I´m seriously thinking of upgrading to a Leaf Aptus 54S digital back. I have been researching the internet thoroughly + talking to rental houses, reps and sales people in order to get as much information as possible and have a pending deal on a refurbished unit. Would really like to have the inside scope from an end users perspective in order to cover as many angles as possible besides renting a unit myself. This is what I have found out so far about the 54S:

* Fastest back at the moment
* 25-400 ISO (How does it look at 100 & 200?)
* Software not perfect for batching (planning to process in CS3 though)
* Tethered works good with new 11.1 software

My biggest concern is the workflow;

How´s the back to shoot with on a Hasselblad H-camera?
Do you prefer to shoot tethered or onto CF cards?
How is it to work with a laptop on location with or without a battery powered back-up system/generator?
Hows the capture speed in real time?
Is it a stable system?

Most importantly, iClick to view attachmentn post processing, can I expect the files to be as easy to handle as the ones produced by Canon 1DS MARK III´s when it comes to rendering Jpegs, processing & color correcting raw files etc.?

I would really appreciate your input in regards of this system. Nothing is to small or big. Planning to make a move sometimes this week depending of your experience + my own. Thanks a lot for your time.

Best, Per Bernal

Per,

For some reason I thought you were already shooting MFDB. But anyway I have not used the 54s but have used the Leaf 65. I have shot both tethered and to a card. Some quick notes...

Post processing is not much different than Canon files, except I thought they looked a lot better to begin with, especially in skin tones. At the time I was processing in Aperture and outputting into PhotoShop of course.

My own problem shooting tethered was pilot error, me not being familiar with the software. That was in a studio on a G4 Powerbook, AC power. Shooting to the card was flawless.

Higher iso's were not great, 100 is good, 200 is good but not as good.

Capture speed was fine with me, about the same as your studio strobes anyway.

For the next few days I am shooting with a Phase P45+ for my next comparison. I will say that those files put my main computer to the test. 223 mb tiffs in CS3 are taxing on my dual 2.7 G5 with 8 gigs RAM.

Anyway I know we talk to the same people at MAC and Leaf but I could also refer you to my pro rep at the dealer I use who might be able to help you out. Send me an e-mail to SecondFocus@mac.com if you want the info etc.

Just finished two days (1000+ captures per day) in studio with A75S/H1.
No hiccups whatsoever.
Rock-solid tethered to a Mac Pro.
Kept pace with Pro7a 2400 at 1/4 power.

Did you shoot to seperate folders, rename any files?, name any files?, background process during the shoot?

Were the files shot compressed or non compressed and how much post time to decompress them?

Now adjust (including exposure?) and process those 2,000 images and tell us the news.

JR

James, are you saying the leaf sofware is not up to par on processing the items you mentioned. What where your experiences?

Shot uncompressed to separate folders (100-300 captures each).

Locked in color balance and curve at beginning of each folder
(back and forth between daylight and studio set-ups).

Renaming wasn't necessary, but Renamer4Mac would have done instantly.

As you know James, I'm not a fanboy of any brand.
I don't own any equipment, and use whatever suits the project.
I have and still suffer through some software's bugs and un-intuitiveness.

-No problem, normally up to 700 files a folder (not that everything goes nuts after 700, but we usually get a new outfit or change scene).
-No problem, rename files in Bridge while shooting.
-No problem, batch process in PS3 while shooting.

LC11 is the fastest "fast jpg" RAW processors that I work with.
Photoshop deliver the fastest TIFF and high-res jpg.
Our Aptus 54S shoot 76 fpm. tethered to mbp or macpro without hitting the buffer at anytime, beating both the Canon and any Phase One by far.

Best,
Esben

I'm not a fan of most of these systems either, but I do know that whatever changes can happen, usually will happen.

Renaming on the fly is important for most fashion work and you'd be amazed at the amount of times the files have to be renamed.

Also depending on how you light, batch exposure (even single) corrections come up, especially in a lifestyle shoot where the models are in an out of the key, or the sun in changing and though it's been a while does LC11 have an exposure correction or a brightness correction?

Processing in large batchs is a fact of life and almost every project I shoot the AD wants some of the images processed and sent upline to a designer or a client usually while we are shooting.

What I understand is LC11 is now stable software, but is it great or is it just great compared to the previous LC10's which had a lot of issues.

I think that's how we judge a lot of this stuff, in the fact that it's not as bad as it was before so it must be pretty good and in reality in all should be just flat good.

third party workarounds for naming or batch corrections shouldn't be required.

JR

Hi James.

