[texandrews]

“most people in first class are frequent flyers who didn’t pay extra for the seat”

It looks like it only works for continental U.S. trips, not trans-Atlantic or Pacific. Can't speak to the rest of the world, either, but check this out....

This past year and in 2017 I had to make trips to/from Seattle and L.A., each twice, and I had quite a bit of gear to go with me: clothes for multi-week trips, plus some tools and photo gear. One trip was about 6 weeks long, all of these were business, different times of the year, but I made all of my own arrangements.

I discovered something very interesting, just out of curiosity by fluke. When I ran the trips in economy, but then allowed for choice of seat or economy plus---these are longish flights, and if you don't find a way to do priority boarding, you may not find any space left for your carry-on with today's crowded flights, and it's the carry-on that holds most of my photo gear except the tripod and head---- and then allowed for an extra piece of luggage....

I discovered that the price was not that much less than first/business class---where I got 2 free bags, each up to 75 pounds, large, comfortable seat, free drinks and a decent meal, and of course priority boarding and first access to the overhead bins for my carry-on, and just generally better treatment in all ways.

When I say not much difference in price, I mean like $50-$75. SOOOOOO worth it. So, give it a try, just pinch in the numbers. Again, so far I'm only seeing this for continental U.S. trips, coast to coast.

Your PSA for the day. So, do things like this and you'll be able to afford your 645Z replacement....

[photoptimist]

Great tip!

Some airlines also have affiliated credit cards that come with extra baggage or priority boarding perks (plus frequent flier miles on purchases). If you fly enough on the same airline, even the annual fee for the card might work out to very little per flight.

[texandrews]

Great tip!

Some airlines also have affiliated credit cards that come with extra baggage or priority boarding perks (plus frequent flier miles on purchases). If you fly enough on the same airline, even the annual fee for the card might work out to very little per flight.

Yup, those perks also. I have a United Chase airmiles card which I am now using for everything---already have enough miles for r/t tickets to Asia....I met a woman on biz travel who basically said the same thing-----she used United for everything she possibly could, and so do I. But of course you can pick the airline you want...

[rdenney]

It looks like it only works for continental U.S. trips, not trans-Atlantic or Pacific. Can't speak to the rest of the world, either, but check this out....

This past year and in 2017 I had to make trips to/from Seattle and L.A., each twice, and I had quite a bit of gear to go with me: clothes for multi-week trips, plus some tools and photo gear. One trip was about 6 weeks long, all of these were business, different times of the year, but I made all of my own arrangements.

I discovered something very interesting, just out of curiosity by fluke. When I ran the trips in economy, but then allowed for choice of seat or economy plus---these are longish flights, and if you don't find a way to do priority boarding, you may not find any space left for your carry-on with today's crowded flights, and it's the carry-on that holds most of my photo gear except the tripod and head---- and then allowed for an extra piece of luggage....

I discovered that the price was not that much less than first/business class---where I got 2 free bags, each up to 75 pounds, large, comfortable seat, free drinks and a decent meal, and of course priority boarding and first access to the overhead bins for my carry-on, and just generally better treatment in all ways.

When I say not much difference in price, I mean like $50-$75. SOOOOOO worth it. So, give it a try, just pinch in the numbers. Again, so far I'm only seeing this for continental U.S. trips, coast to coast.

Your PSA for the day. So, do things like this and you'll be able to afford your 645Z replacement....

Yeah, that’s one of the reasons I don’t get upgraded very often. The other is that I fly out of DC and have to compete with people who fly internationally every week. I fly domestically every week, but can’t compete with the 1K’s. Even they are POd about United selling upgrades to economy discount purchasers for pennies, who still paid less overall (I’m usually full Y class) to get on the airplane.

