I have indeed also used the Leaf digital back on my Mamiya as well as the Mamiya ZD back and I am enamored with medium format digital too. Actually I might be the first person ever to have been published with the Mamiya ZD back with a magazine cover and two other magazine features. I have also used Phase One backs with great success. They all have their own advantages depending on what you are shooting.
But my decision as to what will be the main system on my shoots depends on need and speed and my vision. Very often I am shooting something that has a really short turnaround requirement, sometimes next day. So on those shoots obviously digital is the first choice. But I will shoot some film alongside. If I am shooting a project or assignment where I have more time and more creative latitude I will shoot film with some digital alongside. This past 3 day Memorial Day weekend I was shooting on two separate television documentaries and I employed digital, medium format film and even my 35mm film in my Contax G1 Rangefinder.
My choice to use a tripod is less about lighting and more about the shoot I am doing. Longer exposures are not something I deal with. But I am faced with wanting more of a precise fixed position or working with multiple bodies where one of them is in place is really the better choice. For example the following shoot I did with one of the top fitness models in the business, Jamie Eason.
In this shoot the client wanted black background and some specific shots as well as what I conceptualized. So it worked out better to create a fixed position so Jamie could ‘hit her marks’ and not be concerned about getting the right camera position on each frame.
I was also shooting tethered, so camera movement was more restrained, and I was also shooting in front of a 7 ft Profoto giant reflector. The results were exactly what the client wanted.
Not much in the way of extreme tripod use for me. The only thing extreme for my Induro has been getting thrown in as checked luggage on a lot of flights and coming out unscathed each and every time. I find that in itself pretty amazing. I have certainly had it out in the desert, again on another ad shoot. The client wanted a specific scene duplicated as in their drawing.
The Art Director verbally conveyed to me what he envisioned for background, horizon and sky. So here it was best to set up the shoot precisely with a fixed camera position…
Then I was able to move my models into specific spots that best created the image.
The result was exactly what the client described and very much duplicated the original drawing.
While not a bodybuilder, I have been in the gym since I was a kid. I have always lifted and was very good at it. A fan of the bodybuilding magazines, the photography always was so very impressive to me. As I moved forward in my career as a photographer I came to realize that there was a place in the industry for me and proceeded to shoot and market myself within it. Now it is amazing to me to have as friends some of the great photographers I admired as I was reading the magazines and to be published in those magazines monthly.
The challenge in bodybuilding and fitness photography is to create something different. Shooting a workout series in a gym can get very routine and if you do not know what you are doing can be very technically incorrect. I have been lifting so long and watched and worked with so very many people that I know what is technically a correct way to do an exercise and how to show it. Then I try to create a different way of shooting it to create an exciting photograph that makes the viewer really stop and look. And now when I shoot any bodybuilding competitions I am no longer limited to just shooting what we often refer to as an inventory of who was on stage from the press pit. I pretty much get to do what I want and wander the front or back stage to show people a more interesting perspective.
How do you choose your gear- how have your choices changed since the rise of digital, and what tripod features are most important to you?
When buying digital gear I give consideration to what I will be using for what and how often. If most of your needs can be satisfied with a 12 megapixel small format dslr, then own two of those. If you need a medium format digital system a few times a year, rent it. You have to weigh need, convenience and cost for what you do. But once you decide what you need, buy the best.
Tripods were always an annoyance to me. Then I found Induro and I was transformed. It became a convenience.