The reception was held at St. Robert Bellarmine. The party was great: lots of dancing, fun and glow sticks. And I even got a chance to sneak Jenni and Mike out at sunset for some portraits and finished the night with some light painting with sparklers.

Thanks, you two, your wedding was incredible! Also a huge shout-out to Brian Davis of Brian Davis Photography for traveling to Omaha from Des Moines, IA to shoot this wedding with me!

Wedding Details:

Florist: Jill Hodges from Mulhalls

Cake Artist: Graham’s Goodies

DJ: Central Sound

Makup Artist: Styles Salon

Hair Artist: Callie Green

Wedding Dress: Elynn’s Bridal, Lincoln, NE

Bridesmaid Dresses: Etsy

Caterer: Eddy’ Catering / Cornhusker Beverage

I’ve used their Kiboko 30L bag for some time (my review here), and while this bag is great when I need to carry everything but the kitchen sink, there are times where it is not the ideal bag. One of these instances is when I need to fly on regional jets, carry a basic camera kit, laptop, and also desire to carry my clothes on the plane in my carry-on. With the Kiboko, I am either forced to put my laptop in a sleeve in my carry-on, which is less than ideal, or carry a separate laptop bag and check my clothes.

The Gura Gear Chobe 19-24L deals with this situation nicely, especially when I don’t need to carry my entire camera kit on the plane.

The Gura Gear folks sent me out a bag for review right around the time that I was covering an event, which required me to travel on a regional jet. This was the perfect opportunity to see how the bag faired as a travel companion.

My conclusions about this bag are nothing but positive, and I will save you the re-posting of specs about the bag because you can read them easily on Gura Gear’s excellent website. In this review, I want to focus my time on specific reasons why this bag should be on your shoulder, rather than a simple rewriting of specifications and metrics about the bag itself.

But before we begin, I should give you a brief introduction to the bag. The Chobe is a shoulder bag about the size of a laptop briefcase. There is a nice rear compartment that is padded and will fit up to a 15” MacBook Pro.  There is a center section that holds a removable padded camera insert. If the camera insert is not used, the bag can be compressed using a zipper. When the bag is compressed, the internal volume is 19L. When it is expanded, the volume is 24L. This is where the 19-24L comes from in the title.

In addition to the laptop and camera sections, there are two pouches on the front that have lots of pockets, and some depth to hold chargers, memory cards etc. The bag is very lightweight, thanks to the fabric that is used in its construction.

So, after arriving back from my trip using the bag, I can safely say that this is the best shoulder bag I have ever used (camera or otherwise), and would highly recommend picking one up.  As a general reaction, here are 10 reasons why this bag deserves A+ marks in my book.

10. The Chobe is a tool for multiple tasks
Because this bag has both a removable divider and can be compressed, it can take the place of two bags in your closet: A dedicated photo/laptop bag, and an everyday laptop bag. Anytime I can replace two items with one, I am happy.

9. It is small enough to utilize as a “personal item” when traveling by plane
Airline regulations are getting ever more strict, and photographers everyway have nightmares about the dreaded “gate check” when traveling on small planes. The Chobe is small enough that it will fit underneath the seat of the smallest plane (see picture below). You gear will never be far away from you, which is a good thing.

8. It has a padded laptop sleeve doesn’t require a separate sleeve
Simplicity is good. I like that I can slide my laptop in the Chobe without needing to use or purchase a separate sleeve. Extra sleeves and fabric means more weight, and my bag is heavy enough when I am carrying my full camera kit and laptop.

7. The iPad can fit in the back pouch
The Chobe has a back pouch that allows you to slip the bag over rolling luggage. It also conveniently fits an iPad. This allows me to have quick access to my iPad without having to dig around in the bag. This is especially useful on a plane.

