Originally posted by chicagonature I just read that it's been rumored for a while that the Nikon D800 will be coming out soon. It's a full-frame 36MP camera with options like no anti-aliasing filter. Plus, it has video and all those bells, whistles, and conveniences that come with the 35mm format. If the rumor comes true at the rumored price of $3,900, unless I'm missing something, the Pentax 645D is dead.
Pentax made a camera with 40MP, well withing reach of the major 35mm manufacturers who can make the camera at half the price. Maybe 50 or 600MP would have been a better choice like what other medium format makers were producing at that time. If the rumor comes true, they're screwed unless they come out with a 60MP really fast at about the same $10K price tag or lower. Or maybe they could drop the price of the 645D down to $7K. But, when you can buy a Nikon and save $6,000 and have access to their the vast arsenal of lenses, that's a big deal. In the U.S., there are only two lenses that are part of the Pentax medium format lineup (25mm and 55mm). The rest are discontinued and aren't available new in the U.S. I've been waiting a long time for Pentax medium format to go digital and I don't want to keep waiting for them to produce lenses.
if the rumor is true, the 645D is dead. Am I missing something?
(Whether the rumor is true or not, it does point to a certain vulnerablity of the 645D product: pressure from the 35mm makers, a customer base that they abandoned, unlikeliness that they could steal MF customers from Hasselblad, Leica, Phase 1, etc., and there's only 2 modern lens choices.)
Ah, a rumor. On the internet I suppose. Yeah, the internet pundits are really good. I worked for a Japanese camera company with the product development teams. I would say you should not put too much weight into those great minds on the web.
You mean Nikon is going to make a 36MP sensor that is 33mm x 44mm with a 6um pixel pitch? And there is the rub. Size matters. I have a Phase One P25+ 22MP back that no 24MP 35mm can touch in in quality just as the new Sony 24MP APS sensors don't compete with its 24MP 35mm one. When I came to buy my medium-format camera for personal projects, I did not go back to Phase.
Price a 50/60MP camera from the other MFD companies. How fast is the S2 lens line developing? Not everyone cares that their old lens line is not available new. And you obviously never shot in medium- or large-format, many photographers do not need or care that there are a thousand different lenses available.
If you want 35mm convenience, it is not in medium-format. It never has and never will. Pixel resolution and improvements in technology are always overrated. The photographers that actually shoot MFD don't actually jump ship to smaller formats because they have more pixels (wonder why the new Canon flagship model is 18MP, not more?). The quality difference is real and something a smaller sensor cannot imitate no matter how good the technology gets.
I was told in 2000 that film would be dead in five years. Now you can't even find a single film image on a forum like this. So now you are saying Pentax medium-format digital is dead because of 35mm or price?