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P45+ back, body & lens kit: learning curve thread.

tashley

Subscriber Member
Evening all!

As some may know I took delivery last week of a P45+ mounted on a Phase One/Mamiya ('Phamiya') 645 body with a Phase One 80mm F2.8 AF lens.

I was considering a Hassy 3DII39 but decided against it for a number of reasons, most important of which was the fact that the P1 system has a much higher max shutter speed and much longer max exposures, though there were other reasons relating to my own workflow and practice.

This thread is intended to document the experience in a way that might be useful for other people trying to make decisions in this area. It will also likely raise questions that I'd appreciate help with from other more experienced users.

In the next post I'll document early experience and thoughts and then I'll add further posts as time passes. If anyone's interested!

Tim
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
First impressions, thrills and irritations

The kit (the non-value-added kit, i.e. with a shorter warranty and fewer 'extras') comes in a small, non-wheely Peli type case with foam inserts. There's only one battery but my dealer, Lawrence at Teamwork in London, gave me another FOC.

Unlike the value added deal, the case can't really be repurposed as a system case since the foam is not reconfigurable to take further lenses etc. But you could probably put it in the hold of a plane if you locked it.

Initial Good Things:

1) It all feels solid, classy and fun at first. Nice packaging and a groovy little memory stick with the manuals on.
2) That's all.


Initial Irritations:

*) The battery charger, a Hahnel jobbie, looks expensive but feels cheap and has a nasty snap-open action that is hard to judge. Mine made one full charge of both batteries before giving up. It now shows occaisional interest in one of the batteries but none in the other, and only one of its lights comes on. I have so far taken less than a hundred shots. At this price I want better and certainly more reliable kit.

2) The camera shipped with Firmware 1.2 on the very day that 1.4 was released. Firmware updates, unbelievably, can't be done by the user. The body has to go back to the dealer (at least) and quite possibly to Denmark. Things that are fixed in FW1.4 appear to be basic stuff like whether the flash sync works reliably and what the mirror up and mirror up metering behaviours are. But since P1 makes no mention of this on their websites I am reduced to here-say. This is all tacky beyond belief IMO.

3) There's no paper manual, just PDFs on the memory stick and these PDFs are pitiful. Truly. It is not possible from them to discern such basic procedure as how to set AF points or which of a range of ambiguous LCD symbols represents which metering method. There are errors and omissions throughout.

4) There are 36 custom functions, and these are not usable without either an elephantine memory or reference to a PDF or printed guide since the camera body LCD is too small to carry any useful guide or description and no data is fed to the back's LCD for viewing thereon.

5) You have to turn the back on with one button and the body with another. The back is powered from a battery pack, the body from a set of six AA's that go in a clip in the handgrip.

6) The back's LCD is crap, and I do mean CRAP. Whatever the engineering, heat dispersion or power saving considerations, there is no excuse at this price for this travesty of a screen. None.

So, the thrill of the unpacking is mitigated pretty quickly by the fact that this is a kit cobbled together from bits and pieces made by third parties. The price of Open Systems is Lack of Integration and Cobbled Components.

Now this all sounds churlish. Surely, anyone this disappointed would just pack it all up and get a refund.

Well... I bought it because I want to make very high quality, very large prints. If having a handful of Heath Robinson is the only way to get the job done, I'll put up with it. I might feel ripped off, and I will likely develop bugger all brand loyalty but I will judge the system foremost by the results.

Which I'll start to talk about in the next post.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
The Pictures, first thoughts

My very first reactions were mild disappointment tempered by the memory of my first evening with an M8 - a salutary lesson in how not to judge a camera too quickly. That M8 turned out to be the best camera, all-in, that I have ever used, though it is also flawed in some ways.

So I decided to blame me and not the camera and I am still in that process of discernment, based on the fact that so very many extremely good photographers rate this setup so highly.

The initial disappointment was based around a sense that the kit lens is rather soft. To be honest, I have yet to work out if it is

a) Not a great lens or
b) Pretty good unless you're used to Leica M glass or
c) A well designed lens of which I have a poor example or
d) A fine piece of glass which I have yet to learn to use properly.

