Phase One P65+ or Leaf Aptus-II 10R

[Krosavcheg]

I'm not sure if my irony came through, focusing does not become trickier for real of course. A digital back will not be more out of focus than a film back, it's just that when you open a digital image you have better ability to actually zoom in to 100% and see exactly where the focus sits.

How much a difference that makes in a print I don't actually know as I haven't made prints from film. Some may say that as digital renders sharper than film, you will still in a print have a need to have more precise focus with digital than film. I don't know if that is true though. There's probably others on this forum that has experience from that.

Personally I use a 20x loupe on the ground glass on my tech cam, and I never shoot wider than f/11. That way I get pixel peep safe results. Focusing accurately wide open with an RZ without loupe is too hard for me, film or not... but some folks have unreal precision in their manual focusing.

Sometimes the irony is hard to read in text.. So in all likelihood I missed it.

Of course the issue is subjective. I can not speak for sharpness and ideal focus with RZ because I mainly shoot handheld and on the go. All the scans are dry and at 4800dpi making it virtually impossible to be 100% convinced. For a test I did some shots WO with 110/2.8 and seems to be nailing those, yet again - handheld, high ISO film makes judgement less than ideal.
On the other hand I don't have much problem focusing with manual lenses on 5Dm3 even at f8-f11 (occasionally miss at 1.2-1.4, but I do so even with AF..) (touch wood)...

As it is, I see absolutely no practical application for an MFD considering multitude of issues many people including yourself outlined - blooming, colour cast, hot pixels, centrefold, problems with focusing, need for wake-up signal for Kodak and reduced exposure times for Dalsa..... Essentially, the whole photographic process becomes extremely cumbersome and tedious requiring a portable computer/tablet, shooting, checking focus, re-shooting, shooting LCC, correcting profiles in C1 (which annoyingly requires catalogue/collection creation and can't just process files from personally organised file structure).

All this comes at a steep price, so essentially all the "value" is rendered entirely non-existent by all the issues present. In a somewhat crude analogy, there is more value in a working Lada than an engine-less Bentley pulled by a horse..

 

[torger]

All this comes at a steep price, so essentially all the "value" is rendered entirely non-existent by all the issues present. In a somewhat crude analogy, there is more value in a working Lada than an engine-less Bentley pulled by a horse..

I hear you

The set of quirks varies between the exact system setup though. Color cast and centerfold is a tech cam problem, you won't have it on the RZ as the lenses are either long focal length or strongly retrofocus.

With a tech cam one can have quite high tolerance of quirks as the workflow is tripod-mounted and naturally slow (framing with shift and tilt etc).

If you're not in a hurry and not too attracted by current offers, I'd suggest to wait and see what comes next in the CMOS range. Things are moving a bit faster now.

 

[Krosavcheg]

I hear you

The set of quirks varies between the exact system setup though. Color cast and centerfold is a tech cam problem, you won't have it on the RZ as the lenses are either long focal length or strongly retrofocus.

With a tech cam one can have quite high tolerance of quirks as the workflow is tripod-mounted and naturally slow (framing with shift and tilt etc).

If you're not in a hurry and not too attracted by current offers, I'd suggest to wait and see what comes next in the CMOS range. Things are moving a bit faster now.

At least now engine block is in place then..

Not in a hurry at all. I am kind of used to working with a DSLR in a polaroid role while shooting film for final result.
I do sincerely prefer CCD though. Some time ago I procured a Fuji FinepixS5Pro and do enjoy the quality, albeit at 8Mpx.
On CMOS side my preference was with 1DS MkIII/5D classic in terms of colour and tone rendition, but ever since it went downhill.

My guess that even with CMOS, a back will differ only few thousand in price, and given original price for new models the difference is minimal..