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JULY 2012 -
SEXY X2
MAGAZINE -
55
to the next level.
The Advantages
As more and more photographers
make news by switching to digital
medium format cameras, your interest
may grow in the differences between
standard digital SLRs and larger sen-
sor offerings. Digital medium format
brings to the table a set of advan-
tages that continue to attract photog-
raphers. Let us take a look at a couple
of them.
Image Quality & Resolution
For many photographers, it is all
about the files themselves. They will
sacrifice most anything else in a cam-
era as long as it helps to improve the
final product. When we talk about the
advantages offered by digital medium
format, this is the paramount point to
consider.
Although traditional SLR manufacturers
are pushing hard to catch up in terms
of resolution, the top of the line digital
medium format cameras are currently
unmatched. Consider the flagship
offering from Phase One, the IQ180.
This camera packs 80 megapixels
onto the sensor, better than twice the
top digital SLR cameras.
In this 31-megapixel image provided
by Hasselblad, it is easy to see the
power of digital medium format. On
top is the entire image, and below is
a 100% crop of the massive image
file. Notice that the photo holds its
clarity and detail despite being such
a relatively small portion of the origi-
nal. Does everyone need this image?
No. However, those shooting the
major ad campaigns and pro-
ducing images at huge
sizes will benefit
greatly. Bidding
on commercial
projects is an in-
tense competition
and being able to offer something
over others is the type of advantage
that gets photographers hired – fairly
or not. In addition, being able to crop
down an image to extreme propor-
tions and still being able to resolve
fine details is no longer a pipe dream
with cameras of these proportions.
Flash Sync
The inspiration for this article was
two renamed photographs blogging
about their recent switch in formats.
Although I had been familiar with
digital medium format in the past, the
migration of David Hobby (of Strobist
fame) and Zack Arias (he of Onelight
acclaim) have recently shared the
details of their switch to a large sen-
sor camera. If you are familiar with
the work of Arias and Hobby, you
may know that their work frequently
involves the use of flash. Given the
advantages of strobes with digital me-
dium format, it is not hard to realize
what they were thinking.
As you may already know, cameras
have a “sync speed”. This speed is
the fastest shutter speed at which the
camera can use strobe type flash
units. On many
SLR’s,
this