moving from heavy 6x6 camera to lightweight digital camera

Hi folks,

 

I´m new to to photo.net and hope this form/thread is the right one for my question.

 

Well, my age is 60+ and hiking and traveling with my 6x6 medium format analog camera and its equipment becomes more difficult.

 

Therefor I decided to move to a smaller and hopefully lighter digital equipment. Mostly I use lenses from 24-200 mm, a Spotmeter and tripoid. Most usecases are landscape and outdoor photography, flash isn‘t required but long exposures. And a full manually controlled shooting.

 

But, what to choose? In medium format size you had let’s say 2 or 3 main players in the gaim. But now the market of digital camera manufacturers, sensor sizes and resolutions, DSLR‘s, mirror less and compact cameras is nearly inextricable to me.

 

May be, some one of you performed this switch before me and would like to share her/his experiences with me.

 

If more information is required please let me know.

 

Many thanks in advance for reading and answering,

 

moose

 

PS At home I‘ve and use a fully color calibrated workflow starting with a Flextight scanner over Mac and Windwos machines, both with PS and a A2 ink printer.

I'll probably be the first, but I'm sure not the last, to make this suggestion : visit as many dealers as you can, handle the equipment, find what feels 'right' to you. Even if your main intention is tripod use, something that you are happy hand holding may open up opportunities of which you were not previously aware. Once you have a short list, you have some data on which to base your final decision. You have not mentioned your budget, but this can be another constraining factor, of course. Best of luck anyway, and please share the results.

Tony has it. Not least because many of the top, professional dSLRs can have a mass that is no less than a film medium format camera.

 

It's at the entry end of the product spectra that there are some very nice, smaller-sensor (APS-C, but high ppi and resolution) with some attractive lighter lenses as well.

Your use of medium format, and your interest in landscapes and outdoor photography suggests you should look at one of the high resolution cameras. There are several with 40-50 MP, which at least matches (or surpasses) the resolution of 6x6 color film. You interest in completely manual operation suggests a mirrorless camera rather than a DSLR. Manual focusing with a DSLR is not very precise unless you use live view. That generally requires a tripod, and menu options each time you use it. Mirrorless cameras with an electronic viewfinder are live view all the time. Most have magnification and other options which greatly enhance manual focusing.

 

Mirrorless cameras are also much lighter and smaller than DSLRs, although there isn't much difference in lens weight in long lenses unless you forego f/2.8 as a working standard. On the other hand, mirrorless camera lenses tend to have very high quality, even if they are a stop or two slower to save weight and cost. I'm very happy with my 70-200 f/4 Sony lens, and have no plans to buy the f/2.8 version. I find that a mirrorless kit weighs about 30% less than a comparable DSLR kit, and fits in a smaller bag.

 

Among the models you might consider...

• Sony A7Rii 42 MP - No AA filter, which improves resolution (discontinued but available at a deep discount)
  
• Sony A7Riii 42 MP - Double the battery capacity of the ii, and other features, also on discount due to a newly announced update
  
• Sony A7Riv 61 MP - The latest and greatest high resolution Sony.
  
• Nikon Z7 45 MP - Not many lenses yet, but compatible with most older Nikon lenses you might already have.
  

Mirrorless cameras have a short flange to sensor distance, and can be used with most older lenses with an inexpensive adapter. I have adapters for Nikon, Canon and Leica lenses. It doesn't make sense to buy old lenses for this purpose. New lenses dedicated to a particular camera style are much better in many ways, and have more usability features.

Even if your main intention is tripod use, something that you are happy hand holding may open up opportunities of which you were not previously aware.

Is a key sentence, I would have put into bold in Tony's all in all very sound post above. To my greatest dismay I must confess: I don't own or know your solution. If the primary goal is to generate printer filling images from a tripod; you need high megapixel count not just 24MP and there, pardon my French, the fun of walking around with the camera seems to have already ended. - I am young and lazy. I look at the current crop of high resolving 35mmFF bodies + appropriate great glass with the same respect as at 6x6 kits.