6. A Water Bottle pouch is found on the outside of the bag
This is a nice touch. I am already carrying my carry-on and this bag, having to carry around a water bottle or soda in my hands makes it difficult to navigate getting things in and out of my bag, or dealing with my tickets. Being able to slip my water into a pouch on the side of the bag and have both of my hands free is a very good thing.

5. It is lightweight
Camera and computer gear is heavy, especially when you try to load it all up in one bag. The Chobe weights 3 lbs, or 4 lbs with the insert. This is 2-3 lbs lighter than most other offerings. Every pound of savings is worth its weight in gold when you are running around the airport.

4. It holds 70-200mm lens with hood reversed
The camera divider will accept my 70-200mm telephoto lens positioned straight up and down. Many other bags like this have a difficult time dealing with this particular lens. Since this lens always comes with me to events, I am happy that the Chobe can accommodate this lens easily.

3. It’s easy to work out of
The zipper that allows access to the photo divider is easy to grab thanks to its grippy rubberized pulls. Once the bag is open, it is easy to grab lenses out, or place them back in. This is true even when the bag is on my shoulder.  It is a rare treat that a bag made for transport can also pull double duty as a shooting bag (try that with a backpack!).

2. It holds a TON of stuff
On my test trip, I carried way too much in this bag: 2x D700 camera bodies, 24-70mm, 70-200mm, 20 and 50mm lenses, a SB-900 flash, extra AA batteries, CF cards, an iPad, MacBook Pro 15”, chargers, cords and tons of accessories. Everything fits inside the Chobe. I could make the bag too heavy before I could max out the capacity.

1. It doesn’t look like I am carrying thousands of dollars of camera equipment
I believe this is probably one of the biggest reasons to check this bag out. It looks like an ordinary business bag from the outside. That is a good thing. It is stylish enough to wear or carry while wearing a suit, and casual enough for a pair of jeans. It will blend into your surroundings and not draw too much attention. And just because it looks conservative on the outside, doesn’t mean it isn’t protective either. At no point in my trip did I every worry about the safety of my gear.

So there you are: Ten reasons that you are going to want to get this bag. I highly recommend you read more about the Chobe and consider picking one up. It is one of the few bags I’ve used that I basically have no complaints about. Well done, Gura Gear.

Enjoy!

———————— Equipment Used for this Shoot ————————

Nikon d700

Nikon 24mm f/1.4 G

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR I

Sigma 50mm f/1.4

Nikon 60mm Macro f/2.8 AF-D

Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AF-D

Nikon SB900

Think Tank Memory Card Wallet with San Disk Extreme Compact Flash cards

Avenger Baby 35 Stand – 11.5′ with Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceivers, Manfrotto Umbrella Adaptor, and Stroboframe Flash Mount Adapter.

———————— Equipment Used for this Shoot ————————

Nikon d700

Nikon 24mm f/1.4 G

Nikon 28-70mm f/2.8

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR I

Nikon 35mm f/2

Nikon 60mm Macro f/2.8 AF-D

Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AF-D

Nikon SB900

Think Tank Memory Card Wallet with San Disk Extreme Compact Flash cards

Avenger Baby 35 Stand – 11.5′ with Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceivers, Manfrotto Umbrella Adaptor, Stroboframe Flash Mount Adapter and Custom Brackets Quantum Battery Clip.

Quantum Turbo SC Battery with Nikon CKE cord

I’ve been luke-warm about canned presets or actions in the past. The often do not work well, require too much manual tweaking after the fact and really don’t give me the ‘look’ that I am after. Also the whole process of editing a file in Lightroom, exporting to JPEG, opening up in Photoshop and then running extra processing really eats up the time when you have to deal with an entire wedding.

Enter VSCO Film. This is something completely different. These film emulators are DNG profiles which actually alter the way that a camera’s RAW file is processed – no longer are you processing the file with a default profile or camera-specific profile and then applying color tweaks on top of that. This actually is altering the way by the RAW information is processed from the start.

