I had a brief hands-on shooting experience with the new Pentax 645Z today, a medium format digital camera with a 51-megapixel CMOS image sensor. The body is priced at $8,499.95, much less than the $35,000 Phase One IQ250 back that uses the same Sony image sensor. But the 645Z is a very different animal than the IQ250—Phase One designs modular backs that can move from camera system to camera system, but Pentax integrates everything into a camera body, just like full-frame and APS-C D-SLR system cameras. The 645Z is a much more modern camera than the 645D that came before it. CMOS technology adds Live View support, and its autofocus system and image processor have been borrowed from the K-3. The result is a body that’s noticeably faster to focus than its predecessor and writes files quickly to a memory card. Other highlights include full weather sealing, a tilting rear display, and HD video recording. For a full rundown of specs, check out the more detailed story that ran when the camera was announced. Even though the 645Z is built tough enough to go on location shoots, medium format is the choice of many a studio shooter. That’s the environment in which I got to use the 645Z. Representatives from Ricoh (the parent company behind the Pentax brand) set up a series of shooting stations at a studio space in New York. Models were on hand to show off the capabilities of the camera for fashion photographers, and a food stylist was on hand, serving up photogenic margaritas. This setup didn’t allow me to put the camera through the same type of workout that it will undergo when it comes in for a formal review. But it was enough time to gauge some performance aspects. As advertised, the 645Z is a lot snappier than the 645D. The autofocus system locks onto targets quickly, and I was able to take multiple successive shots without having to wait for files to write to a memory card. Pulling up images for review is instantaneous, unlike the 645D, which made you wait a few beats after pressing play to do so. Live View focus is a little slower. The default wide area struggled to lock onto a subject when when working close with the 90mm Macro lens, but that’s to be expected. Switching to a smaller flexible focusing spot worked better. The contrast focus system utilized by the Live View mode still has to rack back and forth before locking on, but it’s reasonably quick and accurate. Another issue came up when using Live View—exposures tended to run a little hot, maybe a stop overexposed, compared with when shooting via the optical finder. The camera was set to manual exposure, so this isn’t an issue with the autofocus system. We’ll investigate further when the camera comes in for review. The 645Z outputs images with 51-megapixel resolution (8,256 by 6,192 pixels) in a 4:3 aspect ratio. The detail that the camera can capture is incredible, as you can see from the pixel-level crop above. Working under studio lights didn’t allow me to push the sensor to its limits (ISO ranges from 100 to 204800), but I did grab the shot of the 645Z body above with another 645Z at ISO 1600. Noise wasn’t an issue with that shot; we’ll follow up with more formal lab-based at a later date. One of the limitations of using the 645Z for studio work is the flash sync speed. It’s limited to 1/125-second, so you’ll have to power down your lights in order to shoot at wider apertures. One photographer who has been test driving the camera for a few weeks is getting around this by utilizing neutral density filters, which reduce the amount of light that enters the lens. He stated that he does a lot of outdoor work with flashes and is able to shoot for a very shallow depth of field at f/2.8 using this method. If you use a medium format system that supports leaf shutter lenses, like the Phase One or Leica S system, you’ll be able to sync at any shutter speed. There’s a lot to the camera that I wasn’t able to test given the setup of the event—including its video functionality, weather sealing, and 4K time lapse function. We’ll follow up with a review soon, but in the meantime rest assured that the high-resolution images that this camera captures are pretty fantastic. If you’re in the market for a digital camera, take some time to peruse our product guide, or our list of the 10 Best Digital Cameras.
Article source: http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/05/31/silkypix-gets-onboard-with-better-fuji-x-trans-support
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