Rick “usually in the aisle seat of the exit row in E+” Denney

[LensCleaner01]

not makeing advertisement for other cameras but

its at 400 megapixels now
H6D-400c Multi-shot

a other problem is that the sensor size for the y direction of a fullframe camera is around 36mm
medium format 4:3 only got 43,8 mm here thats only 21 % more pixels or space that can be worked with
a keyword might be 6x7

a other problem are the lenses
it would be good to have more opportunities here
the zeiss otus series for example have very good chromatics and corner sharpness (dont get me wrong here i think corner sharpness is important you not only fotograph humans, and its just more utility to use your lens in different situations)

i think the mirror/viewfinder is outdated because there is a lcd screen now it might be a bit delayed but that is solveable in my opinion
the bigger problem here is that the more the last lens element is away from the sensor the less shutterspeed or light you got this means less iso you can use
lets say i have a mirrorless camera what can shoot at 200 iso and i have to shoot at 400 iso the mirrorless camera probaly comes closer to your image quality (a very noticeable problem)

is there a advantage having the last lens further away from the sensor ? dynamic range ? it would be solveable we just have to use a macro ring, or a hdr filter

the weight would also decrease a lot also a point to see

the next question would be how much photons the sensor can take i heared it is between 380 to 750 nanometers per 1 photon c-mos got the advantage here it can reach the 380 nanometers while CCD is not ready for nanometers yet its still at micrometers what is bigger

the software for the video i noticed that the video is only at 1080 p and is high compressed (low bitrate) , a lot cameras what record at this mode dont downscale the pixels instead they record the video with less size for the sensor like 6 megapixels
a downscale from the full sensor would be better as you do this with your foto´s and your pictures losing noise

the electronic shutter:
there are open questions here all sensors that can you use video mode have a electronic shutter if that is the case the y-sync speed could maybe increased to a higher value without losing light with the rolling shutter
how about a software upgrade to allow the electronic shutter to shoot ? phones do so

maybe a different mount would be an option some cinema cameras have a mounth that can adept different lenses while its own lenses can also be used , something like a "multimount"
or at least made in a way so the adapter doesnt lose light

[rdenney]

Not to attempt to address all your issues, which summarize a comparison between a $5500 camera and a camera system costing some significant multiple of that and supporting a much different and far more limited use case, but one issue limiting lens design is the allowable angle of incidence of light hitting a sensor.

With film, falloff is subject to the cosine law only. Lenses like the Super Angulon present a round aperture even in the corners, as long as it is small enough not to be limited by the barrel. But the mostly symmetrical design eliminates geometric distortion and provides excellent corner performance. This image was made using a 47mm Super Angulon in the 6x12 format, in a Sinar view camera:



The falloff remains (but is acceptable) after correction, though the limited subject brightness range of Velvia made that difficult. A sensor might not have been able to see anything—the rear lens element was only a few millimeters from the film and the light approached the corners of the film at a very shallow angle. Even at that, I had to use f/22 to avoid barrel vignetting. I did not use the (expensive) center filter because it also vignetted the corners on that f/5.6 lens when used with this format.

The image is critically sharp right into the corners, and shows the benefits of nearly symmetrical designs. I just don’t think such designs are workable until sensor technology allows very shallow angles of incidence. The current crop of digital-ready view camera lenses don’t go nearly as wide as a 47mm lens in a format diagonal of 125mm.

I’m waiting for a 4x5 sensor I can afford: single shot, able to read data from conventional lenses at least as short as 65mm, and usable in conventional view cameras like my Sinar P. I can already stitch images using what I have.

6x7 might work, if it’s fully that size.

Until then, and even after then, the 645z does things and goes places I would never take such a camera.

Rick “noting that current digital-ready view-camera lenses are more expensive even than the newest Pentax 645z lenses” Denney

[kaseki]

... I just don’t think such designs are workable until sensor technology allows very shallow angles of incidence. ...

Reducing specular reflection on the pixel surfaces might make them more film like in behavior, but that would preclude putting an interference filter onto the surface. Further, any pixel optical add-on technique, refractive or reflective, that enhances the angular acceptance of a pixel will of necessity reduce its effective collection area. This is due to the LaGrange Invariant that follows from the Laws of Thermodynamics. So one can in theory improve acceptance angle uniformity, but it will be at the cost of reducing the effective detector size of each pixel. The resulting reduced sensitivity may be of less importance than achieving uniformity if the detector technology provides enough S/N for the intended application.

