Photography and Digital Imaging of your Weapons Systems

Re: Photographs of New XCR-M and the new XCR Stock?

I forgot to mention, photography is my other inexpensive hobby.

Used to be a profession for me for awhile. I assisted several pros in the Dallas area in the mid to late 80's before the market crashed.

Also, worked in a studio at the same time which leased out space and equipment to pros close to downtown. The studio space was awesome, had cycloramas in two of them. One large enough for multiple-car shots.

Had many shoots in that studio requiring extensive set building. Very good learning experience.

Anyhow, left that field after the photo market crashed and eventually wound up in the high-tech/telecom field.

So ... I am a little bit serious about my offer.

Re: Photographs of New XCR-M and the new XCR Stock?

I've had the gamut of photo equipment. The most expensive stuff is the strobe lighting equipment.

The cameras are cheap compared to all the lenses, especially when medium format was king for pros.

Large format you could get good prices for new/used lenses, the cameras were really just large light-tight boxes, so large format cameras went from downright cheap (Calumet/Cambo) to very expensive (Sinar). If you needed a specialized lens, you'd rent it.

The medium-format stuff was always pretty expensive, the Rollie and Hassy stuff was very expensive, now the film stuff is cheap as the pros have gone mostly digital. Real glut in medium format now.

In the past, the 35mm stuff was rarely used for commercial pro stuff except some quick fashion stuff or artsy stuff. Most stuff was shot in medium format.

But, now that 35mm format digital has gotten so good, most pros have abandoned medium format and gone strictly 35mm format digital. The 35mm lenses are mostly cheaper than the the medium format, although some of the newer 35mm lenses are quite expensive.

Hassy and Rollie still make some good digital systems, but they are usually in the $10k-$35k range. And these only provide a little bit more quality than the high-end 35mm digital stuff Canon and Nikon produce now. I fully expect Hassy and Rollie to get bought out or just go belly up in the next 5 years or so. Pentax, Bronica and Mamiya have already quit the market due to poor sales.

The quality results of the high and medium end 35mm digital stuff is amazing compared to stuff we used to do with medium format film.

The large format stuff will always have a place due to the specialization of the view-camera movements, and the ability to modify perspective with the view-camera's movements. But even these now use digital backs, so film isn't as widely available.

It's amazing the quality someone can get with a 35mm digital camera now and Photoshop.