A Moody Day with the A-Series

A Moody Day with the Phase One A Series (Part 1)
Click here to read Part 2: A Series in the Sun

The weather in NYC has been brutal the last few weeks. Overcast, cold, and windy. The holidays are over and it’s becoming increasingly impossible to ignore the number of cold weeks that separate us from the glorious return of Spring and the long days of Summer.

It’s also the time of year that, traditionally, would be off limits to hand held medium format shooting. But this week, armed with the new Phase One A-Series A250, we braved the freeze. The great high ISO performance (same as the Phase One IQ250) allowed us to shoot despite the gloomy cloud cover. The ergonomic wooden handle saved my hands from frostbite (much better than holding metal!) and the compact ergonomics made it possible to carry the system all afternoon despite the draining experience of walking NYC streets in January…with 20 mph winds.

They are a bit morose, and more than a bit moody (or are we just projecting?) so we used the new Film Grain tool in Capture One 8 to approximate the feel of grainy black and white film, added some contrast and finished with some vignette. It is, in part, the extremely pliable files that the A-Series produces that we love so much – you can push them, pull them, or tie them in a knot and they still show smooth tones, lovely grain structure, and an overall beautiful look. This is of course possible because of the incredible Dynamic Range. Plus with 50, 60, or 80 megapixels of native resolution comes with immense freedom to crop and still print big.

If you find our editing a bit heavy handed and want to take your own crack at editing these images, you can request the raw files by emailing info@digitaltransitions.com.

Shooting the Empire State in a cold and crowded Herald Sq.

This cold New York photographic walkabout and its resulting images represent just one side of the Phase One A-Series. Our technician Doug Peterson is bringing the Phase One A250 to sunny San Diego and Los Angeles this week where it should be 70 degrees and sunny. Stay tuned for his blog entry.

See Part 2 here!

The “Believe” sign on the Macy’s building at Herald Square. The sharp Rodenstock 35HR lens and 50mp sensor allowed this image to withstand 75 degrees of perspective correction.

The sky in this image was entirely blown out, but with the high bit-depth color of the Phase One raw file and coupled Capture One raw processing we pushed and pulled on each color channel to create this internally contrasty rendition.

Iconic, and what we see on our walk to work everyday. It somehow makes the cold all worth it.
See A Series specifications here.