ErikKaffehr
Well-known member
Hi,
That is a very fine shot of your son!
Thanks for thoughtful response. For me the thing is that I don't see much of that magic in the images I am shooting. But, I am not a large aperture shooter and there are some reasons for that. The two main reasons is that I have doubts of both my and the cameras focusing ability, the other is most large aperture lenses I have owned or seen have a lot of magenta/green fringing at large apertures.
So, if I want good bokeh I use a telephoto lens and I really like telephoto lenses.
The way I shoot, which is essentially on tripod, medium aperture I don't see a lot of difference between my Sony kit (and I guess you can replace that for Canon and Nikon) and my admittedly old Hasselblad kit. Now, I am not doing a lot of comparison shots, but that has essentially been my finding. I think this is a piece of good info. But I am not an artist, I am just an engineer enjoying taking pictures.
The Sony has very good live view (I regard magnified live view the best way to focus) and lots of focus points when using AF. In addition the Sony uses both Phase Detection (for speed) and Contrast Sensing (for precision) and uses the sensor itself for AF, so there is no need for AF-calibration.
Regarding the weight argument, for me it is quite simple. I can fly everywhere in Europe from a local airport 5 minutes away as I have Ryan Air operating here. But Ryan Air allows on one peace of cabin luggage with severe size limits and a 10 kg weight limit. Flying is much convenient and economical than driving. So in practice I have a 10 kg limit. Tripod and some stuff goes in the checked luggage. With the present kit I have pretty much everything I need. Lenses from 16-400, T&S ability from 16-35 and tilts available from 16-105 mm. Macro down to 1:1.
Best regards
Erik
That is a very fine shot of your son!
Thanks for thoughtful response. For me the thing is that I don't see much of that magic in the images I am shooting. But, I am not a large aperture shooter and there are some reasons for that. The two main reasons is that I have doubts of both my and the cameras focusing ability, the other is most large aperture lenses I have owned or seen have a lot of magenta/green fringing at large apertures.
So, if I want good bokeh I use a telephoto lens and I really like telephoto lenses.
The way I shoot, which is essentially on tripod, medium aperture I don't see a lot of difference between my Sony kit (and I guess you can replace that for Canon and Nikon) and my admittedly old Hasselblad kit. Now, I am not doing a lot of comparison shots, but that has essentially been my finding. I think this is a piece of good info. But I am not an artist, I am just an engineer enjoying taking pictures.
The Sony has very good live view (I regard magnified live view the best way to focus) and lots of focus points when using AF. In addition the Sony uses both Phase Detection (for speed) and Contrast Sensing (for precision) and uses the sensor itself for AF, so there is no need for AF-calibration.
Regarding the weight argument, for me it is quite simple. I can fly everywhere in Europe from a local airport 5 minutes away as I have Ryan Air operating here. But Ryan Air allows on one peace of cabin luggage with severe size limits and a 10 kg weight limit. Flying is much convenient and economical than driving. So in practice I have a 10 kg limit. Tripod and some stuff goes in the checked luggage. With the present kit I have pretty much everything I need. Lenses from 16-400, T&S ability from 16-35 and tilts available from 16-105 mm. Macro down to 1:1.
Best regards
Erik
Erik,
I've read your posts before and I respect you a lot. Having said that, I'm not a fan of comparative analyses, but here goes.
You may be right to some extent, that in SOME certain shots, the appearance of MF crop may not be different from the appearance of a 35mm crop. But these are certain crops only. But the process makes the difference. See the shot below. Done with the XF, WLF, iso 6400, manual focus. Minimal PP, simply a 5% increase in contrast and slight reduction on the clarity slider. literally 3 seconds of PP. Not matter what I do, I can't get that from the canons. or XT-1, or even M240 (all of which I have). That time saved to reach a level of satisfaction, say I save 10 mins on every snap I want to keep, it adds up. I do not shoot professional, but if I were to, (and I run a medical business), my main concern would be staff cost. I KNOW for a fact that using the Phase backs vs 35mm would likely save me close to 50K a year in PP staff times. In my situation, it is another 30-40 mins of personal time that I can use for other pursuits or spending time with my family. (When I'm not on forums, that is). I wish I had MF when my son was born. I really wish that, even to this day, which doesn't mean that his portraits that I did with the Nikon D200 are any worse.
Another reason, extrapolating it further, 35mm industry lags behind the MF by anywhere between 3-5 years when it comes to optical excellence, rendering etc. In your shots, P45 is what 7 years older than A7RII ? Those that say that they don't care about the latest gadgets are still using the latest in their own comparative thought processes. I understand that they may not have the latest backs, but its still an unfair comparison. TBH, an A7RII kit today with 2-3 good lenses would likely cost as much as a P45 kit with 2 mamiya lenses anyways. If the shots do look similar, is that not actually a win for the older technology?
Another issue: weight. Honestly, the argument is flawed: when we travel, the delta between MF kit and non MF kit forms less than 2% of the total weight we carry. How many people here care more about their kit weights than their body weights? I know for a fact that I do.
Just saying..
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