Objects of Desire

One Shot Wonder

Italian photographer Mario Corsini shoots alluring still life images. Working with large and medium format camera systems is often the first choice for photographers who expect the ultimate image quality. Mario Corsini demands the best quality but found using a digital multi-shot back to be laborious and slow to operate. Does shooting expensive products need to be time consuming? Compromise is not an option for this discerning practitioner but wasting time isn’t how this commercial photographer likes to work either. So could the Phase One’s P65+ really solve this speed and quality conundrum?

Mario Corsini’s started as a photographer when he was a teenager working as an assistant for four years, at AdVisual, a graphics and photography agency in Siena that specializes in industrial and commercial photography. This Italian has honed his skills in the ensuing twenty seven years. He got his first big break when Royal Cristall Rock hired him to shoot some gemstones and he hasn’t looked back since. In the last three decades he’s opened his own studio, ASA64 in Siena, Italy where he employs three people. He and his team also work across Europe from Austria to Portugal shooting, among other things, architecture, furniture and still life.

When arranging product set-ups, Mario works closely with a stylist who also happens to be his wife. He lights all his subject matter using Arri Tungsten lighting where typical exposures times can be from 4 to 8 seconds. Attaining precise results is vital to Mario. He has ensured his stay at the cutting edge of photographic styles, although he modestly states that, “It is difficult to describe my style when shooting commercially as it depend on the designer and the client… Let me simply say that  “I follow the trend””.

Photo Armory

There is no doubt that Mario is keen on keeping up with the latest photographic equipment and technologies as he has been a digital advocate for over eight years. Up until recently he has used a Hasselblad 506CW with P25 and Imacon 528. But after a time he discovered certain inherent limitations when working with a multi-shot backs as he states with a hint of frustration, “I needed a new system that could save me time.”

Mario found the solution in Phase One’s new 645 AF camera and a P65+ digital back. Any uncertainties over image quality are quickly dismissed as he enthuses, “I needed a good new wide angle lens, and the 28mm from Phase One is really first-class. The P65+ delivers so much detail that I didn’t need a multi-shot back any longer”. He now uses the P65+ for most of his work, although he also uses large format camera systems including the Silvestri with 28HR lens, to achieve another perspective when the job demands it.

The P65+ is Phase One’s flagship digital back, boasting the World’s first 645 full frame sensor. It incorporates a 60.5 megapixel resolution and industry leading image quality with an incredible dynamic range of 12.5 f-stops. It also has a number of impressive extra features, including a broad ISO range to help photographers to capture well exposed image in both bright and low light ambient shooting scenarios. Phase One has named it their Sensor+ technology that enables photographers to switch between the maximum resolution and fifteen megapixel captures to deliver an overall ISO range from 50 to 3200. But the vital issue for still life photographers is that the P65+ captures images in one shot, so production time is rapidly speeded up without any compromise to image quality. It is also worth noting that switching to the 15 megapixel setting produces up to 1.4 frame per second capture rate, making the digital back a useful proposition for photographers that need to capture fast moving subjects.

Mario’s impressions of the Phase One system’s usability and handling are positive. He rates the build quality as good and the weight of the camera, lens and P65+ as acceptable for a medium format camera.  But Mario does feel the grip could be bigger and that the menu system needs some refining to make it more user friendly. He sums up by saying, “The P65+ and Phase One 645 has become more and more like the DSLR concept; it is really user friendly and intuitive but offers, even better, superior image quality”.

Software solution

Mario shoots tethered from the P65+ (via a firewire cable) to a laptop 90% of the time. He uses Capture One 4 software and like many former users of the older software has found it, “A little more complicated to manage,” but goes on to say, “all the extra features are very welcome”. He also appreciates the operating speed of the software and has benefited from the extra controls such as the High Dynamic range Shadow/Highlight facilities saying, “I am enthusiastic about these capabilities as it resolves many complicated exposure issues when the lighting is difficult to control”.

Capture One 4 saw Phase One completely overhaul its previous incarnation with a host of new features and capabilities to drastically cut down the time needed for post-production. There are new Lens Correction tools to counteract any detrimental lens characteristics.  These tools also reduce any unsightly chromatic aberrations, purple fringing, and distortion and even permit photographers to alleviate light and sharpness falloff.

The software has also proved a boon to fashion and portrait photographers alike, with items such as the Skin Tone tool proving popular. This feature aids you to simply set and reproduce skin tones shot under any number of different lighting conditions, to get the precise look you want, even if you forget to use a gray card.

Shooting still life successfully can prove tricky but the essential outcome for Mario is to achieve accurate fidelity in the correct colours of the product. Capture One 4 offers all the normal White Balance, Kelvin and Tint adjustment possibilities, as well as standard hue and saturation sliders, but where it really impresses is with its Color Editor facility, for incredibly fine-tuning of individual tones at the click of a button.   

The software has certainly impressed the Italian photographer who unequivocally states, “It is more complete [than the old version] offering numerous interesting new tools… It delivers all the performance photographers really need and its speed of performance and reliability is very good”.

But the real question for Mario was would he ever go back to his multi-shot digital back? His answer is emphatic. “The P65+ makes a multi-shot [back] redundant. The one shot P65+ is a faster and easier way to make my pictures and most importantly, it delivers better image quality!”