Medium Format ... long may it live!

I really like the X2D. It is my first and only medium format and has been good to me from when I first started using it with the XCD 55V lens, a good combo. Hasselblad is proud of their color science. They should be. The color is just great. The lens is ridiculously sharp without making your eyes bleed. It has the magic ability to get great detail and still have flattering skin rendition. This is some sort of Swedish black magic and sorcery.

Here are three examples, the first is of Jim at the Astoria RR Preservation Society alongside the 1915 Baldwin the group is restoring. The second is of Irina enjoying a Caprese salad at Picolinos in Seattle. In Jim's photo the locomotive is sharp, his face is not glaring. In Irina's her eyelashes are sharp, her face is not garish. I have other headshots showing the same result. In both while maybe not evident in these photos, hairs are sharp, skin is still smooth. And just for fun, the final shot, 16. A crime scene photo where Interpol is using that crumb as evidence in the Breton gallette and sausage gambit. ;o) All three shots reduced in GIMP.

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Warner (Norita) 66 Portra 800

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Hasselblad xcd 1 2 45, 3,5
 

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Medium format is the ideal sweet spot for me between 35mm & LF..... big negative but unquestionable portability while offering fine print tonality. I have a few to choose from: Rolleiflex, Pentax 645, Voigtlander Perkeo ll

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I relish the juicy flavor of a 6x4.5, 6x6 or 6x7 transparency. My medium format cameras include a Pentax 6x4.5N, a TLR 6x6 Rollei f3.5f, a Hasselblad 503CW, a Fuji folder 6x6/6x7, Pentax 6x7. All see service, not sure that I have a favorite. Print film is fine, but the real joy is getting a developed roll of 120 slide film back from the lab.
 
I am late to the party with medium format. But it only took a day of shooting to convince me that I liked it. I shoot color so I love the large detailed images and with the X2D the wonderful HB color science. They make that Sony BSI sensor sing. I live in a small coastal community and we have a lot of working hulls here and some pleasure hulls, too. The way the X2D can capture the smooth curves and subtle shadings of color is very pleasing. Additionally many Sonnar lenses have a FOV which covers the entire 100MB sensor so I can use the old Sonnars and Sonnar derivatives I have without cropping. And the most recent firmware release allows a 24 x 36 format so that all 35mm camera lenses work with ease. That said I think that the HB lens, the XCD 55v, is about as good a lens as I have. I hope to test it against a very good '57 KMZ Jupiter 8 and some other Sonnar 50's and am interested in the results.

Bottom line: medium format is a very nice way to go. I am grateful to have the good fortune to have had a windfall that made it possible.
 
boojum said:
It used to be dinner in Chinatown and dessert in Little Italy for me. Not a lot but enough to have happy memories. Ferrara's for the pastries and a coffee. Sublime. "The name's so nice they say it twice."
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Retro-Grouch said:
Ahh, that NYC grit, just as I remember it! Like many, I both love and hate that town, but I doubt that anyone is noncommittal about it. Great shot!
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I grew up in Jersey and spent a lot of time in the Village as soon as I could drive. Back then wherever I needed to be I could park right outside at the curb like the movies. Shows my age! At night it would be Chinatown for dinner and then Little Italy for the cannolis and then walk back up West Broadway to Tower Records.
 
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