[falconeye]

Anyone know how the 50,000 actuation life span for the shutter compares to the leica?

No. But I found the follwing remark in Fredmiranda to be a good one: Replacing a shutter may be a $500 repair only. So, nothing to care about.

Maybe, it would be a good move by Pentax to affirm that the camera gets serviced free of charge during the first three or five years, even should the shutter count have skyrocketed

That would happen to pros and it would be in Pentax' own business interest to keep them happy campers I'm sure this is what Leica does anyway.

Biggest mistake I see is lack of tethering support.[...]
What do Leica users use to get rid of moire w/o the AA filter?

Lack of tethering support: Yes, I agree. I wanted to post this but forgot in the heat of the night

My only hope is that Pentax is working on this. This could bring it as an upgrade to K-7 as well which would be great
BTW, this work could be done as contract work for the equivalent of ten 645D only


Moiré: Leica proudly talks about firmware routines to eliminate Moiré at RAW level in software. AFAIK, no word from Pentax yet on this matter.

The noise exists in the analog signal, therefore shouldn't the least significant bit of a 14-bit conversion be less noisy (by virtue of having been quantized from a larger portion of analog signal) than the least significant bit of a 16-bit conversion?

14 vs. 16 Bit:

1. ISO setting of max. dynamic range (supposedly ISO 200):
The full well capacity of one pixel in the KAF-40000 sensor is 42,000 electrons. The minimum (black) noise is -69.3 dB or 14 electrons (note that white cells have at least 205 electrons noise.
This is 11.5 Bit accuracy (aka DR) for black cells and a 12 Bit A/D converter would suffice. White cells can never get better than 7.7 Bit accurate anyway.

2. max. ISO setting of (supposedly ISO 1000):
The remaining well capacity of one pixel in the KAF-40000 sensor is 8,400 electrons. The minimum (black) noise is much worse than -69.3 dB or 3 electrons (note that white cells have at least 92 electrons noise.
This is ~10 Bit accuracy (aka DR) for black cells only or 6.5 Bit for white cells.

By "x Bit" accuracy, I mean including leading zeros, of course.

Therefore, using a 14 Bit A/D converter over a 12 Bit converter has a barely measurable effect and 16 Bit over 14 Bit has no effect. Because the noise is always captured, there won't be any quantization banding effects either.

The mimimum sensor which could benefit from a 16 Bit A/D converter is one with 13.5 DR per cell, like 5 electrons noise and 64,000 electrons full well capacity. AFAIK, this sensor doesn't exist yet.

[falconeye]

I suppose I should mention that I will be at CP+ tomorrow in Yokohama

I don't read Japanese, but are you aware that there is a timetable for 645D events here?
-> http://www.camera-pentax.jp/new/pdf/0311t.pdf

E.g., 10:30 and 14:00.
Please, go, take pictures and report back to us


BTW, what "new product" is Pentax HD Edius? ...

[Kunzite]

Don't rule out tethered shooting yet
L.E. I should say this directly: Pentax plans to offer PC remote operation.

[JesseDavis]

I don't read Japanese, but are you aware that there is a timetable for 645D events here?
-> http://www.camera-pentax.jp/new/pdf/0311t.pdf

E.g., 10:30 and 14:00.
Please, go, take pictures and report back to us


BTW, what "new product" is Pentax HD Edius? ...

Oh wow! thanks for that!

I suppose I am leaving the house earlier ( its 4am and the wife is snoring) than I thought... oh, they are repeating the unveiling every day... thats a lot of veils.

But there is a one-time-only 645 first impressions event where they go to Canada and Europe with the new camera. I'll be sure to make that, and hit the unveil on Sunday.

By the schedule description in the pdf; "EDIUS is (software?) to beautifully and creatively work with digital video or master blue-ray discs. Come and see the new age of SLR Video blah blah.." — iMovie HD based on silkypix? I suppose its exciting if you don't already have a video editing platform. I will be going to the 645D events for sure but have some errands that day to so I don't know what else.

[climbertrev]

????.com-???????-PENTAX???????? 645D ?????????????
Those lens prices are pretty reasonable, IMHO. Even a system with several lenses competes in the same price league as the Nikon D3x.

Seems to me, as a Pentax fan, (well - they definitely dare to be different!), that they have watched the market and seized the opportunity.
MF for less than half the opposition, portable and with WR - an outdoors photographers dream - even reworking some previous classic lens (Pentax 645 120mm f/4 Macro) - NOTE KR approved!
Well beyond my wildest dreams however (25% of my annual salary).
Let's hope that the IQ is excellent (not normally a problem with Pentax) and that the developmental lessons they have learned from this camera will "trickle-down" to APS-C.

