Thursday March 19, 2015

NEW YORK NEW YORK – I had some fun today. I rented a Phase One IQ260 Achromatic back. This is a 60 megapixel medium format back that is monochrome only and has very wide spectral response (which means that for non-scientific use it needs to be used with an IR-blocking filter in front of the lens). It came attached to a Phase One body with a 45mm moderate wide lens. The body and lens are made by Mamiya – competent but not my favorite. It took me an hour to sort the ergonomics (I’ve shot with this camera on a variety of occasions but not recently, and I’ve owned a Phase One back). I shot around Bryant Park, which is under construction at this point.

The Phase One back really is monochromatic. Resolution is remarkable – better than three frames stitched with my Leica Monochrom. The back over samples the rest of this system – in other words the resolution of the back shows up the shortcomings in the lens. Very interesting to work with. I produced some vey large files stitching two or three frames with the Phase One. Overall I prefer the look of my Leica files (and greatly prefer the lenses) – I’m certain though that if I spent some time with these files and Capture One (the Phase One software) that I could get good results. As it was most of my images had a slight plasticy feel – probably my ignorance in post processing.

Anyway, here you go.

By the way I’m posting this before I posted my image for March 18 because I’m traveling as I write this and had forgotten to upload an image for March 18 before I left my New York home base. I’ll post for March 18 when I get back to New York this coming weekend.

Day 1,981 of one photo every day for the rest of my life.

Three years ago (day 886): Vegas