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Auto Exposure Bracketing on Phase One 645 DF

Craig Stocks

Well-known member
Well, here I am again stuggling with a broken or unusable "feature" of the 645 DF. I've been exploring how to use the auto exposure bracketing, and I've come to the conclusion that the manual is just plain wrong. Apparently it describes how the function should work, not how it's actually implemented.

According to the manual, pressing the AEB button allows you to turn AEB on or off with the front dial, and set the bracketing increment with the rear dial. Once engaged, it will continue until it is turned off.

In practice, the AEB button only allows you to turn AEB on or off. The bracketing increment is set to the exposure increments set in CF-01, which I have set to 1/3 stop increments.

Has this always been the case, or did this function work correctly with earlier firmware? I assume the manual is just wrong, but it does give some hope that maybe someday the engineers at P1 will fix the camera's firmware to match the manual.

Sorry if I sound cynical, but for the price of these systems I sure expected a lot more! I'm also still waiting for the "fix" for the mirror lockup bug that causes the camera to lock up.
 

jagsiva

Active member
You are not alone, I spent a few hours pulling my hair over this between the manual and the camera. From what I understand, you need to change the AEB intervals with the CF function, which of course also controls the Aperture and Shutter intervals on the main dial for normal PASM control!! Perhaps there is a trick that someone has figured out here :)
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
That's correct and one of the dumbest features of the Mamiya / Phase One bodies. Why someone thought that both AEB and exposure compensation amounts should be hard linked together to the same value of CF-01 is a complete mystery to me too.

To be honest, I just bracket manually and use manual exposure selection (hold down AE lock when in M mode to set the base exposure to the metered exposure). I have exposure comp set to 1/3 stops and then use feel of the exposure dial to dial up/down manually with three clicks for a full stop. Not ideal but you don't really have a choice.
 
G

Gerhard

Guest
In my opinion there are two separate faults/bugs/missing features:

1.) After the first set of bracketed shots the camera switches off bracketing automaticly. Thats annoying, specially when you want to make a panorama in the dark, consisting of several sets of bracketed exposures. After each position you have to switch on AEB again.

I reported this bug to Phase One several times, first in June 2010. I also asked them to check the pdf-manual because here this feature has been described differently. Unfortunately nothing happend :-((

2.) The second problem: The setting for exposuere step is working for both: exposure f-stop generally and for the exposure step in AEB. Both settings should be separated. I'd like to set 1/2 f-stop generally and 1 f-stop for bracketing.

Phase, please make a firmware update!

Best,
Gerhard



Well, here I am again stuggling with a broken or unusable "feature" of the 645 DF. I've been exploring how to use the auto exposure bracketing, and I've come to the conclusion that the manual is just plain wrong. Apparently it describes how the function should work, not how it's actually implemented.

According to the manual, pressing the AEB button allows you to turn AEB on or off with the front dial, and set the bracketing increment with the rear dial. Once engaged, it will continue until it is turned off.

In practice, the AEB button only allows you to turn AEB on or off. The bracketing increment is set to the exposure increments set in CF-01, which I have set to 1/3 stop increments.

Has this always been the case, or did this function work correctly with earlier firmware? I assume the manual is just wrong, but it does give some hope that maybe someday the engineers at P1 will fix the camera's firmware to match the manual.

Sorry if I sound cynical, but for the price of these systems I sure expected a lot more! I'm also still waiting for the "fix" for the mirror lockup bug that causes the camera to lock up.
 
Last edited:

padams

New member
I agree it's silly but what I do to get around this is to set the exposure compensation step to a higher amount in one of my custom settings groups (group B) and switch to that when i need more range in my bracketed series.
 
G

Gerhard

Guest
I fully agree: creating another custom setting group (B) is a good way to live with the first problem.

But there is still the other, more severe problem: After the first set of bracketed pictures the AEB function of the 645DF switches off automaticly and you have to switch on AEB again. Do you have a workaround for this problem?

I have been working with a lot of different professional camera systems in the past but I have never seen this "feature" in any camera.

Gerhard



I agree it's silly but what I do to get around this is to set the exposure compensation step to a higher amount in one of my custom settings groups (group B) and switch to that when i need more range in my bracketed series.
 

ondebanks

Member
In my opinion there are two separate faults/bugs/missing features:

1.) After the first set of bracketed shots the camera switches off bracketing automaticly. Thats annoying, specially when you want to make a panorama in the dark, consisting of several sets of bracketed exposures. After each position you have to switch on AEB again.

I reported this bug to Phase One several times, first in June 2010. I also asked them to check the pdf-manual because here this feature has been described differently. Unfortunately nothing happend :-((

2.) The second problem: The setting for exposuere step is working for both: exposure f-stop generally and for the exposure step in AEB. Both settings should be separated. I'd like to set 1/2 f-stop generally and 1 f-stop for bracketing.

Phase, please make a firmware update!

Best,
Gerhard
Mamiya actually got this both these things right on my old 645AFD! :thumbs:

1) AEB does not switch off after the first set of bracketed pictures. It stays in AEB mode until that mode is deliberately switched off.

2) The exposure step in AEB can be freely set from 0.3-0.5-0.7-1 stop - independent of the increment on shutter speeds in other modes.

How Phase One "broke" this in the supposedly "newer and better" DF is puzzling.

Ray
 
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