I wouldn’t consider my processing style to be ‘film-emulation’ or ‘vintage’ but a high-quality, natural skin tone is a bit of an elusive, and labor-intensive task with the Nikon D700′s raw file using the standard RAW profiles.

When I saw the demonstration on VSCO’s website about ‘one-click’ post-processing I was understandably skeptical, but I went for it – and I am SO glad I did.

The relatively simple set of film emulations is stored in Lightroom’s presets and allows you to change the way that your RAW files are ‘baked’ with a simple click. After you pick the overall look that you want, you can tweak the exposure, color, contrast, etc. with a number of editing shortcuts that actually work and are smartly organized. You can tell that these guys really took the effort to put together a complete set of tools. This all means that I can get to the look I desire quickly without a lot of manual tweaking after the fact. This is really cool. At the same time, this is no a panacea, for these profiles to work you need to start off with a well-lit, properly exposed subject in favorable light.

The fact that the emulations are specifically designed for how my camera deals with colors, exposure, contrast and light is what makes all the difference in the world though. It’s efficient and skin tones look awesome. It’s totally easy to use and FAST.

This really made my week and is well worth the small investment. I dare say it is the best software-based investment for getting photos processed in a timely and high-quality fashion since I purchased Lightroom. Very well done, Visual Supply Co.

Here are some examples and recipes:

Fuji 400 H, Grain +, Fill Light ++

Fuji 800Z, Auto Black, Orange Skin Fix +, Grain + Fuji 800Z, Grain +, Auto Black Levels, LR Lens CorrectionFor a more faded B&W look: Kodak TRI-X 400 ++, Faded +, Auto Black Levels, Grain +Fuji 400 H, Grain +, Auto Black LevelsPortra 800, Grain +, Auto Black LevelsKodak TRI-X 400, Auto Black Levels, Grain ++

Fuji 400H, Auto Black Levels, Fill Light ++, Orange Skin Fix +

Kodak TRI-X 400, Auto Black Levels, Grain +It’s just amazing how great these images look (especially the skin), and how efficiently I am able to process these without having to leave Lightroom to get the look that I want.

The only thing that I have to do to manual tweak the profiles is to turn down the grain on most images, run the auto black levels for exposure, and tweak the white balance/fill light parameters. But the fact that I have these all set up as quick presets, means in only 3-4 clicks, I have the image where I want and don’t have to fiddle around with the sliders.

After a loverly ceremony we headed over to Yanney Park for some shots in the late afternoon sun (Check out the image of the couple against the cloudless, blue sky), then we were off to the reception at the Holiday Inn in Kearney, NE. Barbie, Clint and their friends had an awesome time and the reception food was some of the best I’ve tasted. Hats off to the Holiday Inn for feeding 450 + people with absolute efficiency. This was a really nice way to end the 2011 wedding season! I wish you all the best in the future. Enjoy some of my favorite photos from the day.

P. S.

For those that are keeping track of my Mamiya ZD rolling review, the image of the dress (#1), and the church portrait of Barbie (#6) were taken with the Mamiya.  For the indoor portrait, I used a single on-camera flash bounced off a nearby white wall. I just love the look of these medium format images. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, forget I wrote this paragraph and just enjoy the following photos…

———————— Equipment Used for this Shoot ————————

Nikon d700

Nikon 24mm f/1.4 G

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR I

Nikon 60mm Macro f/2.8 AF-D

Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AF-D

Nikon SB900

Think Tank Memory Card Wallet with San Disk Extreme Compact Flash cards

Avenger Baby 35 Stand – 11.5′ with Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceivers, Manfrotto Umbrella Adaptor and Stroboframe Flash Mount Adapter

Low-light portrait with the Mamiya ZD digital back, 80mm f/2.8 AF Lens and some off-camera flash.

