[Adrian Owerko]

What a nice Camera.. For Aussie Pentaxians I was told the 645D is only a few weeks away eg. early DEC. K-5 will be here in AUS next week If you want to see the 645D it is at the Norwood Function center, Osmond terrace, Norwood till Wednesday at the AIPP S.A. print and judge awards..

[Ash]

Now you're just stirring us non-SAers...
Enjoy the feel of that fine piece of engineering.

[Digitalis]

thanks for the heads up. I'll take a peek, I'll be taking my 645NII as a comparison for shutter noise,viewfinder comparison and general ergonomics.

plus I have been itching, to get a chance to try out my FA 645 400mm f5.6 on one of these.

[Adrian Owerko]

thanks for the heads up. I'll take a peek, I'll be taking my 645NII as a comparison for shutter noise,viewfinder comparison and general ergonomics.

plus I have been itching, to get a chance to try out my FA 645 400mm f5.6 on one of these.

I also asked about the availability of a 6x7 to 645 adapter. Have some nice 67 glass that I think would like the 645D.

[surfotog]

Digitalis,

Don't forget to take your M* 800/6.7 to test! Somebody has to try this lens on the 645D.

[D W]

Digitalis,

Don't forget to take your M* 800/6.7 to test! Somebody has to try this lens on the 645D.

Who is going to carry the lens around for him?

[Digitalis]

Who is going to carry the lens around for him?

that is what my studio assistants are for. God help them if they get my morning coffee wrong..hehe

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Last edited by Digitalis; 11-07-2010 at 05:04 PM.

[Wheatfield]

What a nice Camera.. For Aussie Pentaxians I was told the 645D is only a few weeks away eg. early DEC. K-5 will be here in AUS next week If you want to see the 645D it is at the Norwood Function center, Osmond terrace, Norwood till Wednesday at the AIPP S.A. print and judge awards..

Yeah. I got to use one for an hour or so.
Serious case of camera lust for that camera.
The rep assured me that I could use my 6x7 lenses on it........

[Warped]

What a nice Camera.. For Aussie Pentaxians I was told the 645D is only a few weeks away eg. early DEC. .

Some lucky sods who pre-paid/pre-ordered should be picking up their 645Ds as early as tomorrow or Wednesday

[D W]

Yeah. I got to use one for an hour or so.
Serious case of camera lust for that camera.
The rep assured me that I could use my 6x7 lenses on it........

If we are talking about the Canadian demo unit, yes I have mounted and shot a few frames with my 400/4EDIF with the Pentax adapter. SWEET!

[Wheatfield]

If we are talking about the Canadian demo unit, yes I have mounted and shot a few frames with my 400/4EDIF with the Pentax adapter. SWEET!

Yeah, that's the one. When you used it, did the rep have all three lenses with it?
The 120 macro was especially nice.

[D W]

Yeah, that's the one. When you used it, did the rep have all three lenses with it?
The 120 macro was especially nice.

I brought along my own lenses and shot with them but I was not allowed to use my own memory or take photo files away.

Actually I prefer the manual focus 120 Macro. I feel I get a better focus feel than the AF verison in manual mode. But I find the manual focus feel on many AF lenses too loose for my own "feel".

That unit is heading back to Japan.

[managger]

thanks for the heads up. I'll take a peek, I'll be taking my 645NII as a comparison for shutter noise,viewfinder comparison and general ergonomics.

You'll be surprised by 645D.
1. Shutter is more quiet and not so rigid than 645NII.
2. Viewfinder is clear and bright, more clear and bright than 645NII.
3. Ergonomics is very comfortable. I think it's the same as 645NII, in spite of 645D is little bit bigger and heavily.

[Digitalis]

A quick follow up, I got a two hour demonstration from a pentax representative with both the K5 and the Pentax 645D SLR.

K5: I'll put it bluntly. I love the AF on this camera. Using the 5 point Auto AF, I put my most troublesome AF lens: the FA77 on it and it Nailed the focus without hunting almost every time. And when the K5 did hunt, it didn't carry on the way the K10 would. As soon as it locked on, it stayed on. I tried AF-C with the FA77 and it was pretty much the same, rarely found The K5 hunting.

Image quality, Highlight headroom is not bad, but the amount of detail you can pull out of the shadows is absolutely astonishing. I'll put it this way - on the K10 there are situations where I would have to take two images to cover the scene's DR . With the K5, it would be possible to cram all of that and more in a single exposure, and the image would be *almost* as clean.

I didn't bother with the the in depth High ISO tests,but High ISO is extremely good for a APS-C DSLR. But it isn't as good as my D3s at Iso 1600, the shadows on the D3s are substantially cleaner, not to mention on the D3s the sensor is physically bigger and for that reason alone, I won't say that any APS-C will ever truly challenge Full frame DSLR cameras. I'll leave the image quality analysis to others who has far more knowledge of sensor design and architecture than I.

645D: I am very impressed by this camera. I got the opportunity to handle it, get a feel for it. But after the demonstration, the 645D left a much greater impression on me than the K5 did. I brought several lenses and accessories to try with the 645D, plus I brought along my 645NII for a comparison. First, I plucked off the D-FA 55mm f/2.8 AL [IF] AW mounted it on my 645NII and fired off a few frames on Fuji velvia 50 and Kodak T-Max 100 - I'll be interested in seeing how this lens performs across the full imaging field on 645 film.

Ergonomically the 645D fits in the hand like it belongs there. The Hasselblad H2D I use is not quite so comfortable or as well balanced* and the original 645NII didn't have the hefty grip the 645D has. The pentax 645D's AF is very fast,I consider it to be class leading in fact. I tested it with the D-FA 55mm f/2.8, Pentax 45~85mm f/4.5 and Pentax FA 400mm f/5.6 - the 400mm f/5.6 being the longest lens I own for 645 format. It delivered superb sharpness, though there is some slight lateral colour fringing**. Taking into account the 645D's high resolution it is difficult to produce good results hand held. You need to use a shutter speed twice and in some cases three times the focal length of the lens, but the image quality is absolutely worth it, besides The IQ at ISO 400 is extremely good. I also used the AF160FC ringflash with the D-FA55mm f/2.8 My initial concern is that the ringflash lens adapter would cause vignetting but that simply turned out to be a non-issue. The flash metering is very good, I didn't try using the flash with a non A series lens - my K7 had a rather serious problem with that. The flash would fire at full power once, and then would refuse to operate afterward. I would have to turn the flash off and on again to fire it again. It took a firmware update to remedy that issue.

The K5 is an excellent addition the to pentax camera line-up However IMO it is just another APS-C DSLR. And I really cannot see the point in getting it, I might wait until the next generation DLSR comes from pentax but at the moment the 645D looks like the most appropriate purchase for me. But I'll wait until further reviews and tests have been performed before I make such an investment.


*The H2D is very Bottom heavy, I have no idea why, but whatever is in there it is pretty dense.

**0.4px, hardly field relevant, though teleconverters tend to amplify these optical design faults. but it is easily correctable in ACR.

[Adrian Owerko]

It's a nice camera the 645D.. I will be interested to see the reviews of it with 67 glass. I was pleased with it's AF.. I put the thing under the table.. Very dark, AF locked on 1st. go onto a chair leg, no hunting. My k10D could never do that..