Life with the 50

[Monty Rakusen]

I said I'd write a bit more and here it is.

Early this year I was at a big meeting of photographers who work for Cultura and we were discussing final library file sizes. At the time they were 52mb. I suggested we should be allowed to supply higher sizes and someone jokingly piped up that as I had a 50 maybe 143mb! We settled on 65mb!
Someone in a very friendly way said that only I , in the middle of the worst recession in living history would buy a H3D50!

I have to admit that some small worries crept into my mind! What am I doing? All these guys shoot much smaller formats with cheaper kit, most of them are much more successful than I! And its not like we've not been affected by the recession either, our commission sales have dropped and dropped and there simply isn't my type of work out there at a decent rate and although it sporadically improves there is not much improvement in sight. Never the less, we still make a living and with the kind of work I'm doing I'm enjoying it more and more.

Was the camera a good investment?

There is absolutely no doubt that it was.

Could I have continued with the 39mk1?

Yes probably, but it was quite worn out and now I have a spare camera.

Is the 50 better than the 39?

Yes it is, but its subtle and clients do notice. I'm not sure what they notice but they love the quality. For me that's what its about, quality. However, I'm not sure that in the present climate clients are prepared to pay more for quality. Hmmm.
The chip is different. You don't get red in the mid tones. The tonal range is better and smother, more like seeing. You do still get moire but Phocus is quite good at that. I've had a few scrambled bits in pictures but just a few. It seems to shoot a more 'complete' picture, in terms of over exposure and you can successfully recover more over-exposure. I'm quite happy at 200asa and sometimes I'll work at 400. There's more you can do to the picture later without any damage.
The seals on the back of the camera are much better and I'll regularly go through a shoot with no dust at all.

Is the 50 any easier to use?

NO its not. All H camera are damn difficult to use.
Recently a very well respected photographer was being kindly complimentary about my work. " Oh I just love the gentle colours and tones and the softness is amazing, how did you get that?". "Well I think it must be the camera, the Hass H3D, and the profile I use". "Ahh yes we have one of those but its just too difficult to use, we find the focus very hard to get right".
Yeh right! You've got to work at it! That's what makes the pictures good!

I've not had time to get it converted to the H4D yet but I'm looking forward to the focus.

What has it done for my work?

I shoot more into the card but still 90% tethered. I shoot more hand held and freer and still the focus is quite successful. I'm sure 35mm is just the same, I don't know, but as most people shoot on 35mm at f8 and I shoot everything on MF at 4 or 2.8 its not surprising that some things are out! The work looks better, not that many (stupid) clients would notice, but it gives me more confidence and I'm able to maintain my style and improve my work on what has become a very stable platform.

Is the huge file size a problem?

Yes and no.
Firstly, I was concerned, why the hell was I using a 50mp camera shooting 286mb(?) 16 bit files. Then I was post producing these and bringing them down to 143mb 8bit, then resizing them down again to 60mb AND then saving them out as 11 quality 300dpi jpgs which were only about 7mb for upload to the library!
This seemed absolutely bonkers, until I was stuck in the volcanic ash cloud in Spain. I tried to post produce some of my work on my 3 year old MBP. It was a nasty experience so I processed out my files at (can't remember the size) so they went down to 60mb as 8 bit. That worked fine until I had retouching to do. When you retouch on a massive sized image and you shrink it down to less than half its size your retouching looks great because it was originally done at a larger scale! When you do it one to one... its crap. Thats the long and short of it ..... bigger file better post production! I see this as a great advantage.
Secondly....I've had to buy a new MacBook Pro i7....well it was due, the old one was over 3 years old and was literally creaking. Phocus flies on this machine and is a joy to use, of course there are niggles, like it refuses to scroll back through the thumbnails just when you're showing the client the days work or it will only crop by using the tool from the right. Stupid simple things that really shouldn't be a problem on a 2K machine. More worrying is the fact that its only got an 800FW port....I've been through that on my old machine. 800 IS NOT DESIGNED FOR THE KIND OF WORK I DO! All that plugging and unplugging jolting and moving is a recipe for disaster and already I've had 2 pink frames and odd behaviour. There's no alternative incase the port goes down. I've made a plastic clip to hold the plug into the socket nice and straight and this seems to work well. I've bought an 800 RT angle to 800 female socket, I've not used it yet but it shows promise. There is a way. Failing all this does anyone know of a good USB card reader that I can use in an emergency should all else fail. The ones I have found seem to be all purpose, for all different cards.

It works, Phocus that is, begrudgingly on my big Mac Pro in my digital darkroom. Phocus occasionally has graphics problems if I'm moving lots of sliders. Everything stops for a while and I make a coffee, then its OK. More serious events are broken up screen images , blacked out tool bars at the top but they do tend to get better by themselves. Photoshop CS3 (not upgraded yet) works fine with the big files if not a little slow opening them up and occasionally complex history brushes take a little while to catch up. I only work on one file at a time in 16bit. Its annoying but bearable and there is no way I'm going to be changing that machine as well.

Is the camera stable?

I did have problems at first, but these are all sorted out and it is very unusual to have any sort of crash, especially with the new mac. Shooting as I do you could expect to have one event every day (which is resolved by removing the battery) but its less than that now. Better not tempt fate!

