Question about new dSLR

[tetsuo77]

Dear all of you:

Recent Canon updates made me think about the quality vs. speed vs. weight issue. I´ve got to tell all of you that I´ve got no experience so far with last-gen digital backs. But still, I think it is worth to comment the possible war that can be stablished in the high resolution area.

On one hand, we do have the professional grade dSLR series which offer staggering shooting speeds with good quality. However, to be honest, most of the people I know and own those "über"SLR do not use this speed rate for shooting. I do not deny that there are people who actually need this speed. The only thing I would like to note is that this feature is not used as often as it should to make a profit out of it.

On the other, digital backs should be now cheap enough as second hand choice to be able to compete with full frame dSLR. And having weighed the Canikon samples, they are not as heavy as equivalent choices.

However, there is a third way [or better, there is supposed to be a third way soon enought], which is called the low budget medium format, namely, the 645Nd of Pentax. Were we taking for granted that it should appear sometime soon, it would be placed too close to the high end dSLR, and way lower than the Hasselblad, Sinar, PhaseOne and other combo or unibody stuff.

So, your choice would be
-High end dSLR
-Low end Digital Medium format
-Second hand Digital Back

Cheers

[Craig Arnold]

Pentax have axed their medium format plans, the camera is no longer in development alas.

[Ken R]

The Canon is obviously a fully integrated imaging solution. Its weather sealed and works out of the box. MFDB's naturally depend on another manufacturer's camera body. Thats good and bad. Bad because things might not work all the time and be problematic at times, good because the imaging device can be removed and used on other cameras and upgraded and still use the same camera body. The Hasselblad is supposedly integrated but its still a 2 part system. It seems like a good approach but ive heard horror stories about H bodies not working well and h lenses falling apart. Ive had 3 generations of Canon DSLRs and all have been flawless.

The new 1Ds is lighter (better / lighter battery system) it also has more color depth (14bit now  vs 12 bit previously, thats something that dslr lagged behind mfdb's). So Im choosing the 1Ds mk3. For the advertising market I work in its the perfect choice. Clients are not paying any more. I wont make any more money with an MFDB. The 1Ds mk3 will give me a marketing edge since not many of my competitors will be able too afford it but yet it isnt $30,000+ for a system. IMHO a 31 mp MFDB should be less than $10 grand. If that was the case then I might consider buying into it.