I think LC11 is good software on it's own merit... not just compared to previous versions...
but having said that, it still need to be made better.
To answer your question... No, it still does not have an exposure adjustment slider... just those annoying curves plus Brightness and a Contrast sliders. (although some people may be able to
get the look they want from using them, I much prefer the controls in Adobe software)

But, it's stability and output quality make it good software I think.
It also seems faster at processing now too (not including faster Macs)

Andrew

Andrew,

I'm glad lc11 is better.

I'll be the first to admit I was snake bit by LC10 and some things were so wrong that I just gave up but I know a lot of people that stuck with Leaf and now have a workable software so for them, yes I'm very glad.


JR

Billy next time shoot compressed tethered, saves you loads of space...

Yair

Unless you want to also play around with the files in ACR as well...
ACR / Lightroom doesn't like the compressed files so you will have to re-save them from LC11.

No Andrew, files that are shot compressed TETHERED can go straight into anything

Yair

Did not know that! That is a great bit of information. That will save me all kinds of space on the ol' hard drives.

Sorry Yair. I didn't realise that... that is great to know.
Many thanks.
Andrew

Yair,

Why would the compressed mos version then be compatible because of tethering and uncompatible from CF card use when it's the same compressed file type?

I use compressed for CF cards but it does get annoying converting those back for Lightroom use.

Thanks for your input and information guys. To narrow things down am I correct to assume the following;

* Better skin tones
* ISO good up to 100
* Great Capture Speed
* Solid tethered shooting
* LC 11 now stable
* Necessary to shoot to separate folders (maximum 700 file/folder)?
* Renaming important?
* Possible to shoot tethered to bridge through LC 11 and open compressed files in CS3
* Possible to shoot compressed onto cards & open files directly in CS3?
* Large batching could be time consuming

It seems to me that the 54S could be a happy medium, where I will still have a fast and practical workflow, with top quality image files and fast flash duration for outdoor work. Only downside would be the time consuming batching of large jobs, which is a big minus. Question is how fast it would be to convert, let say 1000 raw files to low res Jpegs (about 5-6 mb). This is usually the files that I ftp to art directors. Once again, I really appreciate your input and time.

Best regards, Per Bernal

Repeating the usual advice:
Try the gear under your normal circumstances before buying.

I don't know if the reaction time of medium format equipment is quick enough
for your "action" type photos.

I use the Aptus 75s/H1 combo all the time for high volume studio and location fashion jobs and it works very nicely. We'll often do well over a 1,000 frames a day on many different setups sometimes shooting in bursts of 100-200 frames. And rarely have any issues, it never even slows down actually. I am the digital tech on these jobs so I'll feel the brunt of it when things get sticky and this is definitely my choice for this type of shooting.

We'll usually shoot 50 or 100 iso but the camera handles 200 and 400 nicely, as long as you aren't doing exposures over 5 seconds.

I also like it because I can set it to capture in LC11 and check focus on every single frame. And set my color in ACR to preview, edit, and process in Bridge. Both of these things are really important. I can use ACR for most stuff including Phase and Canon, but I haven't found a way to check focus as efficiently, at least not with C1Pro 3.8

I process as we shoot so at the end of the day I usually hand the art director a dvd with every image processed to jpeg. Most of the time I am also printing contact sheets of the selects and doing comps for clients in photoshop.

I'm constantly naming and renaming files too.

Admittedly I am using a really fast tower to due all this.

There are some aspects of the workflow that could be refined but overall it is very nice.

I assume the 54s would have the same easy workflow except faster capture and processing times. Can't speak for iso

I consider myself pretty non biased too, I use a P45+/afdII combo for most of my own shooting jobs.

Andrea

I will be testing the back tomorrow to make a final decision. You might be right about catching action type shots with a medium format camera, but usually I prefocus, pre frame and "rehearse" these kind of fast shots before taking them, so in theory there shouldn´t be to much of difference, as it´s more about timing. Thanks for your input though.

Best, Per

Per,
I'm referring to the delay [milliseconds]
between pressing the shutter release, and making the capture.
Good luck,
Billy

Also, see at what f-stop gives you the same amount of depth-of-field
you're accustomed to having with 35mm format.