What about 'old standard' profile?

I've had to abandon that...I'm not sure its compatible with Phocus. It was causing lots of problems. I've built my own version which looks better, I didn't get any help from Hasselblad, I got the feeling that the old standard profile was effectively pushing the asa and could be degrading the image so they weren't interested. The 50 files are absolutely bomb proof so my version lifts just over half a stop and so far hasn't caused any problems. I recently shot a project in Standard and to me the colours look cheap and cheerful. Standard is OK in the studio.

Would I have been better off with the 40?

Perhaps, its a nice camera with a slightly problematically smaller chip and better high asa. Perhaps but I'm not losing any sleep over it.

What have I been doing with it?

Have a look at my Andalucian work and see what you think.

http://www.rakusen.co.uk/2-images/pdfs/SPAINFARMERS2.pdf

http://www.rakusen.co.uk/2-images/pdfs/SPAINLIFE2.pdf


Any suggestions gratefully received!

Kind regards

Monty Rakusen

I'll post this on the 'other' forum as well






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This Mail comes from Monty Rakusen's Studio in Yorkshire, England.


You can see Monty's Corporate work at http://www.rakusen.co.uk

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Monty is a member of The Association of Photographers

STUDIO: +44 (0) 1937 830052 MOB: +44 (0) 7778 411337 SKYPE: montyrakusen

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[David Grover]

What about 'old standard' profile?

I've had to abandon that...I'm not sure its compatible with Phocus. It was causing lots of problems. I've built my own version which looks better, I didn't get any help from Hasselblad, I got the feeling that the old standard profile was effectively pushing the asa and could be degrading the image so they weren't interested. The 50 files are absolutely bomb proof so my version lifts just over half a stop and so far hasn't caused any problems. I recently shot a project in Standard and to me the colours look cheap and cheerful. Standard is OK in the studio.


Sorry Monty, I can't let that one go.  Saying you didn't get any help is unfair, as both Paul and I visited your studio.

The OLD standard was not correct with the chosen ISO level - not much good for a camera with in built metering!  The image would not have been degraded but having a camera with correct ISO rating should be expected at this level.

Also the lower contrast was simply produced by constructing a curve. Building your own version was exactly the right thing to do as it is a personal choice.  Us simply making you a lower contrast curve would be difficult as we don't quite know exactly what you like.

[Monty Rakusen]

Oh no you were a great help....you did all you could to fix the problem and Douglas. But the problem wasn't fixable and I was hoping that Hasselblad would look at Old Standard and make an identical but compatible version for me, after all they made it in the first place and should know how to do it. However from talking to Douglas I got the impression that as there was a danger of OLd Standard damaging the pictures and Hasselblad would, quite rightly, not support that.

Consequently I spent a whole day making curves that imitated Old Standard, without any help from Hasselblad.

Otherwise I couldn't be happier with the kind help you all give me.....I just had to do this myself!   

Monty

[Monty Rakusen]

David and Douglas

You are giving me sleepless nights now! Now I'm feeling guilty!

I never meant to be critical, you have always been very helpful.

Please accept my apology.

Monty

[arminw]

Hey Christian and Monty,

Thank you for a great review I enjoyed reading about your experience  with the 50. 

I just upgraded to the h4d50 myself and love the quality it produces. However, the shortcomings on all of the H cameras are definitely the FireWire port, and it is a big '?' to me why Hasselblad can't make or design a connection to make tethering a hassle free procedure?
The file size is of course huge, but when it comes to retouching you can tear the files apart and still keep detail and quality to the end result. 
Armin 
    

Armin Weisheit - Photography
Studio 3

[stewhem]

+1 re thanks for the interesting account, Monty. And I really like the second batch of shots, with the wine glass (and NOT because they have a wine glass in! Anyway it's an empty one...)

[NickT]

However, the shortcomings on all of the H cameras are definitely the FireWire port, and it is a big '?' to me why Hasselblad can't make or design a connection to make tethering a hassle free procedure?

I agree that the Firewire ports are a weakpoint Armin, have a look here:

http://www.hasselbladdigitalforum.com/index.php/topic,1178.0.html

Nick-T

[Monty Rakusen]

I keep discovering new aspects of my workflow/ work that are wholly dependent on the Hasselblad.

I've just had dinner with some friend photographers and I was showing them some work I did the other week where for safety reasons no flash was allowed. For 2 days I shot with no flash and the results are interesting, not quite as I'd wish but interesting and it leads towards a trend of working without flash, anyway I digress.
These guys shoot with Nikon and we were discussing the problems of low light working, they were saying that even with the high asa of the Nikon its still not ideal and they were very shocked when they saw the H3D images. How did I get them so bright and 'lit'. I explained that in a way I use a form of HDR.. its not computer generated HDR its a matter of processing out the same file several different brightnesses and then laying them on top of one another and then rubbing out where necessary. Primitive really. Then they saw that I'd lifted one layer by 2 stops and we checked it for quality. 'Oh no we couldn't do that it would break up on ours!'

So there you have it, not that I recommend pushing ones files 2 stops, its an extreme example! Bomb proof!

Just got it converted to H4 so I'm very excitedly testing tomorrow!

Monty