[photoptimist]

i think the mirror/viewfinder is outdated because there is a lcd screen now it might be a bit delayed but that is solveable in my opinion

Given that mirrorless predates SLR, I'd say that mirrorless is outdated. Optical viewfinders and electronic viewfinders each have their ergonomic and technical advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I prefer working with an optical view and want to avoid degrading the image by running the sensor full-time (a hot sensor is a noisy sensor).

the bigger problem here is that the more the last lens element is away from the sensor the less shutterspeed or light you got this means less iso you can use
lets say i have a mirrorless camera what can shoot at 200 iso and i have to shoot at 400 iso the mirrorless camera probaly comes closer to your image quality (a very noticeable problem)

There is no universal relationship between last lens element distance and light. A lens setting of f/2.8 on a medium format DSLR puts just as much light on the sensor as a setting of f/2.8 on a tiny little mirrorless camera even though the last element of the 645 lens is 4 times farther from the sensor.

is there a advantage having the last lens further away from the sensor ? dynamic range ? it would be solveable we just have to use a macro ring, or a hdr filter

the weight would also decrease a lot also a point to see

In theory, wide angle lenses with a short last element distance to the sensor can be more compact and more highly corrected. In practice, the optical properties of silicon sensors and the throat diameters of many mirrorless cameras limit this advantage. For normal and telephoto lenses, there's not a lot of advantage.

the software for the video i noticed that the video is only at 1080 p and is high compressed (low bitrate) , a lot cameras what record at this mode dont downscale the pixels instead they record the video with less size for the sensor like 6 megapixels
a downscale from the full sensor would be better as you do this with your foto´s and your pictures losing noise

The problem is that it's too difficult to read out the entire sensor in the time available for a video frame.

the electronic shutter:
there are open questions here all sensors that can you use video mode have a electronic shutter if that is the case the y-sync speed could maybe increased to a higher value without losing light with the rolling shutter
how about a software upgrade to allow the electronic shutter to shoot ? phones do so

Video is a lot easier for small-sensor, low-megapixel devices. Small sensor devices will always have superior video frame rates, still photo burst rates, on-sensor AF, etc. Getting lots of data off a large sensor without degrading it is extremely hard.

[texandrews]

Given that mirrorless predates SLR, I'd say that mirrorless is outdated. Optical viewfinders and electronic viewfinders each have their ergonomic and technical advantages and disadvantages. Personally, I prefer working with an optical view and want to avoid degrading the image by running the sensor full-time (a hot sensor is a noisy sensor).

There is no universal relationship between last lens element distance and light. A lens setting of f/2.8 on a medium format DSLR puts just as much light on the sensor as a setting of f/2.8 on a tiny little mirrorless camera even though the last element of the 645 lens is 4 times farther from the sensor.

In theory, wide angle lenses with a short last element distance to the sensor can be more compact and more highly corrected. In practice, the optical properties of silicon sensors and the throat diameters of many mirrorless cameras limit this advantage. For normal and telephoto lenses, there's not a lot of advantage.

The problem is that it's too difficult to read out the entire sensor in the time available for a video frame.

Video is a lot easier for small-sensor, low-megapixel devices. Small sensor devices will always have superior video frame rates, still photo burst rates, on-sensor AF, etc. Getting lots of data off a large sensor without degrading it is extremely hard.

Love your posts, always a lesson for me.

[LensCleaner01]

thanks for the very technical answer

he`s right i just measured the results for a mirror camera (pentax 645z) dslr the lightstrenght doesnt go down so quickly as it does for a mirrorless camera

and i also measured the results for a mirrorless camera and there this problem happens quite fast even a small distance made the f-stop from F8 to F13 and quickly gone higher a very small distance was from F8 to F11 what is ready much
in case it really goes to a mirrorless camera the problem gets relevant

the question now leads that what i could not measure what happens if the last lens element gets moved directly in front the sensor ?
on the mirrorless test at some point the lightstrength decreased slower

the next question could be a game changer too whats if we just activate the electronic shutter for a single picture instead for a video ? this would be good for a flash the y-sync speed would also increase at lot and no light would be lost for the rolling shutter this give some very good advantages

its really a fight for the image quality

[rdenney]

But there is more to a camera than just image quality.