 

If DSLRs are an option for you:

• Pentax K1 D is worth looking at. But you might struggle getting lenses together. - A field for research; don't rush to buy that camera without.
  
• Sony A7R series is surely recommended
  
• if multiple cameras are an option, think about a Leica Q2!
  
• I'm biased against Nikon (D850) The Canons might be smaller, there seem more stabilized primes.
  

Maybe I am just too dumb to simply go and buy myself a really great carbon fiber tripod and shoot happily ever after. but I think lazyness and shooting hand held with stabilizers go well together.

 

To not fill your printer, I recommend looking at Leica M; a quite lovely, quaint rather manual camera system and you can find most compact lenses there. The weight is still on the higher end though.

Below that I'd look at Fuji APS stuff. good glass reasonable sensors great JPEGs light and compact, occasionally lacking greatest AF or IBIS / OIS primes but all in all portable and nice.

 

If you have money and are determined about using tripods for landscapes and don't need swift AF you could also look at Fuji's & Hasselblad's crop-MF offerings.

I wamly recommend opening an Excell sheet and trying to generate lists for all systems in question. add up weight, Try to get hold of comparable lens reviews (DxOmark?)

and make a smart (currently maybe unpredictable) move, once you are done (renting and touching in general are good ideas!).

 

My experience:

• I dislike bringing serious i.e.4kg +x tripods most; but I am a motorbiker.
  
• A 70-200/2.8 on Canon gets heavy; too heavy for my casual shooting taste. I am much happier carrying a 135/2.8 on a Pentax crop body.
  
• Shooting around ISO 800 on a 35mm FF body handholding can become an option by daylight.
  
• I'm not sure about manual focusing in the digital world. Something can be done on DSLRs but it ain't no fun. I'd rather rely on theri AF. MILC AF can be amazingly precise.
  
• While a lot of aging or otherwise lazier getting folks switched to Leica M over the years it is maybe no longer the ideal system for that purpose and a bit awkward to be shot from a tripod. - But yes, I'd use it, since I have it and live with 135mm as my long end.
   
  
• What we recall as a sane / portable 35mm travelling system from film days seems to have died out. Nobody seems to make lenses like 200/4 / 135/ 2.8 or even slower anymore. There are the trinities of f2.8 zooms, usually decent but high price and heavy + insanely fast quality primes that are way too bulky to enjoy and in established systems unspectacular (resolution wise) relicts from film days.
  
• Buy a 2nd camera. Juggling lenses in the field gets dust on your sensor(s), that you won't get rid of by advancing your film.
  

Sorry I did not research the new mirrorless FF systems properly. Sony menus and user interfaces might be obstacles. Leica don't offer the compact primes I am after as native lenses for their L mount and I have no clue how these cameras (also Panasonic & Sigma) perform, compared to the other brands. But if AF is unimportant enough to consider a Pentax, these MILCs (and the bigger MF ones) should be worth looking at.

Hi folks,

 

first of all a big THANK YOU to all of you who answered to my question(s) during this short time! I‘m deeply impressed about quality, details and upcoming new aspects of your answers, really!

 

I only gave a rough overview about what I‘d like to do with my new camera because I don‘t what to steer the discussion to a specific direction. But, because I‘ve been asked I‘d like to give some more informations about my way of shooting and image processing workflow.

 

I like my Hasselblad very, very much and will never give it away because owning and using one was a dream to me since childhood when I got my first Voigtländer Vitoret. But, as time goes by I‘m not able anymore to carry a 20+ kg backpack through the mountains so I came to point to limit my camera, lenses and tripoid weight to 4-5 kg in sum.

