Phase One IQ250 Initial Tech Camera Test Results

[Ken R]

Hum... it is better yes. Now, the gap with the D800/a7r is similar to my eyes to the one I would expect between DSLRs generations. It is basically roughly one generation ahead of the D800/a7r.

Taking into account the top notch lenses relseased recently on 35mm, I think that the real world gap between a Phasone glass+IQ250 and next generation DSLR+Otus like glass would be hard to detect in real world applications.

The question is whether waiting a few months/one year is worth 35,000 US$ or not? My view is that it is not for anyone for whom 35,000 US$ is a significant amount of money.

If stitching is considered in the picture, then the IQ250 already has close to zero advantage today. IMHO.

Cheers,
Bernard

No question the IQ250 could use a better SLR body and better lenses but the Hasselblad H and Phase/Schneider Lenses are very good in general and they have leaf shutters (1/800 max on the H and 1/1600 on the Phase/SK LS) which is nice to have when using flash.

Yes you can stitch using the D800E/7R and get more resolution but you can do the same with an IQ250 and get even more. I regularly stitch with my Phase IQ160 and the files are just stunning.

Again, is the IQ250 a high value item? Of course not. If you want the best image quality for your dollar the A7R/D800E is it obviously. This has been beaten to death. But the IQ250 image quality is better, yes, at a price, but it is a digital back with really none of the shortcomings, compared to the best DSLRs, that many have been complaining for years. It has an Awesome (Touch) Screen, Great Live View, Awesome Low Light/High Iso/Long Exposure Performance and WiFi. Seems to me like it is the best all around Digital Back ever made. The only issue is for tech camera users but thankfully the IQ160/180/260/280 are superb for that.

[BernardLanguillier]

Again, is the IQ250 a high value item? Of course not. If you want the best image quality for your dollar the A7R/D800E is it obviously. This has been beaten to death. But the IQ250 image quality is better, yes, at a price, but it is a digital back with really none of the shortcomings, compared to the best DSLRs, that many have been complaining for years. It has an Awesome (Touch) Screen, Great Live View, Awesome Low Light/High Iso/Long Exposure Performance and WiFi. Seems to me like it is the best all around Digital Back ever made. The only issue is for tech camera users but thankfully the IQ160/180/260/280 are superb for that.

I fully agree that the IQ250 is a major step forward to Phaseone and it probably is the best alround back ever made.

I am not saying that somebody else could have done better with the current technology but to me it just doesn't make sense to use a back on an SLR camera, especially if the gap in image quality is not that large and the sensor not that much larger.

Anyway, good for them if others can see value at the current price point, but it eludes me.

Cheers,
Bernard

[EricWHiss]

Anthony,
Nice test, well conducted and useful information.  Thanks!
Eric

[torger]

It would be nice if you could use a tool like RawDigger for the analysis so you could check how much dynamic range that is actually lost in each channel.

Ie it would be nice to have statistics like image circle diameter and approximate dynamic range loss in EV like this:

center R,G,B: 0,0,0
33mm diameter R/G/B: -2.3/-1.4/-3.2 stops
44mm...
50mm...
55mm...
60mm...
70mm...
80mm...
90mm...

I know it's much more work though than screenshots from C1, and since we get side-by-side with others with well-known performance it gives us adequate information despite not being as "scientific".

I have noted though that many seem to think that color cast is just "color changes" rather than the non-uniform dynamic range loss it is, ie if C1 manages to correct it it would be okay, but you may have lost several stops of dynamic range in large parts of the picture which increases noise and can affect color rendition too (color gets less precise when closer to the noise floor). So in order to keep the high image quality of your expensive digital back the color cast and vignetting must be relatively mild.

I think it's better to test with center filter, as it shows the actual performance in a shooting condition, but again with comparison shots with well-known backs it's less important.

[Paul2660]

I have noted though that many seem to think that color cast is just "color changes" rather than the non-uniform dynamic range loss it is, ie if C1 manages to correct it it would be okay, but you may have lost several stops of dynamic range in large parts of the picture which increases noise and can affect color rendition too (color gets less precise when closer to the noise floor). So in order to keep the high image quality of your expensive digital back the color cast and vignetting must be relatively mild.

+1 very good point.

You can easily shift lenses to a point where the color/saturation loss and noise increase becomes destructive.  I see this happen much faster with the wide Schneiders than the Rodenstocks.

Paul

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

I imagine for view camera work with large movements a large sensor with large pixels and without microlenses or special customized microlenses (not sure about this) would probably be more robust than smaller pixels, because the effect of photons bouncing at the edge of the the pixel when coming in at a low angle would probably be mitigated. But I'm afraid the market for a special tech-camera-aware chip is simply too small.

[torger]

But I'm afraid the market for a special tech-camera-aware chip is simply too small.

I think so too, but there may be other reasons that may lead to that we get such technology eventually anyway.

With current technology the sensel is buried quite deep in the chip because the wiring is on top of it (and thus angles get worse the smaller the pixels we have), but with backside illumination technology the sensel is put at the surface instead. The goal is not wide angular response, but better sensitivity as you can cover more of the chip area with sensels, but as far as I understand you get wider angular response as a side effect.

So far you can't make large sensor with this technology (it's a more complicated manufacturing process), but it could be coming.. I still think you would need to avoid going much smaller in pixel size, staying at say 6um like the IQ260 would be a good tradeoff. Remains to be seen if future backs will satisfy with a mere 60 megapixels though...

Possibly there are gains in smaller formats by having wide angular response. Wide angle lenses can be made smaller, lighter, cheaper and still very sharp if the sensor can deal with wide angular response, maybe Sony sees that advantage for its mirrorless formats and thus strives to improve angular response for those systems, and then technology can eventually come to MF. It would be an absolute killer.

The other scenario is that Schneider and/or Rodenstock comes out with a new lens line with stronger retrofocus designs than we have today. It might be a more likely scenario. It's technically possible to make lenses with extremely high resolving power this way, but they would of course be very large, very heavy and very very expensive. With even higher resolving power it would be more difficult to have flexible view camera type of designs such as my own Linhof Techno (as there's a limit in how precise you can make a camera with flexible movements), so flat cameras like the Alpa FPS would take over almost completely. I'm a bit afraid that this would be the (field) tech camera future. But we'll see.

[gerald.d]

It would be really interesting to see a stitch of four shifted shots (up 4mm left 5mm, up 4mm right 5mm, down 4mm left 5mm , down 4mm right 5mm) from the IQ250 on a couple of lenses - 32HR and 23HR would be great.

This stitch would give a good indication as to how a full-frame IQ275 CMOS would perform.

A comparison with that stitched result to an IQ280 would be revealing.