Fashion and beauty photographer Rob Van Petten uses the 24.5MP Nikon D3X for everything.

Case Study 2: DIGITAL SLR ONLY
(BUT USED MEDIUM FORMAT IN THE PAST)

Life changed for former Hasselblad shooter Rob Van Petten on Valentine's Day 2005 when the Nikon D2X came out.

"Suddenly you had this really fast camera with 12.4MP of resolution and you could print these images really big," Van Petten recalls. "And the camera had a big buffer and the processor was fast enough to keep up with you. A new dimension of studio shooting opened up for me with that camera. It was magic."

Primarily a fashion and beauty photographer for advertising, the switch from medium format to digital SLRs was a natural for Van Petten, primarily because of the speed increase. "Time is of the essence when shooting models in motion with hair blowing and fabric flowing. If you want to get those unbelievable little nuances and side-long glances, you've got to have something that responds very quickly."

His old motorized Hasselblad film camera, which was only able to shoot 1.2 frames per second, wasn't always quick enough. And that's not counting the time Van Petten spent scanning images.

Though the D2X was the camera that opened creative doors for him, it wasn't until the 12.1MP Nikon D3 with its full-frame, FX-sensor came along that things really began clicking.

"I missed the old 35mm format," he says. "And when the D3 arrived, it not only had a bigger, full sensor, it was even faster, by far, in the focusing. Suddenly, when shooting models in motion with the D3, you can lock the autotracking to the model's eyelashes and it does all the work."

Though the D3 approached the image quality he was looking for, Van Petten felt the camera didn't quite capture as much detail in hair and skin as a high-resolution medium format digital camera. With the introduction of the 24.5MP D3X though, that's changed for him.

"With previous digital sensors, capturing hair and skin was sort of like laying a broomstick across a checkerboard. You're going to create a jaggy stair step, not a smooth edge in your images so you have to go back and rebuild things like eyelashes, which takes time. With the D3X, which has more than double the resolution of the D3, it gives you so much more accurate color and detail in each individual hair and in the iris of the eyes."

Though some have balked at the $8,000 price tag of the D3X, Van Petten says that when compared to the $60,000 start-up costs for a new medium format system including lenses, it's a relative bargain.

"These are tough economic times for everybody and if you go to the bank and say, 'I'm a freelance photographer and I need $300,000 to start my business,' they're going to want to attach your house to that loan."

Photo Credit: © Fernando Milani (Shot for Zink Magazine) Photographer Fernando Milani, whose images can be seen above, uses the 33- megapixel Leaf AFi 7 for advertising work, and the 21.1MP Canon 1Ds Mark III for editorial work.

Photo Gallery

CASE STUDY 3: MOSTLY MEDIUM FORMAT
(BUT DSLR FOR EDITORIAL WORK)

Of all the photographers we spoke with, Fernando Milani seemed the most structured in dividing his work between what's suited for his medium-format camera and what's suited for his digital SLR. For advertising work, Milani uses his 33MP Leaf AFi 7 and for editorial work he uses his 21.1MP Canon 1Ds Mark III.

"I use both," he says. "I use the Mark III for editorial work where the images won't be printed big but I need something fast. If it requires more detail and more attention than I would use the bigger, medium-format camera."

Milani says the flexibility of the faster and lighter Canon 1Ds Mark III appeals to him especially when shooting editorial work with fast strobes, letting him capture a burst of frames quickly and easily.

Though he likes using the Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro with the Mark III, calling it "very very sharp," he prefers the Schneider Autofocus Digital lenses he uses with the Leaf AFi. "Those lenses are really the sharpest I've tried," he says. "The glass I use with the Leaf is superior, for sure."

Though the 5 fps shooting speed of the Mark III makes it look like a hare compared to most medium-format camera's tortoise-like speed, the Leaf AFi 7 is one of the faster models on the market, capable of shooting roughly one frame per second. Milani says that's enough for him when he's in the studio.

"Of all the medium format cameras I've tried the AFi is the fastest. And the camera itself has a nice grip and it handles pretty well so it doesn't slow me down."

Regarding the AFi 7's eye-popping $35,000 price tag, Milani said it's worth it if you do a lot of advertising work.

"It pays back in the long run. If you shoot a lot of ads you'll make your money back. And for advertisements, you must have a bigger camera. But if you do mostly editorial work, you'll be fine with the Canon."

The Hasselblad H3D with an HTS 1.5 tilt and shift adapter.

CASE STUDY 4: DIGITAL SLR
(BUT SHOPPING FOR A MEDIUM FORMAT)

Though most of the photographers interviewed for this story felt that owning, rather than renting, a camera was the way to go, the sputtering economy and the high cost of gear was a clear concern.

Dan Root, a fine-art photographer who shoots decorative arts, furniture, and jewelry in the studio for a gallery during the day, had been hoping to make the switch from a DSLR to a medium-format camera but economic troubles have put that plan on the back burner.

"In this economy, it's hard to justify the expense when you're comparing $40,000 to $8,000," Root says. "And to the average layman who sees a lot of the catalogue work I shoot, they're not going to notice a difference. But it's more about how an image feels. There's intangibility to an image shot with a medium-format camera, a crispness you don't necessarily get with a DSLR."

Root currently uses a 16.7MP Canon 1Ds Mark II to shoot catalogue work, promotions, and advertisements for the gallery but had been hoping to upgrade to a Hasselblad H3D with a HTS 1.5 tilt and shift adapter to give his shots more depth of field.

"With the Mark II, if I'm shooting a number of pieces for the gallery, I do several exposures with focus from the foreground to the background and then I put the images in layers in Photoshop to give me the depth of field I want. The real advantage of medium format is that I can get the full focus from front to back of a group of objects, such as jewelry, without having to spend the extra time in Photoshop. With a smaller sensor I do more editing."

But the downside, aside from added expense, to making the jump to a medium-format camera is having to buy extra storage to archive images.

"You've got to edit your images and you've got to throw stuff away with the bigger camera because of the larger file sizes," Root notes. "For the gallery, I'm shooting 100,000 frames a year and that fills up a lot of 1-terabyte hard drives."

Related Story
The rising resolution in new cameras creates a problem. Revisit our story, " What To Do With ALL Those Megapixels," to learn about the storage solutions of two digital medium-format shooters.