Focal plane vs. leaf shutters in MF SLRs

Bob Monaghan wrote:

quoting Gordon's thoughtful posting:

Or just two cameras. A small rangefinder for wide to normal (or short
tele), and an SLR for normal to tele. I don't think that is too much to
carry, perhaps with four lenses. Having used rangefinder cameras of
various film formats and sizes, I find that I usually want normal to short
tele lenses for these, so I guess my needs could be met by current
offerings.
endquote:

Multiple cameras, what I call "mix and match" to get the best out of each
format, is the only thing that works for me too. But my lens use is
strange ;-) I have gotten into the habit of carrying my panoramic veriwide
100 for 18mm equiv. on 35mm panoramic 6x10cm shots 'cuz it is book sized
and compact and only 2 lbs. For shooting birds around the lake, I'm using
35mm with 500mm T-mount (unscrews in half for carrying compactly). This is
for a lakeside walkabout I do alot, so missed shots will come around
again. I usually have a normal lens with me too, for light weight and low
cost speed lens.


Not really too strange, though the 500 mm is a bit unusual. Long telephoto
requirements would almost seem to be an SLR only solution. It could be that
just the mere numbers of lenses you own got you into the unusual usage.


When I am shooting cityscapes, I find very wide angles handy, adding a
superwide hassy or 14mm for nikon etc. I experimented with a hassy ELM and
250mm lens with radio control for remote telephotography of birds, but too
much hassle and time consuming. But these 250mm lenses on 'blad and kowa
6/66 do very well at the local wild parks and zoo with the tamer and
bigger critters there ;-)

I like the wide to super wide look, especially in more panorama formats. The
longer lens, nature, birds, or animal imagery is interesting, but I just
don't have any desire to do that. Maybe if I lived in Africa near some game
preserve I might be more interested in doing that type of imagery.



So I guess the good news is that I have an excuse for having all this
stuff, because what I like to photograph varys a lot, and I make up the
kit I need to match. But that does make it very hard to conceive a single
camera kit that would match my needs, esp. when traveling light. As you
noted, it is easy to crop out needed shots with the veriwide 100 panoramic
from 6x10cm- film area, and there aren't many wider angle non-swing lenses
on MF cameras ;-) The hassy SWC/M is a nice travel camera too, but a lot
of $$, and not near as wide (24mm equiv. horiz. on 35mm vs. 18mm on
veriwide 100). But the biogon hassy can be used at any speed even wide
open, while the veriwide wants to be shot at f/16 for best results ;-)

Yeah, the SMC is an odd beast. An ALPA is even more pricey, though the wide
view abilities are very good. I think one trouble with expensive cameras is
that the cost becomes a barrier to carrying them around more places, since
You don't want the camera damaged nor stolen.

Superwide in 35 mm is less expensive thanks to Voigtländer, even though the
systems are a little limited. Medium format has been too specialized a market
to really get the costs down much. While there are exceptions, or build it
yourself options, good lenses are still not cheaply found.



=====

yes on other good points short focusing limitations on the MF RFs
too. I did manage to get an excellent buy on the 135mm for koni omega
RO200 6x7cm RF, which has the best close focusing distance of the bunch.
Paradoxically, it was only made for a few years, and so is rarer and
pricey as the wedding types favoring KO kits use it a lot for portraits

The entire Koni Omega system, and similar outfits of that era, are all
becoming very old pieces. Self repair might be the only option for some of
these. Finding much in the way of repair parts could be an adventure in some
situations. Many really old systems are also reaching the self-repair only
level.



. . . . . . .

bronica rf645?
Hard to predict what will happen with Tamron/Bronica's future offerings;
the problem with dropping the RF645 is that they have lots of $$ invested
in brand new tooling and lens/camera R&D. They aren't recouping it with
the kinds of discounts they are giving out; as I noted in another thread,
B&H had a $450 mfgers rebate on the basic camera kit, dropping it to just
over $1,100 US$.

Yeah, quite a discount off the original selling price. Tamron has lots of
money, but even they will be unwilling to continue investing and development
without some return (profit) from sales. Unfortunately, something as simple
as better promotion of the RF645 could help their sales. While I have seen
many adds showing the well lit silhouette of that camera, I have not seen
much usage. The placement of ads doesn't seem to help that much either, and
these seem to be hard to find in stores.

Will Bronica end up a casualty of the medium format
market fall in the digital era?