 

So weight is the absolutely top feature. Second one quality will be which means no JPEG on shooting just RAW, best 16 bit color depth. Sensor size and resolution I‘m not sure about at the moment. Currently I‘m scanning my color slides at 16 bit color depth and 3500 dpi which ends up in 8k x 8k pixel files. But, because I‘m printing with max. 150 dpi I really need this big image files very, very rare. Up to A2 I print myself, bigger ones like 1x1m I give to a lab. Sometimes I sell a photo but I‘m to unknown and in times of instagram most people think they‘ll get everything for free. Therefor I build my own image gallery on the web with small sized photos available under CC license.

 

Motive searching and shooting: I‘ve time and dislike it to be in a hurry because photography is my hobby, not my job. And I need to be in the right mood otherwise I couldn‘t shoot photos in a way I‘d like them afterwards. Mostly I visit a place three times: first, just notifying a motive fortuitously, on a walk, hike, while climbing or on eBike. Second, I think about when season, light and other conditions will be right for this motive and come again to verify my thesis. And third, when all conditions match I come again for shooting. You may be amused about my way of shooting but that‘s me and I like to shoot my photos this way.

 

If these additional informations will lead to new camera/system suggestions they would be greatly appreciated!

 

Have a nice day and again, thanks for your most valuable hints,

 

moose

Edited September 30, 2019 by moose

Any new full frame will fit the bill. Canon 5D4, Nikon D850, Sony A7R3 or R4 and lenses, it is high end . Bit cheaper Canon 6D2, Nikon D750 and Sony A7-3.

IQ+small size+lightweight+superb optics=Fujifilm MILCs.

When you factor locking yourself into a system for years and the amount of investment you will put into lenses I think the best approach is to rent the cameras you are looking at for a a couple of days. I’ve rented from lensrental online with no problem and am not hesitation to rent again. I know others that have rented from borrowlenses.

 

I don’t think I would rent from any of these places that try and find you individuals that are willing to rent out their own personal gear. Lensrental has great articles they have taken care of me when things went astray, spending an hour in a shop will never compare to taking a camera out and shooting with it over the course of a weekend. I have been employing this rental test strategy for the past couple of years and wouldn’t think of ignoring it when jumping to a whole new system

 

All that said I think I’m waiting to see what Nikon and canon release in terms of a high MP mirrorless hoping for both a refined pixel shift feature as well as an automated focus bracketing sequence

I neglected to mention in-body image stabilization (IBIS), which is featured in all Sony FF cameras, and other brands as well. With IBIS, which works with any lens, old or new, you seldom have to use a tripod. In fact I rarely do, even though I routinely have one in the car or on a shoulder strap. You still need a tripod for frame-to-frame consistency, long exposures and precision at the pixel level. I routinely hand-hold for stitched panoramas and bracketed exposures. Sans tripod, you must allow a little more room for cropping, due to variations between frames.

 

I used a Hasselblad system almost exclusively for travel and landscapes for nearly 15 years, first with film and then with a digital back. IBIS in Sony cameras was one of the key features which persuaded me to switch. Until recently, Sony was the only one with IBIS in full-frame cameras, another key feature for me.

Many of use had been using 35mm film SLRs for years before digital, and it was

easy to switch to a digital SLR. Some even have knobs in the same place.

 

Since you are not changing from a 35mm film SLR, that doesn't apply.

 

The high end DSLRs are very good, so I don't think you will be disappointed with what

you see.

 

The high-end mirrorless are very good, and I suspect a lot lighter.

 

I suspect that both DSLR and MILC will be technically good enough for you, but you do

need to check the look and feel.

Hi folks,

 

thanks so much for your continued posting and sharing!

 

Meanwhile the fog goes away and the first outlines of my new camera equipment become visible. Additionally I did some research on the web based on your suggestions. My first results are the following:

 

• mirrorless digital camera body (less weight than DSLR)
  
• full frame chip with round about 50 +/- 10 MP
  
• must not be the latest / newest one
  
• good test results, well engineered, metal body, firmware updates still available and hopefully continued for a while ...
  
