Questions about medium format cameras

[benjamin_kim2]

<p>1. Why pro photographers prefer to use leaf lens rather than HSS function?</p>

<p>2. What are the difference between 14 bit and 16bit?</p>

<p>3. Why medium cameras have only one AF point?</p>

<p>4. What kind of photographers use medium format cameras?</p>

<p>5. Can it be a great decision to use cheap medium format(Pentax 645D) with one zoom lens after graduate from the college?</p>

<p>6. What are major differences between Phase one and Hasselblad cameras?</p>

<p>7. Why the tethering is important? </p>

<p>8. Pentax have a bad tethering speed. How so?</p>

<p>9. Do photographers have to use Capture one pro for medium format cameras?</p>

<p>10. Do they buy medium format cameras with lenses and equipment for their uses?</p>

<p> </p>

[Jochen_S]

<ol>

<li>HSS is a <em>new</em> thing. It also AFAIK reduces the flash output in total. - Why have parts of your equipment jump through hoops (engineering wise) when you can get a simple similar capable solution? - Leaf shutters limit the max speed of lens designs and offer 1/500 sec at best. - OTOH: there is never enough light; I don't recall ever missing the 1/1000 sec on my leaf shuttered film cameras. - digital backs are similary slow and a wide open f4.5 lens is alreeady sufficiently hard to focus.</li>

<li>an additional gazillion of color shades rendered in theory.</li>

<li>better than nothing?</li>

<li>film lovers. / Studios & centerfold generators established while 35mm digital didn't provide the required quality.</li>

</ol>

<p>... 7 imagine you want to shoot a tabletop with tilt and shift. - what does your focusing screen show compared to a huge computer screen? - Its the difference between praying and knowing you nailed the shot.<br>

There are various ways to connect a PC to something else. Some have higher transfer rates than others.</p>

[alexo]

<p>5. Maybe. It all depends on the purpose. You'll get pretty much the same quality a lot cheaper with a full frame digital camera for a lot less.<br>

<br />9. They can use whatever they want. Capture One seems to be one of the better software packages out there, but it's not the end all.<br>

10. Some buy medium format and some buy full frame (35mm) cameras. It all depends on their purpose.</p>

[western_isles]

<p>I used medium format film cameras for years and only recently decided to move to digital. The main reason for Medium format in film is simply quality due to large transparency/negative size and the same applies to medium format digital now available. In addition, the quality of the lens' in medium format (digital and film) is superb. If I could afford a medium format digital I would buy one tomorrow but my lovely wife would break my legs for the increased mortgage on the house :(</p>

<p>Leaf shutter lens' tend to occupy the quality end of the spectrum and they tend to have a maximum speed of about 1/500th second. Sports and action people tend to go for high shutter speeds not offered by leaf shutters. Leaf also has advantages with flash with makes it simpler to use in and out of the studio.</p>

<p>I have never used Capture One but suspect, open to correction on this, that you could use just about any good quality software such as Light room/Photoshop etc.</p>

<p>Buying medium format lens with cameras with lens' is a bit more tricky. Most cameras used to come with a 'standard lens' for instance 80mm on 6x6cm or 50mm on 35mm. I used a standard lens a lot while building up my medium format kit because of the expense. However, there are a lot of very good quality used medium format cameras and lens' available now for a fraction of their new cost. It really depends what you are going to do in terms of subject matter and how much cash or flexible plastic friends you have. </p>

<p>Your idea in 5. "cheap medium format(Pentax 645D) with one zoom" might be your best bet as a starter. However, I would not regard Poentax 645D as a cheap camera as I am sure many users on this forum will attest to. I bought second hand cameras when I was starting in photography and there must be millions of photographers that have done the same. </p>

 

[donbright]

<p>I use my Medium format camera for the landscape, pretty much only. I have discovered that while out on location from time to time, the sweet image capture percentage for me is not high, therefore film is still my preference, and when that printable image comes along, off to the Tango Scanner it goes at 600mb 16bit. If the transparency has the up most of integrity, Exp, sharpness, no crop, its hard to beat. The scan costs approx. $78 to $80. It varies, but 3-4 strong images a year keeps me honest. Horses for courses. BTW. I've yet to lose a sale of an image because it originated as a film capture.</p>