Today’s 645 Blog entry was unplanned - much as today’s events were. Late in the afternoon my wife called, saying there were police cars behind the house on the fairway and police in front of the house too. Ten minutes later she called back saying a plane had crashed behind the house. HUH?!?! This was a big event for our sleepy neighborhood, so I left work early to join in with our neighbors - an impromptu watch party of sorts. Turns out we even made the evening news; there is a video clip to right. The pilot was uninjured and nobody else was hurt, so we can now turn our attention to more serious matters - cameras.

DECIDING WHICH CAMERA

While driving home I thought about which camera to use - the Nikon D700 or the Mamiya ZD. The Nikon would have been ideal except for one teenie-weenie detail - my only lens for is a Nikon 50mm F1.4 G. For the Mamiya ZD the lens choices were included the Mamiya 80mm F2.8 D AF, Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar, Mamiya 200mm F2.8 APO and the Mamiya 150mm F3.5 AF. It was ~4:45 PM and only about 1 hour of daylight remained. As I pulled into our neighborhood it was clear that I would not be able to get close to crash site.

I decided to use the Hasselblad 110mm with the ZD. The ZD won because there were plenty of pixels for cropping, and for its great DR range. The Hasselblad 110mm won because of its speed. The Mamiya 200mm F2.8 APO was my first choice (for the added reach), but with the slower aperture and longer focal length I was worried about getting decent shutter speeds at ISO 50.  There was only about an hour of sunlight left, so this was really pushing the ZD’s limits. Shooting ISO 100 was an option, but I try to avoid ISO 100 on the ZD. ISO 100 is usable, but can get ugly in the shadows.

All the images on this page are testament to the Mamiya ZD’s dynamic range. I tried to get west of the crash site, but the police lines made that impossible. Like it or not, I had to shoot into the sun. Medium format lenses are not happy when shooting into the sun. They tend to flare (significantly) and there is some type of veiling - which is clearly evident in the picture below. This is probably related to their much larger image circle.

WHAT WENT RIGHT, WHAT WENT WRONG

Despite less than ideal light conditions, the Mamiya ZD captured the pictures without issue. As to be expected in situations with strong backlight, EC adjustment was a must. Handling the ZD on a monopod with Really Right Stuff’s High Capacity Monopod Solution - MH-01 was very nice. I plan to ad a formal review about the MH-01 in a couple weeks. If you can not wait for the review - buy one, you’ll love it.

This is my second Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar. The first time was with the Mamiya 645AFD II and Phase One P25 about a year ago. Back then I found the Planar increasingly difficult to focus as the subject distance increased. The same held true today. At close distances the 110mm is pretty easy to focus, but at or near infinity it’s a bitch. Last time I used a cheap adapter purchased on Ebay from a Hong Kong seller. This time I used the Fotodiox Pro adapter. To me they look identical. I am not convinced they reach infinity; they certainly do NOT go past infinity. The Hasselblad 110mm Planar is a very sharp lens, but keeper rate has been low due to focus errors. Whether the Hasselblad is simply better at close distances or if adapter issues are causing a problem - I cannot say. In hindsight the Mamiya 150mm or 200mm may have proven a better choice. Shutter speeds were ~1/100 to 1/150 @ F2.8 and ISO 50. I was shooting with a monopod, so the 200mm APO might have been okay.

WHY CANON MAY HAVE BEEN BETTER

Having an extra stop of dynamic range in the highlights was nice, but it does not impact the end result significantly. Eight stops, nine stops, ten stops, eleven stops, twelve stops of DR - it does not matter when shooting into or towards the sun. Either expose for highlights and block up the shadows, or expose for shadows and blow the highlights. The difference between the Canon 1Ds Mark III and ZD is about 1 stop of DR in the highlights, so today that difference is slight at best. WIth the 1Ds Mark III the focus keeper rate would have been 90% or higher. If needed, I could have boosted ISO to 200, 400 or 800 without any quality worries. Being able to use ISO 800 means a mid-grade tele-zoom like the Canon 100-400L IS is perfectly usable as light wanes. The longer lens plus high density sensor in the 1Ds Mark III would have resulted in more detailed images. As we know - it is the composition, subject matter and lighting that make a good picture. Not the pixel count. I am just trying to point out that the dSLRs do have their advantages.

My goal for this blog entry was to show that the ZD was outside of its comfort zone. ZD, Aptus-22, P25, etc - they are all ISO 25 to ISO 100 backs, so any of them would have had similar limits. Die-hard medium format fans will email suggesting a tripod next time - with rescue workers doing their work and looky-loo’s like me scurrying about, a tripod was not feasible. I have repeatedly said that a digital back / system cannot replace a Canon or Nikon dSLR. Today is one of those days where a nice mid-grade dSLR with an equally nice tele-zoom would have been a perfect choice.

Lastly, the 1Ds Mark III can actually excel under these conditions. Its dynamic range in the highlight region is dismal, but it does produce a very vibrant image. Check out these two 135 Blog entries about the 1Ds Mark III under somewhat similar conditions (first link) (second link). And no, I’m not missing the 1Ds Mark III, but the ZD will be tag-teamed with a compact dSLR. As for which dSLR - that’s anybody’s guess. There are too many choice these days and I am stilling trying to decide.