• Hasselblad or PhaseOne are to big and to heavy
  
• if possible, in-body not in lense image stabilization - can use more / different lenses
  

These points lead me to the Sony Alpha R 7 II...IV . But, as suggested by some of you I think it would be a good idea to rent the camera for a few days before making the buying decision. So I‘ll do soon.

 

At this point the decision for the body has been done thanks to you guys!

 

Now the question for the right lenses come up. I‘m a great fan of ZEISS lenses which are available for SONY bodies too. But, how is the feature of depth of field control implemented on the digital cameras? On my current lenses I have a aperture ring, a meter ring and some strokes which show me the range of depth in field in ft/m at a specific aperture. But, the new lenses for digital cameras seam not to have this comparison option. Therefor my first question is how do I get control of depth of field on digital camera lenses?

 

Second, are there any suggestions for lenses, anyway if fixed or zoom ones for Sony Alpha R 7 II-IV Bodies which cover the range from about 24 to 200 mm?

 

Are there any other topics to keep in mind while choosing the right lenses for my new body?

 

Again, thanks a lot for your continued assistance!

 

Kind regards,

 

moose

Edited October 1, 2019 by moose

As a Sony A7xxx user, I will address your questions from that viewpoint. Other makes and models have similar features.

 

Depth of field:

You can see the effect of DOF at all times, since the lens automatically stops down once focus has been achieved. Since the finder adjusts brightness automatically, DOF is easily evaluated, unlike in a DSLR. Strictly manual lenses, like Zeiss Loxia, have a DOF scale engraved on the focusing barrel. The Zeiss Batis lenses are "focus by wire", but have an OLED display of DOF when in manual mode. Legacy lenses with DOF markings can also be used. Most AF lenses for the Sony don't have true manual focus. The focus ring operates indirectly on the lens through the camera interface. DOF is a convenient fiction which I don't really use. As you will see in an electronic finder, the plane of sharp focus is very narrowFor landscapes, I either focus at infinity or on a key mid-range object.

 

Adapters for Hasselblad V lenses are readily available, if you don't mind lenses no shorter than 40 mm that weigh more than the camera itself. Make sure the shutter is cocked, and engage the DOF preview lever or switch. The ability to use nearly any lens allows A/B comparisons. This is why I don't recommend using so-called "legacy" lenses except temporarily, while you grow your kit of native lenses.

 

Focal Length:

The most useful lens is probably a mid-range zoom, such as a Sony 24-70/2.8 GM ($$) or 24-105/4. I have the f/2.8 version, which mostly stays on the camera. To round out the kit, I have a Sony 70-200/4 lens, which performs as well as the f/2.8 version at half the cost and 60% of the weight. On the short end, the Sony/Zeiss 16-35/4 is very good, and there is a Sony f/2.8 version as well ($$).

 

I prefer manual lenses, specifically Zeiss Loxia lenses, for landscapes. They give me focus control sometimes difficult to achieve with AF lenses, and are much easier to carry around your neck than large, heavy zoom lenses. Something you will appreciate as an Hasselblad user, lenses for the Sony are sharp from corner to corner, even wide open. Because they are so sharp, the image starts to fall off at f/8 (the diffraction limit). This is especially true for wide angle lenses, which tend to be soft in the corners on DSLRs. Leica image quality at 1/3rd the cost.

 

From a strictly practical level, you need zoom lenses and auto-focus to minimize lens changes and follow action, including children. Manual lenses give you complete artistic control, but at a cost of convenience and operating speed. As the US Marines say, paraphrasing, one is for shooting, the other for fun.

Thanks so much, Ed!

how is the feature of depth of field control implemented on the digital cameras?

I don't know Sony equipment, but, lacking useful DOF markings on my Nikon G series lenses, I've found an app on my phone to be very useful, if only to confirm my visual evaluation through the viewfinder. HyperFocal Pro is free and provides a wealth of information, in an instant, and without a data connection.

