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Author Topic: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF  (Read 19730 times)

kuau

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Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« on: March 13, 2011, 09:45:45 pm »

Being a current owner of the Pentax 645D system right now which I have mixed feelings about, great body, lens selection and availability terrible.
Some recent images can be seen at:
http://kuau.viewbook.com/yosemite_february_2011

Anyways, though I am pleased with my FA45-85, FA120, FA150, FA200, and FA300mm lenses, which of course I purchased all used because thats really are there is now, I really wanted a 35mm lens also, I have tried 2 copies of the FA35mm lens with not very good results. Sure the center 2/3rds is sharp at F13 but the corners are all soft. SO I am left with no 35mm lens, which on the 645D is likes a 28mm lens "35mm FF"
Of course there is the Pentax 25MM coming out but for me this is to wide, so I am left with a system that to me, starts at 45mm, and that being said the 45-85mm zoom, the FA45mm prime is garbage on the 645D, confirmed by a few people including myself who owned one then sold it.
I also tried using the Pentax 67 45mm via adaptor, same results, soft, and since the 645D does not have available a split screen micro prism focusing screen MF is very difficult.

So now I am wondering if I made a bad decision on the Pentax, I know the Phase One DF is there latest body and of course you can use almost any back you want on it, but you give up weather sealing, possible cold weather operation below freezing, etc.

My question is how good is the Phase One 35mm AF and 45mm AF lenses shot at infinity or close to it for landscape work, do they suffer like the Pentax 645 lenses do at the focal range, sharp in the center then slowly fall off in terms of sharpness in the corners? Are the "Phase" version of these lenses the same as the Mamiya's? or are they new designed?

I would love to see some raw files from this combo, even with a P25+ back or maybe the Leaf Aptus II 7 33mp FF back.
I am not interested in P45+ or above backs, to expensive and I have no need for that high of resolution.

Thanks
Steven
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Leping

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #1 on: March 14, 2011, 02:41:26 pm »

Hi Steve,

My copy of the SMC Pentax 35mm/f3.5 AL FA, the only copy I ever touched, is pretty sharp all the way to the corners.  Actually it is among my sharpest 67 and 645 lenses.

As usual with wide angles there are some field curvature, but not too bad.  My copy is actually little skewed to the left, which made it even better to me since I have little bit intrinsic down tilt shooting vertical with the skew, while stopping down to f/11-14 horizontal "2D' subjects are still OK, as confirmed in my tests over the weekend.

So please do not be too discouraged and keep trying.  Actually the 35mm FA has had pretty good reputation in MF field (the 16-9.net review, etc.).  You will eventually find a good one (mine was recently snapped off KEH.com, EX for $919).

If you pass me your email address I will email some JPEGs from my home Mac.

Thanks,

Leping

« Last Edit: March 14, 2011, 02:43:53 pm by Leping »
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kuau

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #2 on: March 14, 2011, 02:52:10 pm »

Leping,
I am sure there is a few good copies out there, but it's getting very costly for me to try a lens, then have to sell it at a loss usually.
Keep in mind all the great reviews from the FA 35mm lens were all done on Film,
I also know that the copies I have tried personally when the main subject is in close distance to the camera, the lens perfumed quite well as I have seen in many other 645D + 35mm FA tests, but for landscape work shot at infinity this lens is all over the place, and I don't think it has to do with sample variations. It's a design issue, and again never designed or intended to be used with 40mp MF digital camera.
See where I am coming from?

Steven

ps. my email is steve@kuau.com  would love to see some of your samples.

Hi Steve,

My copy of the SMC Pentax 35mm/f3.5 AL FA, the only copy I ever touched, is pretty sharp all the way to the corners.  Actually it is among my sharpest 67 and 645 lenses.

As usual with wide angles there are some field curvature, but not too bad.  My copy is actually little skewed to the left, which made it even better to me since I have little bit intrinsic down tilt shooting vertical with the skew, while stopping down to f/11-14 horizontal "2D' subjects are still OK, as confirmed in my tests over the weekend.

So please do not be too discouraged and keep trying.  Actually the 35mm FA has had pretty good reputation in MF field (the 16-9.net review, etc.).  You will eventually find a good one (mine was recently snapped off KEH.com, EX for $919).

If you pass me your email address I will email some JPEGs from my home Mac.

Thanks,

Leping


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Leping

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #3 on: March 14, 2011, 03:16:35 pm »

Hi Steve,

I shot forest edges around 100 feet away with a 645D.  Center and edges are sharp (my "5" scoring out of 5) from f/8 all the way to f/13.