What was disappointing?

The corners.

Most of the shots I have taken, at most apertures up to and including F7.1, have been soft in the corners. This is outside of a lab and in poor weather and low light, it's hard to be specific about it but if I am charitable I'll say that it's to do with my need to adjust to the shallower DOF on this format.

Today I used a tripod and shot a patterned internal wall from 4 meters at F2.8 thru F16 and I would say that the corners were sub-par up to F5.6 at least. Now this might be due to a range of factors, and I do really need to rest it more rigorously, but my feeling is this: if a camera can't do relatively noise-free exposures at ISO 800 then it needs lenses that can do sharp corners at F2.8 because you're forced into wide apertures by the ISO and noise trade off.

Otherwise you have to crop until you reach the sharp bits of the image. Which means throwing away pixels (i.e. effective resolution) and this is exactly what you just paid a fortune for.

So my take on this is that I will give it more time and more shots but I am suspicious. I don't really want a large, heavy, expensive, slow camera that, with its supplied lens, has to be fed bright sunlight or flash to realize its potential. I hope to discover that my focus and DOF technique thus far has not yet adjusted. I hope not to discover that the kit lens is a 'kit lens' and that the sensor's demands are such that the kit lens was money badly spent.

The good news is, however, very good indeed.

When the wind is in the right direction, the sheer joy of the files is immense. There is detail beyond reason, subtle and marvelous tonality and great dynamic range.

Take this shot: ISO 50, 1/8th second on a tripod, F7.1

View attachment 9018

and if you click here
http://tashley1.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p1032031644.jpg
there's a larger JPEG that you can zoom into for some detail.

Or take this one, shot handheld at 1/40th second and F2.8 at ISO 400
View attachment 9027

click here
http://tashley1.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p753922652.jpg
for a full-res JPEG and look at the drop of water on the wireframe rack above the back wheel of the bike with the orange bag on the saddle.

SO: bad weather, low light and other engagements have stopped me from really scoping this kit out but so far, whatever the irritations, I am hooked.

I'll make some big prints when I get back to base in the next week or so, and then I'll really know for sure whether I have found the Grail! And I will report back here...

All feedback and responses gratefully received!

Tim
 
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Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
Tim what raw processor are you using. LR stinks on Phase files. Don't forget to adjust the diopter for your eye too
 
J

jmvdigital

Guest
Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of your 1-6 assessments. My battery charger works fine, but the build quality is questionable. The firmware send out is stupid. The PDF manuals are indeed lacking in detail. The custom functions are a bugger; I printed out the little cheat-sheet table with them, but still, on the body's LCD it's pretty lame. The two power buttons doesn't bother me so much. I'll take that over Hassy's solution of buying a $2k harddrive/power supply if you take the back off the camera. The LCD on the P+ series is lame. It's coarse, the tonality and color reproduction is terrible, and it's tiny. It gets the job done, but just barely. I appreciate the long exposure capabilities, supposedly made possible in part by this dinky screen, but the overall user experience and everyday shooting is severely handicapped IMHO. It's impossible to judge exposre, especially when you get near clipping, as the histogram is not accurate in this regard either. I often end up under-exposing because the "blinkies" or the histogram scream blow out, when in fact, none such has occurred at all. I also had a few hardware quirks, going through two P30+ backs before settling on a third that functions great.