Hello Per Bernel
Depending on what your requirements are for the low res Jpegs, you may find that the ones automatically generated by LC11 will suffice.
In your "Shots" folder (or any folder that you are browsing with LC) there will be a folder named "LeafDB".
This contains:
LargeMonitorJPEGs
LargeRawDB
SmallMonitorJPEGs
SmallRawDB

I dont know what the "RawDBs" are (my folders are empty) but the JPEG folders have small and Large JPEGs of each shot taken, with the same name as they were captured with.
I don't know if the size of the monitor determines the size of the JPEGs but with my 1900x1200 monitor, I get generated 1023x768 JPEGs.
For me that would be big enough for a web gallery.

regards
Andrew

Hi Andrew,
When shooting in the past with an Aptus 75 I found color and quality of these Jpegs to low in quality to send to a client. Maybe it's different now and I will have to check up on this. If better that will certainly be help full

Best, Per

Hi Billy,
You are absolutely right about the shutter delay and the amount of depth of field. It has to be taken into consideration. With the dslr I often find the dof to big though, when combining strobes & sunlight and the 1/250 flash sync. In order to kill the sun and the sky outdoors I believe the correct formula to be F16.5 @ 1/250 sec. at ISO 100. That takes a lot of battery power and gives a lot of dof (especially with my favorite 24-70 Canon).

Best, Per

Hi Andrea,

If you're ever in the LA area and would be interested to tech please let me know.

Best, Per

I tended not to use Fuji GX680III when photographing people
because there was a noticeable delay between when I pressed the shutter release
and when the exposure was made.

I can imagine the Hy6/AFi being the latest technology
could possibly have an advantage, but it's just a guess.

On an 18 month old 2.33GHz MBP, 5 images take 13 seconds to process into a 2,200X1,600 pixels (approx.) jpegs. They are colour corrected and saved at 72dpi into sRGB. Sample attached.

For fast action and fast sync (1/1000) outside you might want to look at the AFi 5.

Yair

That´s impressive. Will check for myself tomorrow. Was taking your new camera in consideration but since I´m so heavily invested in H2 + lenses I will keep my system, unless someone is willing to give me an incredible deal. Let me know if you want a spoke person in LA:) I used to push Rollie 6008 in Sweden and even got to hang out with Rollie´s VP in Gothenburg.
Best, Per

The H2 is also quite quick and syncs up at 1/800. I'm not a great fan of some of the lenses but I guess you know your kit already.

You won't go wrong with an A54S on your H2, IMO

Yair

Hi Yair

Have you tested the 54S or 75s on the new AFDIII body yet? I heard the shutter lag has improved with this new body.
Thanks Denis

Per,
It is a great system. I am not too crazy about the H cameras but if it works for you that is what matters.
Answering your question about laptop on location - it is a bit tricky and unpredictable.
When your battery is full you are doing perfect, however when the battery goes down past 70% you are in the gray area and in the mercy of the software which may or may not connect your back to laptop.
I am shooting tons of calendar's work on beaches and never leave home without a Honda generator or at least 7 fully charged batteries for my MacBook Pro for a full day of shoot.
Otherwise I love my Leaf backs.
http://AndreNapier.com

I have only had a limited test with the AFDIII (with A54S and A75) and it was one of the first units so I will wait till I have a proper chance before I draw any conclusions.

Personally I feel a bit disappointed as I was hoping for the lag to disappear but it is still there...maybe fractionally better than previously but there...

Same for AF...a bit quicker and quieter but you really have to put both systems side-by-side to notice the difference.

The new grip feels a bit more comfortable but on the unit I tested the silicon rubber coating was not glued properly, I'll put it down to the unit being an early production one.
The new 80mm is as good as the old one however it looks a bit chunkier (still not feeling as solid-chunky as the 120mm macro).

An H2 and especially an AFi are overall quicker for the faster shooters.

Yair

On the other hand, the leaf shutters of MF could be really useful for this work.

Thanks for your usefull post, Andre. Didn't anticipate what you described about the battery power. I recently bought a Portable Power Station from BatteryGeek that is suppose to give you about 8 hours of non interrupted power (5-6 hours in real life) but should probably add a few more apple batteries to my kit then. To use generators on the beaches of LA and Malibu is a bit tricky as you will need a monitor with you at all time - which is costly.
What laptop and shade are you using and how do you rig it otherwise? I found a laptop platform at Backstage that I was planning to use on either a camera stand or junior low boy together with a shade from Hoodman. Do you find it awkward to move around hooked up to your laptop? Any special precautions not to tip it over?
In regards of the H camera I find it OK. When shooting film, the cameras from Mamiya was probably my favorites. The RZ w/ the 180 was an incredible combo and I also liked the 645AFD with the 105-210. But if you want a fast sync & autofocus you´re stuck with Hasselblad or Rollei I guess. The H + lenses are a bit bulky but that´s why you go to the gym I guess:)
Best, Per
Best, Per

I imagine you could do some pretty cool portrait shots though using the GX680III with all the swing and tilt possibilities:)
Best, Per

Slide-on hoods tend to restrict full access to the MacBookPro keyboard.