1. It has to live in the real environment. Mirrorless can do fine here, but right now Pentax owns weather resistance.

2. It has to make it easy for the photographer to visualize both the composition and the timing. With an optical viewfinder, my eye is focused to infinity which means so is my other eye. I can actually watch the real subject as well as the viewfinder image. I’ve never seen an electronic viewfinder that was effective in that way—even those with eyepiece optics present such a different viewing experience that I can’t divide my attention between eyepiece and subject. Maybe I’m the only one with that issue. I do enjoy live view when appropriate, such as for lower camera angles, dark conditions, and slow manual-focus lenses, but I would hate to be restricted to it.

3. It has to be workable using my large hands. I don’t buy a medium-format camera to explore how much I can tangle up my fingers. When the Olympus OM1 captured the photographer zeitgeist back in the day, I still happily used my Canon F-1, and most working pros who used 35mm stuck with their Nikon F’s and F2’s. There is a portion of the (mostly) amateur photographer community that reveres device minimalism, and we are in such a period, but big cameras always seemed to persist and ultimately dominate. If I need something really unobtrusive, I have my iPhone.

4. It has to provide relevant controls accessible by feel, so that I don’t have to move my eye or the camera to manipulate them. Some cameras control cost and look sleek by moving controls to a software interface like a touch screen, or bury important controls in menus. No thanks. Buttons for control, menus for configuration.

5. I have to be able to afford it. From my perspective, the best image quality in the world has no value if only packaged in $50k cameras. The Fuji isn’t that, but it is still significantly more expensive than the Pentax to assemble a real-world kit (by which I mean a reasonable selection of autofocus lenses, not the most expensive lenses they offer). But it should be—it’s much cheaper to produce and uses the same sensor.

Different people have different use cases and constraints, and end up fulfilling different requirements.

Rick “noting the H6D is not mirrorless” Denney

[texandrews]

But there is more to a camera than just image quality.

1. It has to live in the real environment. Mirrorless can do fine here, but right now Pentax owns weather resistance.

I just worked on a shoot today in Cleveland, at the CMA. After working inside, I needed to do a couple of shots or so outside of their main facade, with the exhibition banners. Strong drizzle. I walked from the parking garage, and halfway to where I was going to take the shots I thought I was foolish not to grab my rain jacket. But I gave not a thought to my Z or lenses. That's called freedom. Oh, and I shot the whole exhibition inside with one prime lens, the 25. I switched up outside to the 55 and the FA 35, but I could have left the 25 on and not had to walk as far....

2. It has to make it easy for the photographer to visualize both the composition and the timing. With an optical viewfinder, my eye is focused to infinity which means so is my other eye. I can actually watch the real subject as well as the viewfinder image. I’ve never seen an electronic viewfinder that was effective in that way—even those with eyepiece optics present such a different viewing experience that I can’t divide my attention between eyepiece and subject. Maybe I’m the only one with that issue. I do enjoy live view when appropriate, such as for lower camera angles, dark conditions, and slow manual-focus lenses, but I would hate to be restricted to it.

Hmm, I'll have to try that. I did use LV several times fro particular reasons, but I am feeling that I like the option. With my A7R it was 24/7 electronic view.

3. It has to be workable using my large hands. I don’t buy a medium-format camera to explore how much I can tangle up my fingers. When the Olympus OM1 captured the photographer zeitgeist back in the day, I still happily used my Canon F-1, and most working pros who used 35mm stuck with their Nikon F’s and F2’s. There is a portion of the (mostly) amateur photographer community that reveres device minimalism, and we are in such a period, but big cameras always seemed to persist and ultimately dominate. If I need something really unobtrusive, I have my iPhone.

Too small is too small. I don't have large hands, but the K1 is as small as I want right now for any serious work where I am not severely weight/ size restricted. Don't get me started about what I think are the appalling ergonomics of phones. All their photo goodness is completely sabotaged by poor ergonomics and haptics, AFAIC. And I'm and ergonomics skeptic....

4. It has to provide relevant controls accessible by feel, so that I don’t have to move my eye or the camera to manipulate them. Some cameras control cost and look sleek by moving controls to a software interface like a touch screen, or bury important controls in menus. No thanks. Buttons for control, menus for configuration.

Yup.

