Phase One 645AF (Mamiya 645AFD III) - Good or Bad?

[haring]

Is there anybody who uses Phase One 645AF (Mamiya 645AFD III?)
Is the AF fast (relatively) and accurate?
Which digital back do you recommend?

Thanks!

[billbunton]

Fast and accurate compared to what? I shoot a DF (successor to the AFD III). The AF is, as I understand it, faster than the AFD III, but quite a bit slower than my D3/D300 were. It's extremely accurate though, as good as if not a little bit better than the Nikon and Canon systems I've used.

As for backs, you need to give a bit more information. Price range? Do you want new or are you willing to go used? Megapixels? Pixel size? I shoot with a Phase One P40+.

[haring]

Originally Posted by billbunton

Fast and accurate compared to what? I shoot a DF (successor to the AFD III). The AF is, as I understand it, faster than the AFD III, but quite a bit slower than my D3/D300 were. It's extremely accurate though, as good as if not a little bit better than the Nikon and Canon systems I've used.

As for backs, you need to give a bit more information. Price range? Do you want new or are you willing to go used? Megapixels? Pixel size? I shoot with a Phase One P40+.

I am sorry for not being clear!
- I would need it for people photography (street, traveling, etc.).
- My budget would be 10-15.000 including the MF body as well.
- There are not too many places on the internet where I can see the difference between the 35mm and the MF systems regarding contrast and colors...Do you know an excellent place I can compare the two systems?
- Where is the best place to by MF cameras?

Thanks!

[venchka]

Have you considered the new Pentax? Lots of exisiting, very good manual focus lenses around. I haven't studied the Pentax system. There may even be old auto-focus lenses. The new lenses are auto-focus.

The LCD screen makes it very attractive to my way of thinking.



Pentax unveils 40MP 645D medium format DSLR: Digital Photography Review

[groovyone]

I like the new Pentax a lot. I wish I could pull it off.

[ronocnikral]

street photography and traveling with a $10k to $15k camera. where art thou recession?

[rfortson]

I'm not a MF guy, but from what I've read about the Pentax 645D, it's supposed to be the most "dSLR-like" of the MF bodies. Controls and functions are very similar to their dSLR bodies. It's weather-sealed, which would be good if you're outdoors a lot. Plus, it's supposed to be much less expensive than competing systems. Of course, it's not a "professional" camera because it uses dual SDXC cards. :)

Granted, I don't have any experience with it, just parroting information I've read about it on the internet (so you know it's true).

http://www.pentaximaging.com/slr/645D/

[venchka]

The SDXC cards save weight and bulk. Grinning.

[groovyone]

Originally Posted by venchka

The SDXC cards save weight and bulk. Grinning.

They are cheaper too, right? I don't think my wife will buy that.

[Rson]

Originally Posted by venchka

The SDXC cards save weight and bulk. Grinning.

Does Express card work with that too?

[Tom]

I wish I had enough money to use a DMF. *dreams*

[venchka]

Originally Posted by Rson

Does Express card work with that too?

I don't know what an Express card is. I bet a Visa card would work for that camera.

Thomas,
I'm waiting for the mass exodus of wedding photographers dumping small sensor hardware and running to digital medium format.

I hear that used 30mp backs for the Hassy 500 series bodies are going for a mere $5,000.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

Shutterbug this month has a review/test shoot of this camera with the 40 meg back and he couldn't be more happy with it-talks about the detail that it picks up vs his DSLR due to larger sensor size. Did bring up that the rig tested was over 20K but sounded like he would sell his kids to buy the rig. One thing that he didn't like was once you pushed the ISO up to around 1600 the meg size dropped down to 10 megs for some reason which he siad would help on sports shooting since the file size being written is smaller so you can burst shoot longer. He also talked about the software download being a bear but once it was installed he loved the workflow once he became used to it. He also talked about random color shifts if set on auto white balance but that they were easily corrected in post op. He shot both tethered and to the card and said that being tethered was quite easy to his Apple laptop. Also he said for some reason the viewfinder was showing more than what was being captured and also he thought the review screen on the back of the digital back was a bit small and low quality for such an expensive item. So he prtty much gave it an A+ once you got past a couple problems. He even did some infared shooting with it and liked the results.

[haring]

Shutterbug this month has a review/test shoot of this camera with the 40 meg back and he couldn't be more happy with it-talks about the detail that it picks up vs his DSLR due to larger sensor size. Did bring up that the rig tested was over 20K but sounded like he would sell his kids to buy the rig. One thing that he didn't like was once you pushed the ISO up to around 1600 the meg size dropped down to 10 megs for some reason which he siad would help on sports shooting since the file size being written is smaller so you can burst shoot longer. He also talked about the software download being a bear but once it was installed he loved the workflow once he became used to it. He also talked about random color shifts if set on auto white balance but that they were easily corrected in post op. He shot both tethered and to the card and said that being tethered was quite easy to his Apple laptop. Also he said for some reason the viewfinder was showing more than what was being captured and also he thought the review screen on the back of the digital back was a bit small and low quality for such an expensive item. So he prtty much gave it an A+ once you got past a couple problems. He even did some infared shooting with it and liked the results.

Thanks a lot!

[TheRandomPhotographer]

Originally Posted by DEMDeepEllumMusic

Shutterbug this month has a review/test shoot of this camera with the 40 meg back and he couldn't be more happy with it-talks about the detail that it picks up vs his DSLR due to larger sensor size. Did bring up that the rig tested was over 20K but sounded like he would sell his kids to buy the rig. One thing that he didn't like was once you pushed the ISO up to around 1600 the meg size dropped down to 10 megs for some reason which he siad would help on sports shooting since the file size being written is smaller so you can burst shoot longer. He also talked about the software download being a bear but once it was installed he loved the workflow once he became used to it. He also talked about random color shifts if set on auto white balance but that they were easily corrected in post op. He shot both tethered and to the card and said that being tethered was quite easy to his Apple laptop. Also he said for some reason the viewfinder was showing more than what was being captured and also he thought the review screen on the back of the digital back was a bit small and low quality for such an expensive item. So he prtty much gave it an A+ once you got past a couple problems. He even did some infared shooting with it and liked the results.

Originally Posted by haring

Shutterbug this month has a review/test shoot of this camera with the 40 meg back and he couldn't be more happy with it-talks about the detail that it picks up vs his DSLR due to larger sensor size. Did bring up that the rig tested was over 20K but sounded like he would sell his kids to buy the rig. One thing that he didn't like was once you pushed the ISO up to around 1600 the meg size dropped down to 10 megs for some reason which he siad would help on sports shooting since the file size being written is smaller so you can burst shoot longer. He also talked about the software download being a bear but once it was installed he loved the workflow once he became used to it. He also talked about random color shifts if set on auto white balance but that they were easily corrected in post op. He shot both tethered and to the card and said that being tethered was quite easy to his Apple laptop. Also he said for some reason the viewfinder was showing more than what was being captured and also he thought the review screen on the back of the digital back was a bit small and low quality for such an expensive item. So he prtty much gave it an A+ once you got past a couple problems. He even did some infared shooting with it and liked the results.

Thanks a lot!

Odd double post