After collecting a 2nd. hand Contax 645 equipment over the past two years and initial tests with film (Fuji Provia + scan) and a borrowed Leaf Aptus-II 7 back I am now the lucky owner of a Phase One P65+ back with Contax mount. I had little time for testing due to too much work and rather bad weather conditions in Guangzhou (fog/smog for weeks ...) but this weekend spent some time playing with the cam/back combination.
The Phase One P series back is very solid, fits excellent to the Contax cam body, the back always was perfectly recognized by the cam and switches on instantly. The menu access by the four buttons is quite fluently and to the main functions like ISO and is
Of course the screen is small, the resolution by today's standard low (I assume 320x240 pixel), you can't rely on the color reproduction. The picture is shown rather quickly after the exposure. It works quite well to zoom in and check the focus point - which is essential because the auto focus of the Contax 645 is fine at shorter distances, good contrast and good lighting conditions but quite easily fails at longer distances (with 140mm and longer lenses) at darker lighting conditions.
I like quite everything better at the Phase One back compared to the previously tested Leaf back: The P back itself and the card door feel less flimmsy, the large screen of the Leaf is no advantage because the resolution is not higher, I like the the lack of fan and fan noise, I found the Leaf touch panel to be no more intuitive or quicker than using the the P buttons, I like that the battery of the Phase does not stick out so far like the Leaf's (but you can use larger capacity batteries with the Leaf).
The P65+ uses Dalsa sensors like Leaf, so picture quailty is excellent up to 4-8 seconds exposure time. At longer exposure times, the thousands of colored hot pixels are quite annoying if you open the file in ACR, you should use C1 which has an alorithm to calculate them out.
I used mainly the Contax 140f2.8 which is a wonderful lens. Amazing sharp from f2.8 for portrait work with very nice bokeh, perfect sharpness up the corners of the 54x40 mm sensor at f8 (see crop of upper right corner of the door picture).
Also the Distagon 35f3.5 works fine and does not show any corner color cast due to the retrofocus design and large distance between rear lens and sensor. I will show samples later.
I also tested tethering with a firewire cable and C1 on a MacBook Pro which works perfectly.
The picture quality opening the files on a large computer screen is really mind blowing. Colors and contrast are wonderful, the lack of AA-filter is a big plus too. And the Contax lenses hold up the 60 Megapixel resolution on full frame 645 (Until now I only tested the 35, 55 and 140. Later will report about the 80, 120M, 210 and 350).
Christoph
The Phase One P series back is very solid, fits excellent to the Contax cam body, the back always was perfectly recognized by the cam and switches on instantly. The menu access by the four buttons is quite fluently and to the main functions like ISO and is
Of course the screen is small, the resolution by today's standard low (I assume 320x240 pixel), you can't rely on the color reproduction. The picture is shown rather quickly after the exposure. It works quite well to zoom in and check the focus point - which is essential because the auto focus of the Contax 645 is fine at shorter distances, good contrast and good lighting conditions but quite easily fails at longer distances (with 140mm and longer lenses) at darker lighting conditions.
I like quite everything better at the Phase One back compared to the previously tested Leaf back: The P back itself and the card door feel less flimmsy, the large screen of the Leaf is no advantage because the resolution is not higher, I like the the lack of fan and fan noise, I found the Leaf touch panel to be no more intuitive or quicker than using the the P buttons, I like that the battery of the Phase does not stick out so far like the Leaf's (but you can use larger capacity batteries with the Leaf).
The P65+ uses Dalsa sensors like Leaf, so picture quailty is excellent up to 4-8 seconds exposure time. At longer exposure times, the thousands of colored hot pixels are quite annoying if you open the file in ACR, you should use C1 which has an alorithm to calculate them out.
I used mainly the Contax 140f2.8 which is a wonderful lens. Amazing sharp from f2.8 for portrait work with very nice bokeh, perfect sharpness up the corners of the 54x40 mm sensor at f8 (see crop of upper right corner of the door picture).
Also the Distagon 35f3.5 works fine and does not show any corner color cast due to the retrofocus design and large distance between rear lens and sensor. I will show samples later.
I also tested tethering with a firewire cable and C1 on a MacBook Pro which works perfectly.
The picture quality opening the files on a large computer screen is really mind blowing. Colors and contrast are wonderful, the lack of AA-filter is a big plus too. And the Contax lenses hold up the 60 Megapixel resolution on full frame 645 (Until now I only tested the 35, 55 and 140. Later will report about the 80, 120M, 210 and 350).
Christoph
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