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Any news on the new Phase One AF 120 macro?

Paul Spinnler

Well-known member
Hi guys,

does anyone know something about the new macro lens by Phase One that was announced for Q1 2011 during last year's Photokina? The new macro lens has AF supposedly? When will it be available?

Kind regards

Paul
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
We have one in our rental inventory.

I've only used it once, briefly. The last several months have been very busy.

I expect january will be a bit less hectic.
 

jagsiva

Active member
I purchased one from my dealer about 3 weeks ago. Have not really put it through it's paces, but what would you like to know?

Please PM me if you'd like raw files.
 

Dan Santoso

New member
Just wondering is it better than the manual one? The new one is almost twice more expensive, thinking of getting the old one.
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
Any feedback please? thanks

Hi Dan -

We did internal comparison testing for macro capability the past 2 days between the Phase One 120mm Manual Macro and the 120mm Auto Focus Macro.

We'll post some conclusions after the holiday weekend. My initial reaction was hair splittingly close, which was reassuring. What might be more interesting is the longer focus tests, but that will have to wait until next week.


Steve Hendrix
 

Steve Hendrix

Well-known member
Hi Steve,

Just wondering if you can post the test. I will need to purchase a macro lens soon.

Thanks,
Dan

Hi Dan -

It will be sometime later next week before we can get raws uploaded, however, here are some jpg crops attached for you. These are courtesy of our ace intern Colin, who spent the better part of a day trying to create identical images in terms of focus and exposure with both the manual focus and auto focus versions of the Phase One 120mm Macro Lens. My concern has been - will the auto focus addition have an impact on the sharpness of the 120mm macro lens? Without having spent time with Colin while performing the tests, I only have these files to view and I will say that it appears to me there is absolutely no reason for concern in the case of macro results. If anything, the auto focus version may even appear ever ever so slightly sharper. We have not yet tested them at distance, that will be the next test.

FYI - these files were captured at f16 with P65+ and have noise reduction and sharpening completely off so as to make it easier to see the comparison without any jpg sharpening jaggies. As anyone who has shot with it knows, the 120mm manual focus lens is an extremely sharp lens, the point of these images is for reinforcement that the same level of sharpness exists with the auto focus version.


Steve Hendrix
 

Dan Santoso

New member
Thanks Steve. I don't really see the difference apart from the exposure.

Sounds like 120MM manual is a winner for me with half the price of AF.
 
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