My only regret is posting a crop of one file processed to my taste - it's a poor way to show off the high-ISO quality on this back.
Doug,
Have a safe flight and hope you enjoyed Hong Kong.
I love it there. It's like NY modern and our crews are amazingly good and huge fun.
I've made that flight 3 times and dig it because I can sleep runway to runway.
Hey, don't feel bad about the samples you posted. You just posted what you had, but honestly Phase isn't the only company to produce "c__ppy samples" at camera introduction.
In fact those wedding photographer samples are good compared to the stuff PDN ran. Those are beyond explanation and the only thing worse is PDn and the photographer raved on about them.
Now that's scary.
Honestly though when they've had that camera out for testing for I assume a good period, why not produce better imagery?
Personally, I'm not a fan of most cmos because in most cases I find it weak especially when stretched to anything over 1200 iso.
What surprises me is when I compared it to this Olympus em-5 image at the Sony store at 1000 iso. This was the worse lighting ever, with mixed tungsten, tv lcds, led's blinking, mall lights strobbing.
We're talking about a camera that retails now at $800 and I purposely didn't add any noise reduction because I liked the look and when Phase talks about "film grain look", they need to talk to olympus.
I'll admit this is not a pretty photograph, but I'm not throwing it on my site or creating a blog glowing about it.
Here's the same iamge at 100% processed from a jpeg of all things and cropped with 1/3 taken off.
http://tinyurl.com/olymus-at-100-1000isoWhat I expect from a $35,000 is much more than this and I don't think the samples showed it.
Obviously this image is medium format territory with studio flash (though handheld and manually focused) with my contax and a P30+, at 200 iso.
What isn't typical medium format is this, shot hand held with the contax at 60th of a second f2.8 using window light and soft card fill and it was a very dark day in NY.
p21+ at 400 iso (pushed in curves about 2.3 stop) and the post work was very minimal
I've done this type of shot 30 times and it doesn't miss a beat, even if I go to 800 iso which doesn't worry me in the least.
The thing is Phase makes equipment, maybe too good, as with this new release and prior to that the other products I saw no reason to make a change.
For one I love the Contax and my p backs. They're like war zone solid. I just bought the S2 to use my contax lenses and love the camera, but in doing a quick test last night, it makes me aware of how good the contax is and with the older phase backs t how much they offer compared to a lot of medium format that's available today.
But these are my favorite still cameras I use today and they're way different.
Everything on that table costs equal to the price of the new phase back (if buying today).
The most advanced is the olympus as you can shoot a print ad and a broadcast commercial with it, if you know how to do post. The viewfinder makes everything else I've tried look tiny and then there is the costs. It costs less than 1/2 of the sales tax on the new phase back, so for 35 large
there really needs to be serious innovation, because the phase back costs more than one of my RED's.
I always say buy a camera if you emotionally want it (like a lecia) or if it will allow you to do something other cameras don't, (the olympus and the Contax).
But for another stop of iso and what I perceive (from the recent samples shown) I'm a little bit of loss as to what the new phase backs offers.
Maybe they'll surprise us with better samples, but if I was a dealer I'd be all over Phase's marketing department for the imagery they are pushing out with this introduction, because you shouldn't have to explain why it's not up to professional levels.
The one trend I picked up from the samples Phase featured, was everyone seems to have some kind of blog or link on their site pushing the new back. The wedding girl has marginal samples and glowing remarks, the bicycle guy even has a link that says contact for a test drive.
Then there are all these quotes throughout the media (web media) of can't wait to test drive this baby, or I'm sure we'll be shooting with a billion millimeter lens hand held.
This is all just non verified marketing at a not very flattering level.
If Phase want's to dismiss the ccd vs. cmos thing, shoot something worthwhile with both a ccd and cmos camera.
But Doug, your quote that people that use low iso are only shooting product on white in studio is far from fact. I've been shooting every camera I own in every situation possible for a long time and I'm sure i'm not alone.
IMO
BC
