Steve Spencer
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 p.80 #3 · Pre-order: Fujifilm GFX 50S Medium Format body ($6,499) | |
Matt Grum wrote:
There are a lot of very well healed amateur photographers in the world, enough for a company such as Leica to stay afloat. I can very much see the GFX appealing to landscape photographers and a lesser extent wedding photographers.
I was referring to the strict definition of professional as someone for whom photography is their main/only source of income, this makes the distinction much easier.
Mostly from reading that Canon sell more 1Ds to amateurs than professionals, I'll see if I can dig out the source. I was surprised at first but then it clicked that even though professionals might be 10 times more likely to buy one than advanced amateurs, there are far more than 10 times as many advanced amateurs.
No I'm not joking or exaggerating, this is based on me spending many hours watching MFDB auctions on eBay! For example this one ended recently:
http://mattgrum.com/fm/p65.jpg
That's US $6143. There's another P65+ back only on sale for around £3000 (US $3665).
Increasing circle of illumination is harder at shorter focal lengths but I was actually talking about maintaining a certain level of correction for a larger image circle. The lens designers are correct - lowering f-number increases aberrations exponentially, but moving away from the image centre also increases aberrations exponentially, so the two cancel out.
See I used to think that myself but in a recent exchange I had with Brandon Dube on reddit he very unambiguously stated the exact opposite - they are equivalent difficulty:
"An f/2.8 micro four thirds lens and an f/5.6 full-frame lens which have the same angular field of view are equivalent in design difficulty."
"Aperture and field are comparable in increase in difficulty. If you reduce your field by a factor of 2, you can increase the aperture roughly by 2 as well."
source
I'm just going by what Brandon says as he has more years experience of optical design than anyone here (except for Brian Caldwell!) I promise you I am not just trying to argue for the sake of it - and yes in the past I would have agreed with you.
I don't consider Voigtlander Leica or Zeiss to be major manufacturers. The Nikon 105/1.4 is the only lens release in a long time that has genuinely surprised me. Before that it was the Canon 200-400 f/4 1.4x (which was what 2011?)
It's not that I don't think it's possible, just that I don't think Fuji will, people are so amazed by the fact that it's "medium format" that Fuji don't need f/1.4 lenses to sell the system, especially since they are already undercutting their competitors, none of which have f/1.4 lenses.
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Matt,
We can go back and forth on these things, but I am not sure we are getting anywhere, so I will make this my last post and you are free to say whatever you want in response and let's end it there.
First, I still don't think it is easy to classify my friend as a professional or an amateur. The bulk of his work is unpaid--he is a stay at home dad--but what is that worth? Well if he and his wife got divorced I can tell you that it would be worth half her salary, which is actually quite high--well into six figures. So, does that make his $30,000 a year or so he makes for his photography his primary source of income or not? Arguably he is an amateur because the bulk of his income is from being a stay at home dad, but what is silly is that if his wife made less he would then be a professional. This example is not a fringe case either. There are a lot of couples where one works full time and others does part time photography and takes care of the kids and the household. These cases are very hard to classify.
Second, I think the pricing difference in the used market is at an unusual point right now. The UK pound has totally tanked since Brexit and used prices have not dropped in the UK at nearly the rate that the pound has relative to the dollar. Whenever a currency has a big drop in this way, it is typically true that used prices within country (which are influenced substantially by the higher older value of the currency, i.e., what it used to be able to buy) are a much better deal than new prices (which are typically set by the lower current exchange rate). I know it is what matters to you in the UK, but you have to appreciate unless one can buy in the UK with the much improved exchange rate people elsewhere are not going to get those sorts of prices and that is why we found very different prices in our respective countries. The low price in the UK right now is a historical quirk, but for you and advantageous one.
Third, perhaps Brandon's argument is correct and it is as hard to increase the image circle as it is to increase the aperture of a good lens. If that reasoning is correct, however, we ought to be able to see some very fast lenses for the Fuji. The image circle is only 60% bigger than FF 35mm. That means if Brandon's analysis is correct, it ought to be easy to make f/2 and f/1.8 lenses for this format, and not really harder to make f/1.4 lenses than f/1.2 lens on FF 35mm. Note also that because of the aspect ratio difference for 4 X 3 and squarer crops an f/1.8 would be somewhat faster than an f/1.4 lens. For example and 50 f/1.8 should be easier to build than a 35 f/1.4 and still be a bit faster when an 4 X 3 or squarer aspect ratio is used. Or a 70 f/1.4 would be easier to build than a 50 f/1.2 for 35mm FF and yet it would have be as fast as a 50 f/1 lens. Essentially Fuji could gain a half to a third of a stop when cropped to 4 X 3 or squarer with lenses no harder to build. I would think that Fuji would take advantage of that because they don't want to compete with just other mini MF systems but with FF 35mm systems as well. So, even if Brandon's argument is correct, I still don't think that means Fuji won't build f/1.8 and f/1.4 lenses. Instead I think it suggests they will and there is absolutely no reason for them to stick to f/2.8 lenses. I think that logic is based on guesss about the market that I don't share and not based on the technical capability to build such lenses.
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