Hi All. I've just returned from two weeks of intensive shooting with my new P45 and Mamiya 645 AFD II in the Tetons and Yellowstone. The P45 and the Mamiya AFD II were a joy to use, and tho I've only been able to complete a quick look at my take (I didn't get home until late last night), I'm very happy with the results. Here's a brief summary of my thoughts on these tools, for those who are still considering whether to make the plunge.
First, everything worked flawlessly. Using a digital back is simplicity itself and really no different, as far as useability goes, from using a 35mm DSLR. Even tho the Mamiya is one of the lightest MF options out there, it's stilll pretty heavy, and that's definitely a consideratiion on long hikes.
Second, with all of the talk about superior dynamic range on MFDBs, I was somewhat dismayed to see that the P45 has very little mid-tone to highlight latitude. Specifically, in my testing, the P45 only provides about 2.3 stops between midtone and a bright highlight. If you put a highlight at anything more than 2.3 stops over midtone, it'll be blown. This doesn't mean that the P45 doesn't have tremendous dynamic range - it just means that most of that dynamic range is in the shadows. Which is why P45 shadow tonality is so spectacular. And unlike with the current crop of DSLRs, you can brighten the shadows if need be by a significant amount without suffering noise and posterization. Still, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my P45+ (hopefully shipping soon) will have a new tone curve which yields a little more highlight headroom. I'd be interested in hearing from anyone else on their experiences with P45 highlight dynamic range, and whether the P45+ does anything about this.
Third, all the talk about short batter life on MFDBs and the Mamiya 645 turned out to be a non-issue. I had two batteries with me for the P45, and typically one battery lasted for a full days shooting. I had also heard that the Mamiya 645 was a real battery hog so I brought along three battery holders for the body. Each holder uses six AA batteries. I went almost one and a half weeks before I exhausted my first set of batteries. These results included lots of cold morning shooting. Bottom line - for my kind of shooting (primarily landscapes), battery life is a none issue.
Fourth, take lots and lots of storage with you on these kinds of long duration trips. I took along my aging laptop with about 56 gigs of spare space on the hard drive. I also took along my Epson P2000 with about 30 gigs of spare storage, and a separate 200 gig external drive. I filled up my laptop and the Epson (duplicate images). After that, I had to juggle things to make sure I always had two copies of each file stored somewhere. My laptop was also woefully underpowered as far as opening these huge files, so all I was able to do was view previews in Lightroom. My next purchase is definitely going to be a new Mac Book laptop with 4 gigs of RAM, the fastest processor I can get, and as much hard drive space as possible, with two ruggedized external drives for storage. Since the current crop of Mac Books currently only support up to 2 gigs of RAM, I'm going to have to wait for the new models to be introduced (rumored third quarter). I really think 4 gigs of RAM is mandatory.
I'll leave it at this for now. I'm especially looking for feedback on my highlight dynamic range findings for the P45, and whether I can expect anything different for the P45+.
Regards,
Mort54
Edit: My most used, and favorite, lens on this trip was the 55-110, with the 150 coming in a close second. The 35 and 300 saw only occasional use, but for certain compositions and perspectives, were indispensible. One other point - I took the back off of the body every night and inspected the sensor for dust. Only on the first day did I find two minor dust spots, and my Rocket Blower took care of them. Compared to DSLRs, cleaning a MFDB sensor is a piece of cake.