Introduction

This week, I did something crazy. I purchased a digital medium format camera, specifically a Mamiya 645 AFD (Older version of the linked camera) camera with a 80mm f/2.8 AF lens and a Mamiya ZD Digital Back (No longer available new). The digital back was the more crazy part, I suppose. At any rate, this is going to prove to be a fun, frustrating, and amazing camera that will allow me to do something that is new and different. And first and foremost, it’s exciting.

I’m going to be blogging about my experience with this camera, assembling a set of articles that review the positive and negative aspects of the system, and of course, provide a number a sample shots along the way. My goal is to integrate the medium format system into my professional wedding photography work, while at the same time add to the body of knowledge about this camera system, as there really is only limited information on the web.

So let’s start with the basics. When you get into a medium format system, you are buying into exactly that: A system. The system consists of four basic parts: A back (either film or digital), a body, a lens, and a viewfinder. For example, in a system like the Mamiya RB or RZ camera (which use a 6×7 cm negative if shooting film), you have the option of multiple viewfinders like the pop-up finder, a prism finder (similar to what you’d find you every day DSLR camera), or even a chimney finder.

With the Mamiya 645 AF system, the body consists of a prism finder permanently attached. I have no problem with this. The back, whether it is film or digital, is removable, which is perhaps the biggest difference between this camera, and say, a Nikon D3s. If I wanted to switch from digital capture to B&W film mid-shoot I could just by switching the back out for a film magazine. Pretty cool.

The camera body that I got to work with the ZD Digital Back was the Mamiya 645 AFD. The ‘AF’ meaning that is an auto-focus body to work with the newsiest Mamiya auto-focus lenses and ‘D’ meaning that it has been designed to provide the necessary communication provisions to work with Digital Backs. I currently have a single lens – the 80mm f/2.8 AF. The field of view of this lens corresponds to approximately 50mm on the 35mm format – so a nice, normal lens.

Shooting the Mamiya 645 with ZD Back into the sun in the late afternoon.

The Mamiya ZD Digital Back

Now, on to the back. The Mamiya ZD digital back is a 22 megapixel digital back with approximately a 1.1x crop factor (vs. the ‘full-frame’ 645 format). 

Basic specs:

• 22 MP Dalsa Sensor
• 14-bit image pipeline with 12-bit downsampling when the image is recorded to memory
• 35 MB RAW file recorded in Mamiya’s RAW file format
• JPEGs also available in 9 different sizes/compression ratios
• ISO 50-400 in 1/3 stops
• 1.8″ LCD
• Dedicated buttons for setting ISO, Quality, Image Review, Zoom, Info, Image Protect, Navigation Buttons, Menu, and White Balance.
• Monochrome LCD for seeing shooting settings
• Rechargeable Lithium-Ion Battery
• CF and SD card slots
• IEEE Firewire out for shooting tethered
• User-changable IR-cut or low-pass (AA) filter (Although the AA filter is an extra purchase)

At the time of introduction, the ZD digital back was priced at $6999. On the used market, when you can find one, you can get one  for about $3k. Considering that, understanding and working with the limitations of the system and workflow, it will stack-up with a d3x or 1ds Mk III, it represents a good value for getting into medium format digital photography (at least that is what I convinced myself).

I also believe the back will hold its value for the next few years – there just isn’t the quick product turnover that the DSLR products have.  For example, the 1dx that just came out will likely make the prices of the 1d Mk IV and 1ds Mk III fall by quite a bit (not to mention that with every iteration of consumer level products, pro features trickle down to a camera that is only a few hundred dollars – for example the Nikon d7000 makes the several-year-old D2xs quite obsolete). In the medium format world, to get a new back, you are still looking at a minimum of a 8k investment (for a Mamiya DM22/28) or a 15k+ investment for the new Phase One backs. There is also no “consumer” digital medium format back, which will keep prices relatively constant, in my opinion.

A small flash in a shoot-through umbrella helped light the subject in this low-light situation.