Really a shame how Tamron has handled Bronica. I have found Tamron dealers in
major cities that have no Bronica products. In fact, in many cases when I
have found Bronica products, they have been used consignment items, and often
just ETRSi cameras.

Compare that to Mamiya, who have a strong rental presence, and placement of
ads in many publications. I find that often Mamiya can be the only medium
format camera company to run ads in some publications. Also, the Mamiya 7 is
advertised often by showing the comparison to 35 mm. They try to educate with
their ads, rather than just show a pretty camera (Bronica).

I do think they could and should have
followed the Tamron/UK approach of trying to make your camera body work
with your lens, but probably the profitability vs. cost of that approach
was problematic, esp. with owners underserved by local support services?

I did not get the impression that it was tough, nor expensive. It seems that
even if they charged a small adjustment fee, they could still have continued
to offer the lens. The RF 100 mm does look to be a better lens, though it is
shorter. It is tempting to figure out how to graft a Leica viewfinder
magnifier onto an RF645, since something that simple would avoid the longer
lens issue entirely.



For a company that primarily makes their money on lenses, Tamron/Bronica
has not put the $$ into Bronica lens development that I had hoped.

Very confusing, especially considering how often I find places selling Tamron
lenses. Their North American website is not very good either. About the only
thing they really offer is a nice education discount.

As I
noted in reviewing the GS1 6x7 SLR, it is a great camera for many users,
but the lack of many lens offerings and high cost of existing lenses vs.
competitors like Mamiya RZ67 have made it less of a success in the market
than it deserves (see GS1 case study http://medfmt.8k.com/mf/system.html )

Some surprises there. Overall, I think one big point of failure in sales has
been a lack of rental gear. The reality of many lenses just being too
expensive leaves rental as the best option for many. We discussed this before
with regard to Leica. I don't recall ever seeing rental Bronica gear, and
certainly not for the GS. However, I have seen Mamiya in many cities, and
often Hasselblad 500 series stuff. The only newcomer in medium format that I
see for rent is the Contax 645. A few places carry some Pentax 67 gear, but
not as common as the others. I have heard of more Rollei 6000 gear rental
availability in Europe, but they seem scarce items in North America.



This is a dicey time for MF mfgers; a market demand shortfall of major
proportions, rapid change in the digital end, lack of large low cost
digital chips (16MP and esp. 32MP and 64 MP) for digital MF cameras to
respond to the 35mm challenges etc. and huge costs in R&D for modern AF
MF cameras of uncertain sales potentials, as well as strong entrenched
competitors with deep pockets vs. innovative mfgers with thinner $$
backing. Should be a great case study for business schools in a few years
;-)

I read an interesting item about autofocus medium format. When Rollei
introduced the 6008 AF, they got quite a few inquiries and orders, most from
older professional photographers, many of them wedding photographers. There
seems to be a little joke about Hasselblad being the wedding photographer
camera, though it is strange that when trying to explain medium format to
ordinary non-enthusiast camera users, the best example is the wedding
photographer with the waist level finder.

Once again, I think an issue is that fewer younger, or newer to photography,
enthusiasts and professionals know about medium format, often due to a lack
of exposure to the gear. The Hasselblad name is known, and some know Mamiya,
but even fewer know of other gear. There is a serious lack of exposure of
medium format gear for up-and-coming photographers. The same thing seems to
be happening in large format, leaving an ageing population as the only users.

While the automation, like autofocus, might help those ageing users, I see
little being done to entice younger photography enthusiasts, professionals,
and students to use medium format (or large format). My feeling is that if
that aspect of the market was addressed, a new generation of medium format
photographers could be created. The current market for nearly anything retro
seems like the perfect concept to latch onto, and it has not gone away from
the beginnings in the mid 1990s.

The implied scenario of business students studying the failure of medium
format is one possible outcome. It would be nicer to see that business
student effort go into helping some medium format companies come up with
better ideas to keep this from becoming an extreme niche market, or a luxury
product only market (remember the multicolour Hasselblads). Using business
students to develop marketing concepts is nothing new, often has great ideas,
and is extremely low cost. If the North American distributors would just put
forth a little more effort in the right directions, medium format could
thrive into the future, though that is just my opinion. Using some student
populations, and senior level business or design projects, could put those
younger age groups closer to finding the ideas to better market those
products; all of which seems much better than having the same students study
the business failures.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat
A G Studio
http://www.allgstudio.com