded.

Please don't forget a solid RAW converter that is married to the sensor, and the processing covers as much from capture to print....
 

tjv

Active member
Personally, I don't want to have to learn yet another RAW converter and workflow for any new camera. I'd rather a camera I buy work seamlessly with Lightroom, my chosen editer / data management software like the route Leica has taken. I'm not against dedicated software to do special tasks (LCC, for example,) if the camera manufacturer also works with Adobe / C1 / whoever to allow people to use one software workflow during the bulk of everyday processing and archiving.
Just my opinion, and others might (and probably will) disagree. Perhaps something akin to what Anders Torger is developing would be good, where you can embed LCC corrections etc into and output a new RAW file for other editers to make use of?

Responded.

Please don't forget a solid RAW converter that is married to the sensor, and the processing covers as much from capture to print....
 

jagsiva

Active member
Personally, I don't want to have to learn yet another RAW converter and workflow for any new camera. I'd rather a camera I buy work seamlessly with Lightroom, my chosen editer / data management software like the route Leica has taken. I'm not against dedicated software to do special tasks (LCC, for example,) if the camera manufacturer also works with Adobe / C1 / whoever to allow people to use one software workflow during the bulk of everyday processing and archiving.
Just my opinion, and others might (and probably will) disagree. Perhaps something akin to what Anders Torger is developing would be good, where you can embed LCC corrections etc into and output a new RAW file for other editers to make use of?
Not a hard test, but try a file in C1 vs. LR or Phocus vs. LR with native P1 or Hassey files.
 

tjv

Active member
I have, and for Hassey files at least the results are excellent. Colour is slightly different, as is moire suppression, but it's in the ballpark. I guess, like Leica, this owes to Blad working with Adobe, not shutting them out as I understand P1 does.
I'd rather a new MFD player concentrate on hardware and shooting experience and work openly with major software developers instead of spreading things too thin. Just my 2c, of course.
 

Mitch

Member
I have, and for Hassey files at least the results are excellent. Colour is slightly different, as is moire suppression, but it's in the ballpark. I guess, like Leica, this owes to Blad working with Adobe, not shutting them out as I understand P1 does.
I'd rather a new MFD player concentrate on hardware and shooting experience and work openly with major software developers instead of spreading things too thin. Just my 2c, of course.
+1
Miitch
 

MB100

New member
Thanks everyone for the responses to the Survey, you have all helped me to surpass my goal for the initial survey, and have inspired me to shoot higher for the results of the survey then I was initially planning due to the electric response.

As to the issue of the RAW processor, I believe that there is nothing for a new entrant into the market to gain by attempting to put out their own raw converter (me) since it will be very expensive and it would probably (definitely) be a vastly inferior product to the mature programs that exist at the moment. I think that the most likely situation will be the use of Lightroom, since from what I have been told (and I am happy to be disproven on this) PhaseOne doesn't seem to like to play nice with other MFDB companies. But we will cross that bridge soon enough and figure it out.
 
Top