Quirks or rather ‘features’…

The Mamiya 645 system and ZD Digital back is not without it’s quirks and I think it’s good to know what this camera system is not right off the bat. It is first and foremost NOT a 35mm DSLR. It will not shoot at ISO 3200+, there are not f/1.4 or f/1.2 lens in the system, it will not rattle off shots at 12 FPS, it does not have 51 AF points, or 100 menu settings for autofocus.

It is a system that forces you to slow down and think, plan, are maybe even scheme to get what you want out of it. You have a single auto-focus point. The auto-focus motor on the 645 AFD is slow, hunts a lot, is most certainly not a ‘silent wave’ anything. The back shoots at about 1 fps and has a buffer for about 11 shots before it needs to clear (which takes about 10-seconds a shot). The 1.8″ LCD is sort of a joke, the menu system is very basic, and slow to navigate. Image review is slow, and not something you really want to do if you are standing in front of client.

If you are patient and understand these quirks, you will be rewarded with the some pretty awesome image quality per dollar spent though.

Stopping down the 80mm f/2.8 lens to 5.6 gives some amazing detail to this late afternoon scene.

How I envision working this system into my portrait and wedding photography.

That’s a very good question. One that I am still working through myself. I can see myself using this camera for portraits a lot. Couple’s portraits are my favorite part of the wedding day and I like to block out 45 minutes to an hour dedicated to taking photos of just the bride and groom. It’s a chance to slow down, take a break from the craziness of the wedding day and just focus on sharing some quality time with your significant other. This is where the MF camera would excel. I love to shoot in backlit situations using just the natural light available to me. This is where having the extra dynamic range afforded to me by the medium format back will be a positive thing.

I can also see using the camera for family pictures where having the extra resolution over my Nikon d700 bodies will be a good thing. As I usually add flash to these portraits, the ISO limitations won’t be an issue.

What I won’t be using this camera for is fast-moving actions situations like the reception or ceremony. I really need the quick autofocus, f/1.4 lenses, higher FPS, and ISO performance available in my 35mm digital cameras.

So for me, what is appealing is the fact that this camera system seems like a ideal compliment to the Nikon d700 bodies that I use. The Mamiya is everything that the Nikon is not, and I feel the two will be highly complimentary.

Summary

I have not had the proper chance to take this camera “through the paces” yet, so this article is aimed to be an introduction to this writing series on my website. I will be adding to this series as much as possible – as I really want to add to the relatively limited information out there on this unique camera system.

The next task is to find a bag that will fit this Mamiya, both of my d700 bodies and lenses and still be small enough to bring on a plane for when I travel. I’m open to suggestions…please help me out.

So leave your thoughts, comments, and suggestions below and stop back often to see how the project is progressing.

Thanks to Chelsea for helping me out modeling for the images in this post. She’s the lovely lady in the portraits. In the next installment we’ll get into actual images of the camera system and back as well as more images taken with the camera.

———————— Equipment Used for this Shoot ————————

Nikon d700

Nikon 24mm f/1.4 G

Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR I

Nikon 35mm f/2

Nikon 60mm Macro f/2.8 AF-D

Nikon 85mm f/1.4 AF-D

Nikon SB900

Think Tank Memory Card Wallet with San Disk Extreme Compact Flash cards

Avenger Baby 35 Stand – 11.5′ with Pocket Wizard Plus II Transceivers, Manfrotto Umbrella Adaptor, Stroboframe Flash Mount Adapter and Custom Brackets Quantum Battery Clip.

Quantum Turbo SC Battery with Nikon CKE cord

I do recall it being one of those > 100 degree days on the 16th of July when the two got married. You’ll notice the last photo in the set looks like there is haze or fog…well it was so hot and humid that our lenses immediately fogged up going from indoor locations to outdoor. Still that image was one of my favorite moments from the day.

I really had a blast shooting this wedding and if you are looking for an awesome reception site, with great ambience and food, check out the Hilton for sure!