Editorial photoshoot with a chef cook and (review of) a Phase One P30+

Last friday I did an editorial style portrait shoot with chef cook Marcel Bark of de Rijd in Nieuwe Niedorp. For this photoshoot I borrowed a Phase One DF body with a P30+ digital back and a 80mm lens. For a while I am searching for an affordable way to get into medium format photohraphy. I have tested a P30+ back in the past (Read review here), the CVF-50c (click here) and the Hasselblad H5D-40 (Click here). 

The set-up

Beside the Phase One set I am also trying out some Broncolor gear. I love my Elinchrom gear and especially there softboxes, but the bron are just a little more stable on output and white balance throughout the whole powerrange and have a faster flash duration for when you are working with speed/dance. So I had a Siros 400L with the 75 octabox as a key light, the Siros 400S with a strip and a grid as a kicker and a Siros 400 S with the 150 octa box as a fill. 

The Phase One P30+ was connected with a firewire cable to my iMac runing Capture One Pro 9. All editting of teh photo's have also only be done in Capture Pro One 9. I love using tethering during shoot. It helps communication with the client and is a real visual way to get to the result you want.

Styling 

For the styling we went to the local supermarket and bought some nice food to shoot. Marcel loves working with Fish so a fresh fish and some clamps couldn't be left out of the photo's! Marcel is also really font on green cabbage, so we also photographed him with just the green cabbage!

The Shots

Here a a couple of the final shots of teh editorial photoshoot. 

The Phase One P30+ Back

The Phase One P30+ is a great digital medium format back. The colors are so natural and lovely. It has (only) 31 megapixels. which was huge in the time it was released and is still more than enough. Normally I shoot around 24mp with my Nikon D610 en D750 and rarely use the 36 of the D800, only when I need to print big. 

The point for me for Medium Format is not the megapixel count but the sensor size and look. I don't know what it is but Medium Format photography has a look which is just so much more lovely then 35mm Full Frame photography. I has the look of the photographers I admire like Mark selliger, Martin Schoeller, Erwin Olaf and Anne Liebovitz. They also use Phase One camera's/backs,  

The set up of the back is simple. The menu has just a few options, like ISO, white balance, power performance, and some basic information. just all you need.

The body and lens

The thing I disliked was the body. and especially the autofocus of the body. Getting critical focus with a wide open aperture was hard because of the singel AF point. You had to focus and recompose without chancing the angle. So you had to move up and down or side ways without moving back and fort of chancing your angle. This was hard! And took a while to get used of. But this is also the point for me to not buy the camera. Because of this I can also buy a back for my Hasselblad 500c/m and focus manually. 

Saving up to do

So I decided I have to do some more saving up so I can buy a newer model and also take a look again at the Hasselblad H5D-40 or the X1D!

BTW I got the new Sigma 85mm 1.4 ART lens, I am going to test it soon with a few shoots!