Medium Format Camera News

Every year the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA), a worldwide association of photo and imaging magazine editors, meets to pick the Best of Class in a wide range of photo categories. As the sole US member of the association, Shutterbug joins editors from Europe, Asia, and Africa in the nominating, judging, and selection process. One of the most exciting aspects of photography today is the constant advancement of technology and design, and this year’s Top Products reflect that spirit and those accomplishments, including new categories of Video D-SLR and Mobile App. Editor George Schaub joins all fellow TIPA members in congratulating those selected to receive the prestigious TIPA award. (To learn more about TIPA, please visit the website at: www.tipa.com.)

Hasselblad has joined forces with Motorola to try bring some of the Swedish company’s legendary imaging knowledge to smartphone cameras. Called the Hasselblad True Zoom, the Hassy-branded Moto Mod device snaps onto Motorola Z smartphones using magnets and adds a 10x optical zoom and Raw image capability.

For those of you who have never worked in medium format, trust me, there is a difference you can see and feel. It’s no wonder that photographers such as Douglas Sonders choose a medium format camera system over a DSLR for the bulk of their work. And in Sonders’s case, his workhorse camera system is Phase One.

Fujifilm just maxed out the megapixels by announcing its new GFX100 medium format mirrorless camera, which boasts a 102-megapixel, 55mm diagonal length "large format" sensor.

The weirdest camera at the show, the GFAE, wasn’t even recognizable as a camera, not least because it was a view camera with the bellows left out in order to show its construction more clearly. We’ll come back to it later, but first, let’s look at some more conventional offerings.

You’d be hard-pressed to come up with three digital cameras more different from one another than the Canon EOS M5, the Fujifilm GFX 50S, and the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV. The first is an affordable, compact mirrorless camera, the second is a 50MP medium format mirrorless model, and the third is a big and powerful pro DSLR.

The Chinese-built, American-designed Fotoman 617 justifies itself as soon as you see the first transparencies on the light table. The huge format is a knockout. It's gorgeous. That vast slab of film is 21/4x62/3". That's 56x168mm, or over 11 times the area of 35mm.

It's ideal for scanning, too. Even a very modest flat-bed film scanner giving...