I use a Sony RX100iv 24-70mm equivalent. 20mb stills. It also has 4k video as well as 1080. It's small. It fits in my shirt pocket. Their new one is the RX100vii with a range of 24mm-200mm. You have manual as well as APerture, Shutter and P and A modes. Fast auto focus. It's small. You can shoot RAW, jpeg or RAW + jpeg. It's got a screen on back plus an eye level viewfinder as well and built in flash. Great on vacation. Here are some shots and one video clip. By the way, did I say it is small?

American Southwest 2018 - Digital

I've found an app on my phone to be very useful, if only to confirm my visual evaluation through the viewfinder. HyperFocal Pro is free and provides a wealth of information, in an instant, and without a data connection.

 

Thanks for your hint, David!

 

Sadly, HyperFocal Pro is available for Android only. But, because I‘d need an iOS App I‘ll have look at TrueDoF-Pro and OptimumCS-Pro from Apple‘s App Store. Anyway, I think these iOS Apps will work quiet similar.

Edited October 4, 2019 by moose

"Photopills" has DOF tables with hyperfocal distances, as well as ephemeris tables with the times and azimuth of the sun and moon. It's available for iOS and Android. It's very handy for shooting sunrise and sunset.

Does the Sony not have some form of electronic DoF scale? My Fuji does, but it's so subtle that I didn't notice it until I read the manual.

Sony has rough focus distance and zoom displays in the EVF, but not DOF. AF lenses with hard manual focusing, including the Sony 90/2.8 Macro, have an engraved distance scale only. Zeiss Loxia lenses have both a distance and DOF scale. Zeiss Batis lenses have an OLED display for distance and DOF.

Just had a look at photopills app. It has much more functions than the other two I mention before for the same price. It’s available for iPhone and iPad and supports six languages including my native one. For my humble opinion it has a better value for money relation. And a lot of tutorials on the developer’s website no just only for DoF. It’s a little bit like a Swiss army knife for the right exposure in difficult illumination situations on outdoor photography. A really great tip Ed, thanks!

 

Thanks also for your DoF notes related to ZEISS Batis and Loxia lenses! For shure I‘ll keep these hints in mind on buying lenses for my Alpha in future.

 

Regards,

 

moose

I use a Sony RX100iv 24-70mm equivalent. 20mb stills. It also has 4k video as well as 1080. It's small. It fits in my shirt pocket. Their new one is the RX100vii with a range of 24mm-200mm. You have manual as well as APerture, Shutter and P and A modes. Fast auto focus. It's small. You can shoot RAW, jpeg or RAW + jpeg. It's got a screen on back plus an eye level viewfinder as well and built in flash. Great on vacation. Here are some shots and one video clip. By the way, did I say it is small?

American Southwest 2018 - Digital

The camera you mentioned is really great, I know. I had a closer look at it in spring when buying a new camera just for traveling with very low and small luggage. But, I myself found the Lumix TZ200 fits better to my needs because it has a 24-360 mm ´travel´ zoom and I really needed the long focal distance on safari and whale watching. Anyway, the Sony RX100 IV is a really great camera too. Thanks for your suggestion, Alan!

moose,

 

why don’t you do what almost every digital user does and experiment with different apertures?

 

Because I don’t have the camera now and come from analog world. So I‘m looking for a way to transfer my current shooting methodes to the digital world. So far I first think about which range of DoF I‘ll need for a specific motive, choose the right aperture for this DoF on my lense, press the dimmer button on the lense and check through view finder if it fits to my needs. This is the way I used so far.

moose,

 

why don’t you do what almost every digital user does and experiment with different apertures?

Same reason you’ve never experimented with playing the tuba? :)

[Disclaimer: I’m not assuming what Moose is talking about indicates a lack of experimentation with apertures.]

 

And forgive me, Ludmilla, if you’re actually a tuba virtuoso.

 

If not, here’s a little Vaughan Williams to catch us up. (I always thought of the tuba as anthropomorphic, sort of Hitchcock-like.)