I like the idea of a Seaport Digital case
with external battery and firewire bus-powered hard drive
mounted on the underside of the lid or on the interior side panels,
allowing for the whole kit to open & close quickly.
http://www.seaportdigital.com/ivisor-pro-p-34.html

The case would need to be attached somehow via quick release to a tripod
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/2411...se_Adapter.html
or http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/5541...ck_Release.html

Then, hang a camera bag on the tripod to increase stability.

A [view camera] darkcloth draped over the top would allow for more critical viewing.

Good idea and you´re right about the Hoodman. Will check if samys has the seaport digital. Guess I should sandbag the contraption aswell.
Best, Per

BTW, I own the BatteryGeeks as well,
but here's an interesting charger that allows charging of Apple batteries externally:
http://fastmac.com/ucharge.php

We use a laptop sheilded with a 8x10 type bellows that is made in England, I think it's from Chatham.

It works pretty well, though not perfectly, though after trying about everything, nothing really works perfectly on bright beach other than a huge blackout tent.

The bellows doesn't block the keyboard but it does restrict acess to the mac dock so the dock must be moved to the side.

All of this is mounted on a plexiglass base and tripod and has worked well with only one issue when an assistant didn't lock a leg down and it tumbled down a hill.

As far as battery power I have a large digital camera battery, but when using the Aptus, like Andre said if the power gets much below 70% to 60% the connection gets flaky.

As Leaf improves their product the two issues they really need to address is the ability to power the back from a seperate battery, because the battery goes into the same space as the firewire port. This would allow for more stable firewire conection shooting.

They also need to allow the camera lcd to operate when tethered. This can be a lifesaver under pressure to not have to continually check the computer.

I found the battery consumption of the Aptus quite high, but I assume it's because of the large screen, though I don't know this as fact, though once I went to the phase even the battery drain on the Contax improved, tethered and portable.

We run a Honda generator (actually 2) whenever possible, even on powered locations.

The Honda is probably the best investment anyone can make, though as the op said running a generator on an LA beach draws a lot of attention and depending on the jurisdiction, the lifegaurds can shut you down.

Of course all of this tethering on a difficult location would be unnecssary a lot of the time if someone would make a back tether to an i-pod touch or an i-phone.

JR

Per,
with the speed I work I get about 1.5 hours from an Aptus battery and about 45min to 1 hour of usable power supply from a Mac. As with most of the things I need now days for photography I do not chase perfect solution from suppliers and instead make the items myself or at least the spects for it and have someone create it. Firewire 800 has a horrible connection to a MacBook and any cable movements will disconnect it. We designed a molded plexiglass bracket with attaches to Mac via commercial velcro providing solid connection. Never had problem with it again. Shooting tethered became a way of life for me. I am on a leash all the time and like a good dog I know my boundres and never pull the leash. With time it gets to you so hard that the other day when I was shooting my kids at home to CF card I was telling my wife to move the lights because I thought that I could not reach them myself.
My camera tent is home made and so is my stand. It is not only light protection by mainly a sand blocker which is a hell when working beaches.
I own the H system matter of fact my A75S is H mount, but it is sitting mostly on Rz/110mm.
I find Rz's 110mm perfect magical lens for digital application which outclasses both 100mm and 120mm fro HC.
Rz adapter for H mounted back maybe something that you will want to look into in the future.
I find the ratio of keepers from Rz about 4 times higher than from HC.
When shooting D3 I find myself clicking a 1000 images where 100 from Rz will do the job and hopelessly searching for a usable picture.
It could be just me but with Rz I never shoot more than 50 actuations an hour and always satisfy myself and my clients.
http://AndreNapier.com

This is what we've used on location for the last few years.

Not perfect, but so far it's held up well.



From this angle it looks fragile but have only had one huge spill when a leg wasn't locked down and it went down a hill in San Francisco and though the computer screen was trashed, everything else survived.



JR

Assistant error, right? Why is it always the assistant?

I started a fire in a new VW Beetle one time on a shoot, damn I wished I could've blamed the assistant but it was totally my fault. I set a light in the interior and didn't turn off the modeling light. After awhile and few flashes the car is filled with smoke and the seat is on fire.

So glad I had insurance.

Actually yes, but no. The first was doing double duty, as the gaffer forgot his generators, (long story) but that's why we have backups so nothing was lost, not a lot of harm done, other than the PB screen looked like a tie dye.