Will email you or pass links to my files.

The real surprise was the high ISO performance.  I've seen examples, but the ISO 800 noise is so pleasant looking that I wonder if I would prefer to shoot at 800 all the times -- against adding in simulated film grain noise later in a more controlled way.  The ISO 800 noise is basicaly all luma (no chroma), dithers out fine details nicely, masks the already very little "digital looking", and creates the visual illusion of finer details.  It makes already very "film like" results even more "film like", which I really like.  The camera's image characters, smoothness, handling (with "digital preview" and selectable initial magnification choices checking focus is actually not as bad as I expected), and out-of-focus rendering are all way beyond my wildest imaginations.

Lloyd made some very clean 16+ minutes long exposure star trail shots in Death Valley, which he will publish.  The new generation of the 33x44mm Kodak sensors (H4D-40 and 645D) with micro-lenses are so much better than the old generation 37x49mm micro-lens-less sensors (P45/P45+, etc.), and the smaller size is actually preferred, to me, for better edge sharpness with existing P67 and P645 (and Hasselblad, etc.) optics, and a little help in DOF.  An optimal balance point, again to me.  Of course wide angle coverage is affected.  But, think about no Delsa sensor can match the low-light and night photography capabilities these Kodak sensors offer, as I don't see one hour exposure a problem (+another one hour to map out hot pixels), fantastic for light painting landscapes in my dream places, like Bisti., etc.

Leping
« Last Edit: March 14, 2011, 03:25:58 pm by Leping »
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kuau

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2011, 03:34:46 pm »

Leping,
Looking forward on seeing some samples from your FA 35mm,
btw, I checked out your website, beautiful work indeed  :)
What other lenses are you using with your 645D?
I currently am down to:
45-85mm fa
120mm FA
150mm FA
200mm FA
300mm FA

Did you happen to check out some of my images from yosemite?
http://kuau.viewbook.com/yosemite_february_2011

most shot with my 645D, but a few M9 images mixed in.
I really liked shooting with the FA300, but ran into some shutter vibration that Lloyd talked about.
When I shot the 300mm at 2 seconds, images looked great, but at 1/8th sec to 30th sec, all fuzzy.

Steven


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Dave Gurtcheff

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2011, 05:16:01 pm »

I'm enjoying the above, as I have seen both of your work, and I also use the 645D. I LOVE wide stuff, and I have the MF 35mm A 645 lens, reported to be inferior to the FA version. Biggest print I have made with that particular lens is 17"x23", and it looks good (to my eye, I am not a Pro). My question to you two gentlemen is this: Do your RAW DNG files all look sort of "dull" before post? Mine do and I try to expose to the right, and bracket. After post, all is fine, but I usually must resort to splitting sky and forground on to their own layers, then applying levels to each separately, again with own layers. I will try to upload a RAW file converted to small JPG, with no post. Then I will upload the final result, the way I remember it (albeit I added the surfers). Appreciate any comments from you guys. I appreciate your time in helping a 74 yr old amateur.
Thanks Dave G
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Dave Gurtcheff

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #6 on: March 14, 2011, 05:38:17 pm »

The memory card was still in the camera. I played back a bunch of images on the camera screen, and the color, etc are great, just what I remember. When I down load and open in ACR, they are "Dull".
Thanks for any help.
Dave
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ErikKaffehr

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #7 on: March 14, 2011, 05:43:31 pm »

Hi,

I'd suggest testing with different tone curves

Other suggestions

1) Add clarity
2) Add vibrance

Best regards
Erik


I'm enjoying the above, as I have seen both of your work, and I also use the 645D. I LOVE wide stuff, and I have the MF 35mm A 645 lens, reported to be inferior to the FA version. Biggest print I have made with that particular lens is 17"x23", and it looks good (to my eye, I am not a Pro). My question to you two gentlemen is this: Do your RAW DNG files all look sort of "dull" before post? Mine do and I try to expose to the right, and bracket. After post, all is fine, but I usually must resort to splitting sky and forground on to their own layers, then applying levels to each separately, again with own layers. I will try to upload a RAW file converted to small JPG, with no post. Then I will upload the final result, the way I remember it (albeit I added the surfers). Appreciate any comments from you guys. I appreciate your time in helping a 74 yr old amateur.
Thanks Dave G
www.modernpictorials.com
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kuau

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #8 on: March 14, 2011, 06:30:07 pm »

