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Pentax countdown..........

carstenw

Active member
One part of the camera which has me wondering... the viewfinder. The body as viewed from above shows a long thin tunnel from the opening to the prism proper, and looking at the specs, I see that the viewfinder has 98% coverage, but 0.62x magnification with the standard lens, the 55mm. The Leica S2, for comparison, has 96% coverage, but 0.86x magnification.

Leica has chosen the 70mm lens as their normal lens, but this works out to a slightly long lens, 56mm in 135 terms, whereas the 55mm of the Pentax is more like a slightly short lens, about 45mm.

I don't know why Pentax specifies the focal length used for the magnification states, and Leica doesn't. Can someone who understands these specs better than I make some kind of statement about the size of the Pentax viewfinder?
 

proenca

Member
Too bad they didn't drop the price 2k further or else I would travel to Japan to pick one but... BUT....

Is it me or is the ugliest camera ? Good lord, who was design chief on Pentax for this ? A brilliant cooperation between Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles ?

I know its results that matter and what this camera produces is what it counts but oh boy... the thing is terrible ugly.
 

roanjoh

New member
Sample images of the young lady seems to show a cyan cast?!!? Of course this is easily fixed with software. In any case, the images are quite detailed with very neutral colors - still would like to see full-res samples.

Now would be interesting to see how Canon/Nikon responds to this beast as the price is very close to their top-of-the-line cameras.

......and depending on how successful this body is during launch, maybe the big MF guys will start to concentrate on entry-level sub-10,000 offerings.
 

Ben Rubinstein

Active member
Ugly? Seems to be the only MF camera with even close to DSLR ergonomics, I like the way the controls are slanted towards the user a lot. Personally I like the look of this far more than the Mamiya bodies I used to own or the Hasselblad (H1) which I used once.
 

arashm

Member
I owned the Pentax 645n AF back in the film days, And I used to love the camera and lenses. Specially the lenses.
The mirror slap was minimum and the viewfinder was beautiful and bright.
What ultimately made me switch over to the contax 645 was lack of proper interchangeable backs and polaroid backs, but that was in the film days.
I really hope this camera is sold world wide sooner than later.
One last note, I at least found it to be a very very comfortable camera to handle.
am
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Too bad they didn't drop the price 2k further or else I would travel to Japan to pick one but... BUT....

Is it me or is the ugliest camera ? Good lord, who was design chief on Pentax for this ? A brilliant cooperation between Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles ?

I know its results that matter and what this camera produces is what it counts but oh boy... the thing is terrible ugly.
at least it is black ;)
 

robmac

Well-known member
Not the nicest looking body I've ever seen, but you never know, it might 'fall readily to hand'. The portrait samples look like they have a lot of potential.

Assuming it measures up to half it's on-paper potential and Pentax takes the measures to ensure it has legs outside Japan, it could be the price/performance game changer it appears to be.

Funny - take a glance only at the on/off switch and the base ISO of 200 and you think it was a Nikon. Will be very interesting to see how CaNikon/Phase/Hass respond.
 

etrigan63

Active member
Definitiely a wake-up call for medium-format digital. While not the prettiest MFD, it brings tons of 35mm DSLR features (multi-point AF, HDR bracketing, leveling sensor, 1.1 fps, in-camera JPEG, shooting styles, etc...) at a new low price-point. This 40 mpx is going to cause a major tectonic shift in MFD pricing if Pentax markets it right.
 

Lars

Active member
Will Pentax' older glass hold up? I seem to recall that some of the Pentax 6x7 offerings were not that great WRT resolving power, but I never looked into Pentax' 645 offerings.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
Well, for me, since yesterday but i imagine for the larger world its been a bit longer than that.

We have two H3d11 39s in the studio for the last few days and the last thing i was told by the dealer was to make sure and not put the backs on the wrong cameras as they will be "out of calibration".

So correct me if i am wrong but you cant even put a hasselblad back on another hasselblad camera of the same model and generation without sending it to Hasselblad.

So i would have to deduct that putting it on anything else is not going to be a realistic option.
So the only advantage i can see of being able to take the back of a H3d or H4d i assume is to clean it.

And to put it in the context of this thread, if it's that hard to control the alignment of a back then i am now starting to view the integrated approach of the Pentax and S2 as an advantage.
No alignment issues when I use my 39 back on a Rollei Xact-II ... which is "another" camera as far as I know ;).

-Marc
 

etrigan63

Active member
No alignment issues when I use my 39 back on a Rollei Xact-II ... which is "another" camera as far as I know ;).

-Marc
It's not alignment, but lens/body/back corrections embedded in the firmware by Hasselblad. As part of the "H-System" the lenses, bodies and back are tested at the factory and any minor deviations from spec are noted and encoded in the system firmware for later correction in Phocus.
 

fotografz

Well-known member
The few samples shown do not look digital ... very nice. Some software tweak-age and you're there.

Under $10K .... I agree with Peter ... a game changer.

BIG deal in terms of competing with 35mm DSLRs is the inclusion of the high res LCD (only available on the H4D/60) ... and the dual card slots which can shoot mirrored to each other for back-up of event and wedding work, and 11 point AF (depending on how spread out they are).

If the ISO 800 is decent, I'd buy this over any $8K Canon or Nikon to do the high res wedding and portrait stuff.

Way to go Pentax.
 
T

thinkfloyd

Guest
Leica has chosen the 70mm lens as their normal lens, but this works out to a slightly long lens, 56mm in 135 terms, whereas the 55mm of the Pentax is more like a slightly short lens, about 45mm.
I'm guessing they made it as an equivalent to the Pentax limited 43mm?
 

monza

Active member
Yes, it appears that's exactly their plan, to siphon business away from the high end DSLRs.

The viewfinder does appear to be somewhat smallish but that's one of the ways to cost reduce. another way is with a 50k shutter, but that sounds awfully low to me...

If it's a success in Japan will it make it into other markets? Or alternately, why would they not pursue other markets with such a price advantage?
 
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