A few years ago a child actor came on our set and kicked me in the shins and pointed his finger and me and said "Don't blame the kid. Everybody in this business blames the kids when somethhing goes wrong, so remember I'm a professional, so DON'T BLAME THE KID.... got it?"

JR

LOL.

I was doing a full on production of a Halloween shot with a half of block of houses all decorated, fog machines agoin', etc etc and a bunch of kids in costumes. The main kid right when the shooting starts wets his pants. The social worker rushes over and shuts down the whole thing for the next forty five minutes.
I blame the kid on that one.

I´m curious to see your plexi glass design - maybe you should pitch Apple:) Personally I´m just using gaffer tape. I got my new 54S over the weekend and I´m very impressed by the files so far. The colors of the files are very clean and the pace of the back is quite good. LC11 seems stable even below 60% battery power. Got an extra long firewire cable today, 30 feet and made by Leaf, so hopefully I won´t feel too tied up. Looking forward to my shoot on Wednesday in Malibu, where I´m shooting a cover for FitnessRx Magazine.

I miss my old RZ and Mamiya Sekor lenses but when trading them in for the new H system there where no LEAF RZ adapters to my knowledge. Seems reasonable though that you get really good results as you are using the sweet spot of the lenses with this combo. But don´t you find the manual winding & bellow focusing + only using 40% of the ground glass a bit backwards? But then again that should depend on the subject matter.

Last but not least, I agree 100% with you when it comes to 35 mm dslr´s and shooting to many frames. I get too trigger happy and end up spending hours in post trying to find the best frame. With medium format I should be able to pace my self and take my shooting to the next level or back to where it once was.

Best, PerClick to view attachment

Hi James,
Thanks for taking your time and posting pics of your location kit. I like your concept and want to go for something similar. My question is if you are able to shoot directly into your two hard drives when shooting tethered. Have not been able to figure that out yet and would appreciate if you could or someone else could give me a hint. According to the sales rep you have to shoot directly to the laptop drive first and then copy the files manually to an external drive. This seems a little bit risky though in case something happens to the computer.
Best, Per

I've been told the same by the Phase dealer, though I shoot to the portable fW drives all the time and don't notice any slowdown.

Actually in studio we shoot to a Lacie Raid 5 drive without issue and shooting to the computer to the drive didn't seem to slow up anything that I noticed.

I like shootig to a drive because then I can just drag and drop between sessions to the second drive and not use up the computer.

I do tape every connection down. The orange Lacies are fw 800 and the phase back is 400.

One thing I am careful of you must plug the back into the computer 400 port and the drive into the 800 port.

Once again we securly tape all of the connections down.


So far (knock on wood) no issues.

JR

James,

May I ask how you connect the laptop to the lucite piece? Also how you connect the lucite to the tripod head?

I can imagine industrial Velcro to laptop. But did you have someone countersink a thread to the lucite?

Do you know anyone in the City that would custom make a a lucite piece for a 17" that had turned up edges to cradle a laptop a bit more secure?

Thanks,

SO

I bought it here

http://www.thelaptopstand.com/

and dilled holes in the front lip to mount the mouse shelf.

We attach it with some plastic tape that I have on order that has our logos and the tape has yet to break or be loose.

In fact when it took the spill it was all intact, except the powerbook screen.

The tripod female connection to the tiltall is dead solid strong and has yet to move or get loose.

As I said it may look fragile but it's very effective and strong.

JR

Hi
Very Interesting solution to a niggling problem-- what to take, what to leave out ,weight,portability--excess baggage --let's not go there!

My two cents worth and works fine.

A: Cymbal case --LARGE but strong-- on sale $45

B: Used Quik Lok Keyboard stand $33-- both from same Music SH shop.

C: Pik foam 1x Lid piece 1x insert for base

D: The lower shelf side plate and scaffold bolt SH junk shop $10

E: 2x Gooseneck short pieces --to hold lid open $22.

Velcro /4x bolts for Goosenecks.

Packs to Stand and Case -which hold 17''/ HD drives/ keyboard/mouse/reader/leads/ power supply/
mousepad-- stored under the LTop use 2x rubber bike grips cut and placed over edge of case to rest wrist on.

Rock solid with rubber grips on the top and bottom of the stand--it can be raised to standing height or to low stool-- very versatile.

Ah well just a bit of Kiwi ingenuity gotta keep up with that Cousy Bro in WA--Eh!

Good Shooting

Des W
http://www.deswilliams.com/

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/team201/_B5I9173-2.jpg

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/team201/_B5I9176_3.jpg

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/team201/_B5I9178_1.jpg