A Phase One Convert! (It's not all about pixel count!)

One of my oldest friends, photographer and journalist Adam Duckworth took the plunge at Focus on Imaging 2008 and invested in a new Phase One back with Mamiya camera and lenses after being a huge Nikon fan for as long as I can remember.

Now I'm admittedly not 100% up to speed with all things digital but when he sent me this email the other week, I just thought it was worth sharing......


"Had a first proper go with the Mamiya/ Phase One in my studio yesterday. Forced my wife to model for me.

I love the P1 stuff. I did some back-to-back with my Nikon D3 and there is just no comparison. The P1 captures so much more detail and a beautiful range of tones.

I also did some Capture One vs Lightroom raw conversions of the same file... and C1 wins out by miles. Much better skin tones and details. So now, workflow will have to be... Capture one, then Lightroom as a DAM, then Photoshop! Although with some more practice, we may ditch the Lightroom stage (although I must say I do love some of the LR tweaks you can do).

The image quality. Just staggering. I can't imagine what a P45 would be like!

I also did a bit of comparison on focal length, with the crop factor and all. And I reckon the 80mm on the Mamiya ends up being something like a 70 or 75mm on 35mm equivalent. I was thinking the 80mm would be like a 50mm standard but it's definitely longer. Actually, I reckon the 150mm is like a 135mm.

I'll attach a shot from my session. Obviously it's been resized to email so you can't really tell the detail anyway!"

I have asked Adam to keep me updated with his Phase One voyage of discovery so hopefully he'll send me regular emails which I can share.

Not too sure his wife will thank me for posting the image though.............. Sorry Nicky!

Adam has just won the SWPP UK Commercial Photographer of the Year Award 2007 and more of is work can be seen on his website

Incidentally, his wife, Nicky, produces these beautiful personalised hand painted frames . Ok, a gratuitous plug, sorry. I like them anyhow!