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MF autofocus and other considerations when buying used

E

engardeknave

Not Available
I've become increasingly frustrated with the colors and tonal transition of my A7RII, and I think FF in general. (If anyone has any A7RII skin tone tips, let me know). I'm thinking about acquiring a P65+ or IQ160. I believe the largest sensor will yield the best result with regard to color transitions.

I had previously owned a Leaf Aptus-II 5 (44x33/22mp) & 645AFD. I thought the colors might have been slightly better than the A7RII, but it was close. However, I've since realized my lighting at that time was very sub-optimal.

One huge problem for me was the totally useless autofocus and the impossibility of reliably focusing manually. I get ~95% in focus with the A7RII fairly wide open. I only got like 50% dead-on focus with that 645AFD (F/4 @ ~5ft). I know that if I'm missing 45% more shots, it doesn't matter how much better the color transitions are, the end results are going to be worse due to good shots being missed.

So, if I get a P65+ or IQ160, is there any option for autofocus (at wide apertures) that is practically useful? Or any significant improvement over the 645AFD? I've never used a Hasselblad, what about the Phase One XF?

Am I right in my belief that the aforementioned MF backs will give me better colors?
 
F

fiver

New member
;) Generally I have found Hasselblad H4d/H5d/H6d series MF cameras to have the edge over the equivalent P1, the true focus feature is a real gem.

The other thing to consider is CCD or Cmos. some people say that a CCD sensor gives a richer tone than Cmos but that's opening up a can of worms.
 
beano_z

beano_z

Active member
So far for me, when shooting people, the only consistent way to nail focus is with live view. The 'focus and recompose' method on the XF + 80mm lens would work out probably less than 50% of the time for me.

Just to give an example, I tried the Hasselblad 50mm F/2.8 lens (which is sort of a wide angle) wide open, and at about 2~3 meters from the subject (you can calculate the DoF if you wish), on the 100MP back, the difference between visible in and out of focus at 100% is just about 10 to 15 degrees rotation on the focusing ring, and for me without live view, it would be impossible to obtain properly focussed images.

I have no experience with the Hasselblad true focus function so can't comment on the effectiveness of that.
 
ErikKaffehr

ErikKaffehr

Well-known member
Hi,

Colour depends probably 90% on colour profiles and tonal transitions depend something like 100% on colour profiles. (*)

So checking your colour profile may help. If you would go into Team Phase One cameras, you would be encouraged to use Capture One. Capture One makes very good profiles and it may be that they put more work into supporting their own products that others.

I am mostly a landscape shooter, so I don't know that much about skin tones.

The older sensors may not have that many benefits over say the Sony A7rII or the D810, as these cameras pack something like 10 years of development into the sensor design and that may compensate for the advantage of size.

One are where MFD should have a great advantage may be image detail, but that depends very much on lenses and of course proper usage.

Here are some samples I show a few weeks ago with my P45+ and my Sony A7rII using 'Adobe Standard' profiles, my own profiles generated by Anders Torger's DCamProf and also C1.

http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/ColourProfiles3/

In all cases I used second grey patch from the colour checker, except with Capture One and P45+, where I have WB both on ColorChecker and Capture one's built in "Flash" setting that gives 5500K.

Raw files are here:
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/ColourProfiles3/20170313-CF047412.iiq
http://echophoto.dnsalias.net/ekr/Articles/ColourProfiles3/20170313-_DSC9081.dng

Just to say, it could be that the new Hasselblad X1D may be more attractive option. It is said to yield very nice colour out from Phocus, Hasselblad's own raw converter. It is designed around Sony's 44x33 mm sensor. The same applies to the Fuji GFX.

Best regards
Erik

(*) There is also something called Full Well Capacity.

engardeknave said:
I've become increasingly frustrated with the colors and tonal transition of my A7RII, and I think FF in general. (If anyone has any A7RII skin tone tips, let me know). I'm thinking about acquiring a P65+ or IQ160. I believe the largest sensor will yield the best result with regard to color transitions.

I had previously owned a Leaf Aptus-II 5 (44x33/22mp) & 645AFD. I thought the colors might have been slightly better than the A7RII, but it was close. However, I've since realized my lighting at that time was very sub-optimal.

One huge problem for me was the totally useless autofocus and the impossibility of reliably focusing manually. I get ~95% in focus with the A7RII fairly wide open. I only got like 50% dead-on focus with that 645AFD (F/4 @ ~5ft). I know that if I'm missing 45% more shots, it doesn't matter how much better the color transitions are, the end results are going to be worse due to good shots being missed.

So, if I get a P65+ or IQ160, is there any option for autofocus (at wide apertures) that is practically useful? Or any significant improvement over the 645AFD? I've never used a Hasselblad, what about the Phase One XF?

Am I right in my belief that the aforementioned MF backs will give me better colors?
Click to expand...
 
D

DB5

Member
You will love the bigger sensor for skin tone and texture. The P65+ or IQ160 are a very good choice IMO. Here is my vote for Hasselblad TrueFocus as well. It really does work very well.
 
E

engardeknave

Not Available
Very useful information. I can't say how much I appreciate no one lecturing me on a supposed lack of manual focusing skills. A lot of real experience in this crowd.
 
kdphotography

kdphotography

Well-known member
Middle-aged+ eyes abound here---no one is gonna criticize the lack of manual focusing skills. ;)

If going the Phase XF route, you definitely need the IQ series platform. No comparison to previous generation bodies---the XF autofocus performance is fast and excellent.

ken
 
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