Ditto to Graham's comments.
You can view, full screen to a 100% view. I believe you can create a custom white balance from the iPad (the eye dropper is there) and delete the files you choose. You can also give them the * (star) from * to *****. This is also possible from the back, but nice to be able to preview/delete from the larger screen.
If you have a DF or DF+ body, there is a lot more camera control that can be done through the Capture Pilot app on the iPad
My issues/concerns in a nutshell:
1. App is way out of date for the Apple iOS 7, Most apps have now updated for iOS7 (paid apps). The way iOS7 views an adhoc network connection is totally different than iOS6 and this causes a lot of connection issues and staying connected issues with any iOS7 device.
2. NO support for non Apple devices, non iOS. This too bad as there many other tablets that have better (much better) screens for outdoor viewing than any of the current Apple devices.
3. Capture Pilot does not appear to fully support the resolution of the retina display. This is becoming a bigger issue now that Apple is Phasing out the mini (non retina) display and also the non-retina display iPads. Yes, you can still get them, but they are base config and 16GB of ram is just enough to run the device. So when you view an image on the retina display at full screen, it's just barely no there. Like looking at a screen just out of register. I have trained my eyes to view this but it would be great to get support for this excellent screen (if Angry Birds can do it I can't see why Phase can't). Zooming to 100% the image gets harder to really tell what's in focus and I tend to shrink down the image just a bit. Yes, the old iPad mini screen is better suited for this, however that is by far the worst screen Apple ever made, as in any ambient light it's basically a mirror. You can at least get by with the retina outdoors. Retina on the new mini is the same resolution as the iPad air. So these viewing issues may even be worse on the new mini.
4. Phase One backs display images in the Order shot, i.e. most recent image with display on the LCD. Capture Pilot goes all the way back to the first image which is strange to me. Since Capture Pilot is only grabbing about 20 to 30 images at a time to load the thumbnails, it can get confused when you scroll all the way to the end to see the most currently taken image.
5. About 30% of the time after you make the GOLDEN CONNECTION with a iOS7 device, Capture Pilot will loose it and you have to do one of the following:
a. reboot the back (works for me about 15% of the time)
b. reboot the iPad (works about 25 to 35% of the time)
c. reboot both iPad and back and then futz around with the Capture Pilot server connection until it sees the back again.
It's still better than no WiFi and I do use it in the field quite often. I use an iPad gen 4 and the battery life is good for all day and then some.
Still a bit disappointed with Phase One since this is a Premier feature IMO for the IQ2, and iOS7 for developers was out in March or April of 2013. Plenty of time to test for the issues with the way the new OS handled the adhoc connection. I doubt that the WiFi card in the back is programmable as most tend to be a static firmware implementation, but hopefully Phase can figure out a way to get a more stable connection, and more importantly a version of Capture Pilot that will take full advantage of the retina display.
Paul Caldwell