[MetaD]

In any case, you win. I'll wait for the reaction of the few pros that are going on this forum (i'm thinking of Bejikan among other) But Pentax used to have an excellent reputation for their MF systems in the "pro" world.

Now regarding the "pro" support program, this may be the real reason behind the commercialisation in Japan only first. Basically to support the whole country you would need only 2 centers, one in Tokyo and one in Osaka to cover the whole country and those centers would be close physically and culturally to the development engineers.

Next steps would be Paris and New York which are the 2 hearts of professionnal photography (as a practice, I m not talking about equipment makers here)

My point is not so much about what real Pros want to buy, rather about how Pentax is trying to position the 645D. Niche marketing and brand management are about defining what is and what isn't in your niche. Most of the niches in camera sales are already defined and served by established product lines (Sports, Weddings, Consumer, Wildlife, Fashion, etc.) so it seems to me a good idea for Pentax to try to brand the 645D as a pro-sumer, landscape camera and try to expand that niche:

(1) There are a lot more "pro-sumers" than pros.
(2) Landscape is one of the few photography niches that requires hi-res images
(3) Weather-sealing is a good differentiation from studio cameras
(4) Aside from Sony, FF DSLRs are not so far off the 645D price bracket given that the 645D doubles your resolution.
(5) Apparently the pro-sumer landscape photographer is a substantial market in Japan.
(6) Pro-sumers are happier to pay 1 million yen for consumer style service and warrantees, than 2 million for pro-level warrantee and service.

What about offering a line of Pentax tilt-shift lenses!

And the big news is that you can get this for under $10,000.

[MetaD]

Drats! I just missed out on buying a Pentax 645N and six lenses for $1,500 off my local Craig's list. That's like $250 per piece. A year ago, before we knew anything except broken rumors about the 645D, I collected a 645N and five lenses for about the same price, so I'm not really complaining.

I figure the 645 lenses are going to increase in price, in particular the zooms and the 35mm, which has always been a bit more expensive and harder to find, especially the FA version. The same thing seems to be happening in Leica-land. Try finding a 21mm or 24mm Leica of any speed; they are few and far between, even at the big used-camera shops like KEH.

I'm sure that Pentax will release newer and better lenses (at $1,000 - 2,000), but I feel like I'm lucky to be ahead of the game, and you know, I really like the buttery-smooth focusing of the manual SMC lenses.

No, about that tilt and shift....

[monochrome]

Also interesting that most of the technology being used is already found in the K-7. For example, the use of a D-LI90 battery, and the rear monitor. I hope some of the new stuff works its way down to the K-7's eventual successor, like the dual SD card slots.

I've long suspected, with no way to prove it, that part of the reason the K-7 was wothdrawn for redevelopment was to use some of the 645 technology, thus spreading the R&D cost over a larger number of units.

[kenyee]

My only hope is that Pentax is working on this. This could bring it as an upgrade to K-7 as well which would be great
BTW, this work could be done as contract work for the equivalent of ten 645D only

LOL. I'd add tethering to the K7 as well for a full set of 645 FA lenses
And my tethering code would be a lot better than the half-baked implemention in the K10D/K20D

That explains why they aimed it at landscape photogs instead of studio shooters.
Studio MF shooters pretty much use tethering all the time...

[Kunzite]

Pentax plans to offer PC remote operation.

[Christopher M.W.T]

Suprised there's not many people here who can read Japanese and translate some of the pdfs.

I see they have the K-X & K7 mentioned.

[pcarfan]

No. But I found the follwing remark in Fredmiranda to be a good one: Replacing a shutter may be a $500 repair only. So, nothing to care about.

............

That's not bad at all. Thanks for that info.

[yeatzee]

Quick question... How does a FF camera not compete with a MF camera if they have similar pixel count?

[shuie]

the same way aps-c does not compete with ff when they have similar pixel count

LOL

shu

[falconeye]

Quick question... How does a FF camera not compete with a MF camera if they have similar pixel count?

The only serious FF competitor to MF probably is the 25 MP Nikon D3x with top DR.

However, it is not easy to create tack sharp images at 40MP. A 35mm viewfinder and AF system are probably in trouble here and the required lens resolution at 50% MTF of 108 lp/mm is challenging (film lens MTF curves were typically specified up to 40 lp/mm only). Mirror and shutter must be dampened as well.

A 100% crop from a 40MP MF photo normally still looks tack sharp all over the place. Look at one of my earlier posts. I've never seen this from a FF camera.