Amazing Resolution: Pentax 645D Test Shots posted!
By
Zig Weidelich, The Imaging Resource
(Friday, December 3, 2010 - 18:29 EST)
We've always wanted to get a medium-format camera in the lab to see just how much better it might be than a 35mm professional camera, if at all. We've now shot the Pentax 645D, and the answer is: A *lot*...
Given that part of the equation is overall resolution, part is pixel size, and part optical quality, pitting the 40-megapixel Pentax 645D against the 21.1-megapixel Canon 1Ds Mark III and 24.5-megapixel Nikon D3X may seem a bit unfair. Since those were the highest-resolution cameras we've shot to date, though, we did it anyway. :-)
A full writeup of the test results is coming, but we meanwhile have a full set of test images (minus the FAR shots, which we didn't have a lens wide enough to shoot properly) as well some crops for quick comparison with the just-mentioned full-frame DSLRs, and you can also download the massive JPEG and RAW images to see for yourself what the new $10,000 Pentax 645D can do. (Once the rest of the DNG files finish loading overnight, we'll have a total of 6.5 GB of files online from the 645D!)
The results are pretty jaw-dropping: We were expecting to see more resolution than from the highest-end full-frame pro 35mm bodies, but when we saw the first images, we were literally staring at the screen with our mouths open: If you've never seen just how much detail a medium-format SLR with a sharp lens can produce, you've got to check out our test shots from the Pentax 645D. (Fair warning, it may entirely spoil you for 35mm-format SLRs.)
The camera is a handful, but actually somewhat less so than we'd expected. The big mirror makes it pretty thick from front to back, but the overall mass seems very much on par with that of full-frame 35mm-format pro bodies. We never thought we'd call a $10,000 camera "affordable," but having seen what the Pentax 645D can deliver, we're inclined to consider it just that.
Click here for more on the Pentax 645D digital SLR camera! Enjoy!
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