Dave,
Remember what you are looking at on the back of the 645D is a jpeg, which will display how you have your 645D setup. ie. if you have your 645D setup in landscape mode, then it will apply those internal camera settings to the jpeg file you are viewing on camera.
The DNG's have none of this information attached to it that ACR can read so you are looking at Adobes best attempt / starting point to go from then you are own your own.
Yet if you open the DNG up in PENTAX Digital Camera Utility 4 it should look similar to your display on the back of the camera, PENTAX Digital Camera Utility 4 will read in the dng file with those setting applied.
Try it out. I have the software loaded on my Mac Pro, it is very slow and crashes all the time :-(

Steven


The memory card was still in the camera. I played back a bunch of images on the camera screen, and the color, etc are great, just what I remember. When I down load and open in ACR, they are "Dull".
Thanks for any help.
Dave
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Dave Gurtcheff

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #9 on: March 15, 2011, 11:25:17 am »

Steven: Thank you for your reply. I have never tried using Pentax's software for conversion; I will give it a try. I use it only to give me a quick look at a day's shoot, note which frames show promise, then open them in ACR. I have noticed when using it, even to view pics, it is VERY slow to load each frame to view. My PC has only 4 Meg RAM, so that is part of it probably.
Thanks again
Dave
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TerrollMartin

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #10 on: March 15, 2011, 12:02:24 pm »

There is a post on the Get DPI forum regarding the Phase One (Mamiya) 35mm d lens.

Here's the link:  http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22464

For what is't worth I have, what I consider, a very good copy of the Mamiya 35mm lens.  Problems with the corners do appear (softness and CA), but with good processing with Capture One the problems disappear.  Capture One does a stellar job with lens distortion and CA.

I also have used the Pentax FA 35mm lens and I certainly don't find it any worse than the Mamiya lens.  Capture One, unfortunately, does not support the Pentax 645d.
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kuau

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #11 on: March 15, 2011, 12:19:29 pm »

Terroll
In total agreement with you. Looking at the mage jack posted at getdpi even looking at the raw in Capture 1 with all the corrections on, I don't think it's any better then the Pentax FA35mm, the only difference is....
You can buy a new Phase 35mm lens, and if if it's a dud return it, not so with the Pentax FA35mm. Your stuck with what you get, no recourse only unless you are dealing with a cool seller.

Steven


There is a post on the Get DPI forum regarding the Phase One (Mamiya) 35mm d lens.

Here's the link:  http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?t=22464

For what is't worth I have, what I consider, a very good copy of the Mamiya 35mm lens.  Problems with the corners do appear (softness and CA), but with good processing with Capture One the problems disappear.  Capture One does a stellar job with lens distortion and CA.

I also have used the Pentax FA 35mm lens and I certainly don't find it any worse than the Mamiya lens.  Capture One, unfortunately, does not support the Pentax 645d.
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ondebanks

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #12 on: March 15, 2011, 08:59:39 pm »


Lloyd made some very clean 16+ minutes long exposure star trail shots in Death Valley, which he will publish. 


He did? Fantastic! I've been looking for someone to do this with the 645D, for what seems like an age. Can't wait to see them.


...as I don't see one hour exposure a problem (+another one hour to map out hot pixels)...


That too would be very exciting to see. Will it come close to the best of the P+ backs for one hour exposures? Lots of people would be interested in that.

Speaking of the equally long extra time to map out the hot pixels (take a dark frame) - can the user decide _not_ to do that, with the 645D? And just do it later at a more convenient time? The inability to choose this is a sore point with the PhaseOne backs. Why they didn't make it optional (like with the Mamiya and Kodak backs, where "long exposure processing" is a toggle setting in the menus) is very strange and irritating.  :(

Ray
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Leping

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #13 on: March 15, 2011, 09:59:09 pm »

My understanding is you can opt to not do it, but you can not have it delayed.  Even you can, the mapping should happen at the same ambient temperature, obviously, even the sensor itself does not evolve or age...

Quite a headache, and waste of time outdoors.  Do you have any software to do the similar thing?

Also if you do multiple (back-to-back more likely) long exposures, the Canon's way is preferrable -- they map out the hot pixels once, and use the same data repeatedly for all exposures of the same duration.
« Last Edit: March 15, 2011, 10:00:52 pm by Leping »
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ondebanks

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #14 on: March 16, 2011, 08:02:24 am »

My understanding is you can opt to not do it,

That's what I was hoping to hear. Kudos to Pentax!  ;D

but you can not have it delayed.  Even you can, the mapping should happen at the same ambient temperature, obviously, even the sensor itself does not evolve or age...

