In November last year, we were paid a visit by Phase One Product Manager, Drew Altdoerffer and spent some time with him on the road. Drew is a straight talking American living in Denmark and someone who embodies Phase One the company beautifully. Joining us was Ian van der Wolde who’s a long time Phase One user for both his commercial photography and fine art landscape work.
Drew knows photography. He knows cameras. He knows technology. Like, really knows them. He also shoots, so he’s able to bridge the gap between engineering, product and software design and actually taking a photograph out in the real world.
Between some VIP events to show off the new Phase One XT Camera System, we found time for a road trip down to Victoria’s south east coast to put the XT and Phase One IQ4 150 digital back through their paces. In classic Melbourne fashion, we had one of those "four seasons in one day" type days. Unfortunately the most prominent of the four seasons was winter. Nevertheless, we found just enough time in between heavy downpours to show Drew around Wilsons Promontory and snap a few images with the Phase One XT.
It was a real treat to have one of the key members of the XT design team with us and to use the camera for exactly what it was designed to do. For me it was the first “real world” shooting I’d done with the XT. A situation where we were reliant upon small windows between heavy rain to get some shots in adverse conditions where the wind was howling. Wilson’s Prom, for those that don’t know is the southern most point of Australia’s mainland, and it’s breezy at the best of times. I was so impressed with how easy it was to set up, compose and capture with the XT.
I’ve used many conventional technical cameras over the years with Phase One digital backs on them, and while in some scenarios (usually the ones where I’m not worried about being blown into the ocean from atop a rock), I’ve really enjoyed the slow thoughtful process of using them. The XT, with it’s integrated operation is just such a fantastic tool to get the shot when time or conditions are not on your side. It opens up the situations and ways you would use a field camera so much and for those that want the best, no matter what, there’s simply no better choice of camera system.
You can read more about the Phase One XT here.
For any other enquiries, or to talk about a demo of the XT Camera, get in touch here.
