According to this MF photographer, there are limitations…
After receiving a newsletter from DP Review about the Phase One Mamiya – Leaf tie-up , one commentator, kb2zuz; (Kurt Heumiller)-USA, who shoots for the Yale Center for British Art, with a Hasselblad H3D-II 39 MS and H4D 50 MS, had this to say about the Medium Format debate (added below for those without restricted internet access):
What are the mythical advantages of sensor size (or the often related larger pixels)? Less noise, better dynamic range, shallower depth of field. I work with an H4D every day, … I can tell you this, at anything over 50 ISO it has worse noise than any 35mm “full-frame” digital I’ve seen. It has only slightly better dynamic range (and again, that’s only at 50 ISO). Yes with the 120mm f/4 lens it will have a shallower depth of field than an 85mm lens on a full-frame at f/4, but you can get f/1.2 lenses for full-frame. Most MF lenses are f/2.8 or slower, there’s a couple f/2.2 lenses… so there goes the DOF advantage. I use medium format every day and there are reasons for it: multi-shot uninterpolated images, no AA filter, and high megapixels. That’s about it.
I’m no expert on MF, but I’ve long thought it would be better than FF or APS-C in all regards, at that sensor size, and I’ve seen jaw dropping images by MF photographers, but there are other factors I should have taken into consideration, (more…)