That's no problem. Lots of people simply make "libraries" of dark frames, taken with their camera at different temperatures. Then they pick the matching one and subtract it later.
This is especially easy when the temperature is recorded in the EXIF - as it is with the 645D, when I checked some online image samples.

Quite a headache, and waste of time outdoors.  

Damn right. It would kill me to drop all that money on a MFD kit which forces me to twiddle my thumbs for 50% of my precious long exposure opportunity time. PhaseOne, please take note!

Do you have any software to do the similar thing?

I use Deep Sky Stacker - you can feed it any frame (astro or not) and 1 or more dark frames, and it will do the calibration for you, outputing a 48bit TIFF, with a choice of various deBayering algorithms, etc.

I also developed some scripts for IRAF, which is the research-standard platform for astronomical data processing. I am not quite there yet with the temperature-matching in IRAF for my DB...too much to do, too little time...

Also if you do multiple (back-to-back more likely) long exposures, the Canon's way is preferrable -- they map out the hot pixels once, and use the same data repeatedly for all exposures of the same duration.

Clever Canon! I am only getting familiar with our 5DII, so I wasn't aware of that. They must employ either impressive thermal control, or some algorithm which scales the dark frame for the gradual temperature increase over a series of long exposures.

Ray
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Doug Peterson

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #15 on: March 16, 2011, 08:31:36 am »

Lloyd made some very clean 16+ minutes long exposure star trail shots in Death Valley, which he will publish.  The new generation of the 33x44mm Kodak sensors (H4D-40 and 645D) with micro-lenses are so much better than the old generation 37x49mm micro-lens-less sensors (P45/P45+, etc.), and the smaller size is actually preferred, to me, for better edge sharpness with existing P67 and P645 (and Hasselblad, etc.) optics, and a little help in DOF.  An optimal balance point, again to me.  Of course wide angle coverage is affected.  But, think about no Delsa sensor can match the low-light and night photography capabilities these Kodak sensors offer, as I don't see one hour exposure a problem (+another one hour to map out hot pixels), fantastic for light painting landscapes in my dream places, like Bisti., etc.

One very important question (beyond how much detail/tonal-smoothness/color-fidelity is shown in the final image) is what temperature it was outside at the time.

For instance the difference between -7C/19F and 35C/95F is around 11 stops worth of difference in long exposure capability for a P45+ (tech specs for long exposure with phase one).

Really looking forward to hearing more details!

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #16 on: March 16, 2011, 09:21:18 pm »

My copy of the manual 35mm Pentax 645 lens is tack sharp corner to corner at f11.
The little CA it has can easily be removed with the ACR raw profile for the FA 35mm lens.

I think many used lenses are used because they were problem lenses to begin with.

From my current Moab shoot.

Full frame



100% crop near lower left corner

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mhecker*

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #17 on: March 16, 2011, 09:33:30 pm »


  The new generation of the 33x44mm Kodak sensors (H4D-40 and 645D) with micro-lenses are so much better than the old generation 37x49mm micro-lens-less sensors (P45/P45+, etc.), and the smaller size is actually preferred, to me, for better edge sharpness with existing P67 and P645 (and Hasselblad, etc.) optics, and a little help in DOF.  An optimal balance point, again to me.  Of course wide angle coverage is affected.  But, think about no Delsa sensor can match the low-light and night photography capabilities these Kodak sensors offer, as I don't see one hour exposure a problem (+another one hour to map out hot pixels), fantastic for light painting landscapes in my dream places, like Bisti., etc.

Leping

After 2 months of 645D ownership and much field testing, I agree 100%  ;D
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Leping

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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #18 on: March 16, 2011, 10:44:35 pm »

One very important question (beyond how much detail/tonal-smoothness/color-fidelity is shown in the final image) is what temperature it was outside at the time.

For instance the difference between -7C/19F and 35C/95F is around 11 stops worth of difference in long exposure capability for a P45+ (tech specs for long exposure with phase one).

Really looking forward to hearing more details!

The samples Lloyd took was at 22C according to EXIF data in the DNG files.
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Re: Pentax 645D VS Phase One 645DF
« Reply #19 on: March 17, 2011, 09:49:24 am »

Wonderful shot Miles.  My experience with the 35mm A is similar.  My copy is not as sharp in the corners as I would like, but overall very good.  Red/cyan fringing which is largely correctable in ACR, but no purple fringing that I’ve seen reported with the FA version  I've attached a shot with the 35mm A. A stitch of two shots, not for resolution, but rather angle of view. Hyperfocal focused at f/11.  First crop at medium distance (note the resemblance of the ice to a crocodile  :D; second, the near rock protruding through the skim ice. 




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