06-29-2016, 01:05 PM
Would I use it and love it if someone gave me one for free? Absolutely!
Would it be the camera I'd dream about? Absolutely not!
Medium format made a lot of sense in the past. Practically almost every film stock was essentially the same, so a larger film area would give you a lot of benefits, like going from a Nikon D7000 to a D800. And you could design a camera to use a larger are of the film stock since the films were not manufacturer specific. That's how we ended up with magnificent cameras such as XPan, various 6x6 beauties and fixed lens 6x9 Fuji rangefinders aka Texas Leicas.
Still, apart from some extreme examples, you did not gain any shallower DOF just by making the film area larger. the 80/2.8 lens on my 500C/M is equivalent to a square crop from a 35/1.2 lens on a 35mm film/sensor. That's not an everyday lens for sure but hey, it exists. It's not like you bought into medium format and instantly you had 50/0.7 DOF. What you gained was that you could enlarge more, grain size was smaller when enlarged to same size (but also lenses were slower too so you took a step back there), lens tolerances and aberrations were less important since a larger format compensated for most of them.
On digital, it's a bit different though. We no longer cut our sensors from the same silicon wafer (Except when we do) so we can have the same resolution on a cell phone, m4/3, aps-c and FF sensors. So going medium format does not give you extra resolution automatically, as it did in film.
Of course putting more pixels on a smaller format decreases the light gathering ability too. But if you actually want to build a good system around it, you can have faster lenses. Have a look at Fuji X system. They do have the APS-C sensor but almost all of their lenses are at least 1 stop faster than equivalent (price and size) FF lenses, thus compensating for the 1-stop ISO performance loss commonly associated with the APS-C sensors (compared to FF). Almost all FF lenses are at least 1-stop, most of the time even more faster than these new Hasselblad X1D lenses. So you actually gain nothing there.
Color depth? Dynamic range? Yep, there are probably some gains there but I'd like to compare them to existing batch of (already very good) FF and APS-C sensors. I won't be surprised if the differences are less than significant. Reduced diffraction effects are another strong point of larger sensors but for the same DOF, you have to stop the aperture down even more so you'll end up with diffraction anyway.
So, do I care about having a larger sensor on digital? Not really!
So, why do I like this camera? Because it has a leaf shutter!
Then why don't we put those leaf shuttered lenses and put them on FF and APS-C cameras? I have no idea!
I'd rather have Fuji develop a batch of leaf shuttered lenses for the existing X System (Like the Leica S System). Sell them at a price premium (Like the Leica S System) to people who want them. Keep the focal plane shutter too for other lenses and faster shutter speeds (Like the Leica S System). That'd be what I really dream about.
Oh, also put a square sensor in it. I'm too lazy to rotate the camera.
Would it be the camera I'd dream about? Absolutely not!
Medium format made a lot of sense in the past. Practically almost every film stock was essentially the same, so a larger film area would give you a lot of benefits, like going from a Nikon D7000 to a D800. And you could design a camera to use a larger are of the film stock since the films were not manufacturer specific. That's how we ended up with magnificent cameras such as XPan, various 6x6 beauties and fixed lens 6x9 Fuji rangefinders aka Texas Leicas.
Still, apart from some extreme examples, you did not gain any shallower DOF just by making the film area larger. the 80/2.8 lens on my 500C/M is equivalent to a square crop from a 35/1.2 lens on a 35mm film/sensor. That's not an everyday lens for sure but hey, it exists. It's not like you bought into medium format and instantly you had 50/0.7 DOF. What you gained was that you could enlarge more, grain size was smaller when enlarged to same size (but also lenses were slower too so you took a step back there), lens tolerances and aberrations were less important since a larger format compensated for most of them.
On digital, it's a bit different though. We no longer cut our sensors from the same silicon wafer (Except when we do) so we can have the same resolution on a cell phone, m4/3, aps-c and FF sensors. So going medium format does not give you extra resolution automatically, as it did in film.
Of course putting more pixels on a smaller format decreases the light gathering ability too. But if you actually want to build a good system around it, you can have faster lenses. Have a look at Fuji X system. They do have the APS-C sensor but almost all of their lenses are at least 1 stop faster than equivalent (price and size) FF lenses, thus compensating for the 1-stop ISO performance loss commonly associated with the APS-C sensors (compared to FF). Almost all FF lenses are at least 1-stop, most of the time even more faster than these new Hasselblad X1D lenses. So you actually gain nothing there.
Color depth? Dynamic range? Yep, there are probably some gains there but I'd like to compare them to existing batch of (already very good) FF and APS-C sensors. I won't be surprised if the differences are less than significant. Reduced diffraction effects are another strong point of larger sensors but for the same DOF, you have to stop the aperture down even more so you'll end up with diffraction anyway.
So, do I care about having a larger sensor on digital? Not really!
So, why do I like this camera? Because it has a leaf shutter!
Then why don't we put those leaf shuttered lenses and put them on FF and APS-C cameras? I have no idea!
I'd rather have Fuji develop a batch of leaf shuttered lenses for the existing X System (Like the Leica S System). Sell them at a price premium (Like the Leica S System) to people who want them. Keep the focal plane shutter too for other lenses and faster shutter speeds (Like the Leica S System). That'd be what I really dream about.
Oh, also put a square sensor in it. I'm too lazy to rotate the camera.