All that negativity out of the way... it produces fantastic images. Any disappointment in my images at this point is due to my own error. I find the sharpness of the 80D, 150D, and 45mm to be fantastic. I am perhaps a little less demanding about my corners than others, but I come from a long history of pixel peeping with Canon's shoddy L-glass, and I am always floored with the up close details. I have yet to make any prints (shall we start a thread of issues about the Z3100? Haha), but I anticipate them to be phenomenal. I leased my equipment, so I look forward to Phase introducing future goodies (I'm dreaming a la AFi 10 screen) and will upgrade, until then, I bid my time and make this most of the great equipment I have now.
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Unfortunately, I have to agree with most of your 1-6 assessments. My battery charger works fine, but the build quality is questionable. The firmware send out is stupid. The PDF manuals are indeed lacking in detail. The custom functions are a bugger; I printed out the little cheat-sheet table with them, but still, on the body's LCD it's pretty lame. The two power buttons doesn't bother me so much. I'll take that over Hassy's solution of buying a $2k harddrive/power supply if you take the back off the camera. The LCD on the P+ series is lame. It's coarse, the tonality and color reproduction is terrible, and it's tiny. It gets the job done, but just barely. I appreciate the long exposure capabilities, supposedly made possible in part by this dinky screen, but the overall user experience and everyday shooting is severely handicapped IMHO. It's impossible to judge exposre, especially when you get near clipping, as the histogram is not accurate in this regard either. I often end up under-exposing because the "blinkies" or the histogram scream blow out, when in fact, none such has occurred at all. I also had a few hardware quirks, going through two P30+ backs before settling on a third that functions great.

All that negativity out of the way... it produces fantastic images. Any disappointment in my images at this point is due to my own error. I find the sharpness of the 80D, 150D, and 45mm to be fantastic. I am perhaps a little less demanding about my corners than others, but I come from a long history of pixel peeping with Canon's shoddy L-glass, and I am always floored with the up close details. I have yet to make any prints (shall we start a thread of issues about the Z3100? Haha), but I anticipate them to be phenomenal. I leased my equipment, so I look forward to Phase introducing future goodies (I'm dreaming a la AFi 10 screen) and will upgrade, until then, I bid my time and make this most of the great equipment I have now.
Justin, we must be twins: I have a Z3100 too and have a mostly love but sometimes hate relationship with it!

Thanks for the histogram tips...

T
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Tim what raw processor are you using. LR stinks on Phase files. Don't forget to adjust the diopter for your eye too
Hi Guy,

I use both Phase and LR and take what is best from both though I have to say that for good files with no high ISO/noise or lens-specific issues, I'm fine with LR and there are people who insist that LR does the better job. In all I really really dislike C1 workflow but will use it where the files seems to me to need it, as with the M8!

Diopter wise I'm fine - I have good specs and anyway I made a black and white target for the centre of my test zone and used AF on it!

Best

T
 

Paratom

Well-known member
Tahsley,
your impression sounds a little frustrated.
I am a Leica M8 shooter as well and have recently started to use a ZD-camera with also Mamiya glass and so far havent felt a problem with corners.
But I have to add that I havent really shot any subjects where the corners would be critical and my experience is limited so far.
As I am evaluating for which system to go in a long term your experiences are very interesting for me.
I agree that if one spends that much money and if one accepts all the compromises of MF (slow AF, big, heavy, obstrusive, not that weather resistant, moreoften tripod needed because of need to use lower ISO and shallower DOF compared to 35mm-format, not as nice form factor, worse user interface) that one wants at least not to compromise in IQ.
Please continue posting your experiences and images.
Cheers, Tom
 

carstenw

Active member
Re: The Pictures, first thoughts

What was disappointing?

The corners.

Most of the shots I have taken, at most apertures up to and including F7.1, have been soft in the corners. This is outside of a lab and in poor weather and low light, it's hard to be specific about it but if I am charitable I'll say that it's to do with my need to adjust to the shallower DOF on this format.
Tim, in the leaf shot, I see that the bottom right corner is significantly softer than the top right corner, for example. Are you sure that the camera was completely vertical for that shot, and that the leaves were lying in a flat plane? Is your 80mm the D variant? Could it be a flatness of field issue, rather than outright softness? Three of the four corners look relatively good, good enough for most purposes I would think, but the bottom right corner is really, really soft, and I would ask to have the lens looked at or exchanged. Note that it is hard to judge from the leaf shot, since it isn't full resolution.

In your wall shots, are you sure that the camera was parallel to the wall?
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Re: The Pictures, first thoughts

Tim, in the leaf shot, I see that the bottom right corner is significantly softer than the top right corner, for example. Are you sure that the camera was completely vertical for that shot, and that the leaves were lying in a flat plane? Is your 80mm the D variant? Could it be a flatness of field issue, rather than outright softness? Three of the four corners look relatively good, good enough for most purposes I would think, but the bottom right corner is really, really soft, and I would ask to have the lens looked at or exchanged. Note that it is hard to judge from the leaf shot, since it isn't full resolution.

