AN AFTERNOON WALK

Today’s pictures were taken handheld and while slipping and sliding down a steep embankment in flip flops. Considering the less than ideal shooting conditions I am happy anything was in focus. To help improve the odds of coming home with a couple keepers, all of today’s pictures were taken at ISO 100. Light was fading quickly and I could not get a solid footing in most cases, so bumping ISO was the best option. During today’s outing I noticed the Mamiya / Hasselblad adapter may be too thick for infinity focus. This is a surprise since there is plenty of room. These Ebay adapters are really poor quality...

Today’s pictures show the Phase One P25’s good side. It does very well with golden yellows and deep reds. The P25’s contrast and rich color palette worked well. The P25 seems most at home with this type of color palette. The colors work really well landscapes during golden hour, but the red tones may not work so well for portraits. I have read in the forums that the P25+ has a more neutral color palette (a-la the the C1 color profiles). I have also noticed reddish overtones in the P25 product shots; that has been manageable with some color balancing in Photoshop.

EXPOSING FOR HIGHLIGHTS

The picture of the railroad tracks vanishing into the distance does not look challenging, yet it took 12 attempts. The Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar did not like having the sun to the left just outside of the frame. It caused veiling and various degrees of flare. With some trial and error I was able to get the sun far enough out of the range to keep the Hasselblad happy. Given the the largish Hasselblad lens hood, I was surprised it took so many attempts.

The next trick was keeping the reflections on the rail road tracks from clipping. The P25 only has a couple stops of dynamic range above the mid-tones, so the P25 clips highlights quickly. Conversely, the shadows have amazing amounts of dynamic range and are very clean. It is easiest to expose for the highlights and then during post processing push up the shadow levels. The shadows are clean enough that they usually tolerate 2-3 stops of boost without showing much noise. Today was a gamble because these were taken at ISO 100 and ISO 100 does have more shadow noise. The rock bed was easily pushed 2 or 3 stops in Photoshop. The subject matter helps to hide the noise.

THE HASSELBLAD “5TH GENERATION” 110MM PLANAR

The next picture of the sun, power lines and tree branches looks innocent, but the Phase One P25 essentially crashes under these conditions. If the lens is shot wide open, the incoming light overloads the sensor and the area where the sun is turns into a big big white rectangle. To shoot such images, the lens must be stopped down to F8 or so. The P25 is rated for 8 stops of anti-blooming and I think high dynamic range images push the anti-blooming to its maximum and the Phase One P25 fails. It is not the Phase One P25 blowing out the region; the region is simply missing - zero data.

As for the Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar - it hates these shots too. It tends to flare, though in this case it was not too bad (see the right side of the picture). The 5th generation 110mm Planar added an additional baffle at the rear of lens. The baffle is supposed to help control flare and veiling. If this is an improved lens, then how bad were its predecessors?!?!

THE CONTAX 100MM PLANAR (LAST FIVE IMAGES)

The above pictures offer some examples of digital where medium format is less than happy. Perhaps these conditions seem extreme, but the Canon 1Ds cameras handle these conditions much better. And the Contax 100mm F2 Planar handles sun better too. Whether the lens is stopped down or wide open, the Canon 1Ds Mark II and Mark III sensors do not fail like the P25’s. Some how an image can probably be worked out with the Phase One P25, but it may take 5 to 10 shots to dial everything in. Whereas with the Canon 1Ds Mark II set to -2 EC compensation, shots like this are simple with no hassle.

For comparison purposes the last five pictures are with the Canon 1Ds Mark II and Mark III with the Contax 100mm F2 Planar. The last two are just there to show off some of the Contax’s 3D nature. Honestly, why spend the money on the medium format set-up???