5. I have to be able to afford it. From my perspective, the best image quality in the world has no value if only packaged in $50k cameras. The Fuji isn’t that, but it is still significantly more expensive than the Pentax to assemble a real-world kit (by which I mean a reasonable selection of autofocus lenses, not the most expensive lenses they offer).

Yup again. I couldn't care less about hypothetical cases.

[LensCleaner01]

the thing is when you got more lightstrength you can shoot with a better iso and less or none motion blur its a very important aspect
in a studio thats useally not a problem there you have your flashlights and you can fit it to what you actually need

different are outdoors and indoors special indoors because here is useally not much light like a church for example or just indoor with lamps
when you then dont got a tripod (what also would annoy the people there) it would be ok as long you dont fotograph something that is moving or you need a high iso what just results in bad image quality

setting a higher F-stop number decrease the bokeh but it definatly possible to have the less bokeh with more lightstrength
here you can see it even tho its only like 2 steps - but that is something:
Sigma 135mm f1.8 Art vs Zeiss 135mm f2 in depth review - YouTube

but back the the indoor shooting lets say im gonna fotograph now the iso will be like 1600 maybe more because i need a 1/60 to hold the pentax 645z handheld in this situation
i dont have to tell any1 the diffrens between 100 iso and 1600 iso but the image quality then gone down to relativly bad
lets say we have more lightstrenght in a mirrorless camera then we can get better results like 1200 iso
and lets say the adapter was a but further away like i sayed it in a previos post where the differens gone from lightstrength F8 (close mounted) to F13-F14 then the iso again would go down from iso1200 to like iso700

thats would be a significant improvment havhing the same bokeh for more lightstrength

a other thing i can think of is maybe a dynamic shutter so if you spend more money you have have a faster rolling shutter with more then 1/125 , or a leaf shutter so you could upgrade your camera for money
or just the electronic shutter what can really make high speeds - what i still dont understand why it is not used for single pictures

the HSS isnt supported so much yet and loses a lot of light the distance is very limited special for higher f stops and you get a problem if you use bouncing light in a room

[rdenney]

The ability to meaningfully use leaf shutters is available to the Pentax, but too few lenses include them to support that as a central use case. I have the 75 and only once needed it for my 645NII, though I used it often because it was a decent lens optically.

Being able to use high ISO is a wonderful feature of the 645Z. I don’t feel like I give up much at all at 1600, or even 3200. The dynamic range brings it down to that of other cameras. I made a portrait using my 5DII and circumstances required 3200 (even at f/4). The noise was terrible, and there was some weird posterization (result was fine, however, with DXO noise reduction and the ability to downsample for the application). I have to remember that that camera can’t do what the Pentax can do. I’ll take 11-stop dynamic range and a shutter speed that both freezes motion and allows an appropriate aperture over 14-stop DR and motion blur or insufficient depth of field. But I avoid the HDR look like the plague.

The Fuji, of course, has those same advantages. Both provide that flexibility while still providing high resolution using affordable lenses.

One other requirement: I don’t know where I’d put 400mp files. The tiffs from Alaska alone consume 290 GB. I’m gonna need a bigger computer. (Now, I do really wish I had stored the raw files as DNG—live and learn.)

Rick “not used to 300MB tiffs from a production camera” Denney

[photoptimist]

a other thing i can think of is maybe a dynamic shutter so if you spend more money you have have a faster rolling shutter with more then 1/125 , or a leaf shutter so you could upgrade your camera for money
or just the electronic shutter what can really make high speeds - what i still dont understand why it is not used for single pictures

the HSS isnt supported so much yet and loses a lot of light the distance is very limited special for higher f stops and you get a problem if you use bouncing light in a room

Most electronic shutters have very long rolling times. In essence, electronic shutters act like an electronic version of the moving slit of a mechanical shutter. The front electronic curtain resets the pixels by draining any charge in them. The rear electronic curtain reads the light level in the pixels. It's the pixel reading process that limits the speed of the curtain and can be especially long on larger sensors with high pixel counts. You can design faster read-outs but that sacrifices the image quality.

Unless the sensor has a true global shutter, an electronic shutter is generally incompatible with flash. (Note that even the Sony A9's electronic shutter is incompatible with flash.)