In your wall shots, are you sure that the camera was parallel to the wall?
Hi Carsten,

The leaf shot was not intended to display corner sharpness or softness - it was intended to show how much lovely detail there is but for some reason Zenfolio (which is where the large version is hosted) was not accepting full res uploads last night so though you can get an idea of the detail, you can't see it all. But you are totally correct and I was aware of this: the camera was mounted on a tripod for the shot and it was not possible to keep the tripod feet out of the frame without tilting the sensor frame relative to the subject plane. That's why I didn't use that shot in a critical way because the soft corner(s) was my fault! Here's the shot again, full size, but at 75% JPEG compression. You'll see that only one corner is sharp, and that is clearly an image plane/DOF thing.

http://tashley1.zenfolio.com/img/v4/p873773283.jpg

With the wall shots. yes I'm, fairly sure. In fact today I shot another series from more like 5 metres of a wall with much more detail on it (bricks) and I would say that even at F5.6 the corners are not acceptably sharp (to me). I estimate that at F5.6, if I were to crop to where the sharp zone starts, I'd have approximately a 27mp camera.

I can't post all the comparisons now because it'll take me a while to process/crop/upload but I will do so in the next day or so.

In the meantime, anyone else who has experience with this lens/back combo please please tell us what you think!

Tim
 
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J

jmvdigital

Guest
I haven't noticed any corner issues either. I worry about those "brick wall" tests and the many others that we shooters put ourselves through before we can be happy with our gear. A lot of times I find that in those situations we are looking for problems, and when you look for problems you often find something. If you were out shooting on a regular day, you'd never never notice. I'm guilty of this myself. It's a fine line; sometimes those imperfections in the gear impact an image and it's definitely a problem, other times, the problem is only manifest under certain aggravated situations.

I'm not discounting your corner softness problem at all. But aside from the f5.6 wall shots, has the corner sharpness been a problem in your real world shooting?
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I knew I shot at least one 80mm shot yesterday ISO 400 5.6 with a Metz flash. Looks pretty sharp all across the frame
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
I suspect Tim's lens could be defective, possibly a de-centered element. Might be worth comparing to a fresh one?

Cheers,
 

tashley

Subscriber Member
Chaps,

I have to say that I am being picky, for sure: that's because of all the M and R glass I have shot with, where you would expect good corner sharpness from any aperture one stop tighter than wide open. And I do think that it is not unreasonable therefore to expect the same standards from all high-end gear though clearly in many cases one doesn't get it!

My point is that if I want to print landscapes 1 metre high, there will be plenty of times when the corners are lost in sky and foreground but also plenty of times when it really does matter. High resolution across the frame should be a defining characteristic of work shot with professional gear in this price range. I don't expect it at F2.8 but I do at F4 onwards! So though my real world experience with the new system is so far rather limited, I carry out this sort of test routinely in advance of wasting good exposures on potentially bad gear!

I'll do more tests tomorrow and post the wall shots, I really do think they show effects that will matter in the non-wall world!

Guy: that's a great shot but I have no idea, from that size image, how it would look printed very large?!

Best

Tim


I'll
 

Guy Mancuso

Administrator, Instructor
I know Tim it is hard to tell on the web but this one would go pretty darn big. Your expectations are fine and i think everyone here tends to agree with you but I think your limits are too low for corners. I tend to think maybe underestimating the DOF issue slightly. These things you just need to stop down compared to the M8 glass which we all know are very very good wide open even to the corners with the Crons in particular. You can certainly get there in MF but i think with any system here for corners with a 80mm than 5.6 maybe the real f stop and maybe F4 . Wide open with a 80mm in MF is like shooting a 75 lux in terms of Dof even that lens F4 is what it will take. Let me see if i can dig up some more 80mm shots and Jack maybe correct that something maybe off on your 80mm. It should be no issues to replace that with Phase, there very good about this stuff.
 
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