Hi,

Why do top fashion photographers always insist on using Medium Format?

I understand resolution, color rendition and enlargement sizes matter, but sometimes they are doing just regular editorial work for A4, sometimes A5 magazines...

Does the MF lens respond better to distortion (on the wide-end scale for insitance?) flare? all these technical subtleties? And does it do so much better like the high-end 35mm lenses?

I was always intrigued by this, and wanted to know what you think.

Thanx

Aloha Conjure1 !

I'm not a fashion specialist, but my buddy, Steve Dantzig is and he uses DSLRs with 6 to 12MP capture.

I'm a family portrait specialist and I make finished portraits up to 40x60 of family groups where you can count the eyelashes on the subjects. I use Nikon DSLRs with 6 to 12MP capture.

When I shot film I used medium format exclusively, and wouldn't switch to digital until I saw that the image quality was equal to or better than my film images. That was about 8 years ago. So my feeling on your question is simply that the big names in fashion are just used to the medium format cameras, and they have a need to impress their clients with the cameras they use!

Cheers! And Happy New Years!

Sorry, I tried to respond to this last week. As Stan indicated, I've been using the DSLR's for about 8 years as well. No problems. I used medium format and shot transparency film prior to switching to digital. Now my beautiful Bronicas are collecting dust

Hello,

So my intuition on distrotion is not founded then. I always thought that was the main reason, not the quality of the picture.

Thanx guys for your replies!

You do need to watch for distortion around the edges when shooting wide, but that's not specific to digital SLRs.

Howdy:
This question is for StanCox. How do you achieve the quality you mention on 40" images? Are you using interpolation software or just streight from Photoshop?
Thanks for the reply.
Don Diego