Digital BW, The Print

Hello Djon,

>Clayton, a while back you discussed your use of the Canon Pro-1 
>in B&W photography. As I recall you weren't happy with rendition 
>of skin tones...
> 
>Have you taken this further, gotten better results, or moved along 
>to another digicam? My reason for asking: I notice Pro-1 bargains, 
>though I'm tempted by soon-discontinued Leica D2 bargains, despite 
>the lower resolution...

One of the Pro-1's strongest features is its lens - it is incredibly
sharp (it is the only L-class lens Canon has put on a fixed lens
camera).  I am continually impressed with it.  But it's also my
biggest complaint as a portrait lens - it's totally unforgiving.  You
can literally count the hairs on a mole.  I've resorted to using
slight gaussian blur to tame it.  It also tends to give a flat look to
skin tones, so I have to be more aware of getting some modelling from
the light.  I did a couple of portraits with rather flat light and was
not real happy with the results.  I managed to get something usable
but it wasn't great.  But I'm finding that with some light modeling it
does a much better job.  I've done some very nice portraits with it as
well, but I have to be concious of what I'm doing - not a bad thing I
guess <g>.

The biggest disadvantage of a fixed lens camera - you're stuck with
that lens.  In my 35mm and 6x7 work I had favorite portrait lenses.  I
had a Tamron zoom on a Minolta 7000i once that, for whatever reason,
was a superb portrait lens, but was just so-so as a landscape lens. 
And it's not just sharpness.  There are other qualities that can be
designed into a lens.

For landscape work I love the Pro-1.  It's incredible sharpness and
extreme DOF make it great for that.  You can shoot at wider apertures
at higher shutter speeds and have fewer problems with windblown flora
movement and still have full DOF.  I tend toward small prints - even
in the film/darkroom days my biggest prints were 11x14.  The Pro-1 at
8mp can deliver excellent 11x14s so I'm very pleased with it.  I took
it to Death Valley Nat'l Park in January and returned with a bunch of
very fine images, and it was a joy to use.  I'm totally spoiled by the
twisty view screen.  I use it like a miniature view camera.

Steve Karafyllakis got one and he recently showed me two nearly
identical 11x14 prints of a flower, one from the Pro-1 and the other
from 4x5 (can't remember what film).  They each had pros and cons, and
the Pro-1 version was equally good.  In some ways I liked it better
(maybe Steve will add something here...).


>though I'm tempted by soon-discontinued Leica D2 bargains, despite 
>the lower resolution...

I did a lot of research before buying this, including downloading and
printing dpreview sample images of various cams.  I concluded that 6mp
was not quite enough to allow some cropping and still give excellent
11x14s.  IMO, 8mp is the minimum for a good fine art landscape
digicam.  The D2 is less noisy and from what I've read seems like a
much better street machine.  If you like careful tripod work I highly
recommend the Pro-1 (it's not a good sports/action rig, and focuses
slowly in low light).  

Rumor has it that Canon & the others won't be upgrading these
pro-sumers because the latest technology improvements and lower cost
DSLRs are rendering these pro-sumer bridge cams obsolete.  If that's
true, the Pro-1 will remain a one-time wonder box and probably will be
in high demand once people realize there won't be a replacement.  In
the forums it's approaching worship status among those who like it,
very much like the G3, which has reached cult status and is getting
harder to find and bring high prices.  If you think it will fit into
your style of work I'd snap up one while they're cheap.

Regards,
Clayton


Info on black and white digital printing at    
http://www.cjcom.net/digiprnarts.htm