Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: Doug Peterson on December 04, 2009, 04:56:32 pm
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Firmware version 4.8 (download (http://xchange.phaseone.com/Content/Downloads/Digital%20Back%20Downloads/P+%20series.aspx)) is available for the P40+ and P65+. This enables Live View when used with Capture One 5.0.1 (technically also 5.0.0, but we recommend 5.0.1). I've downloaded and tested it with our P65+ and can recommend it.
Bare in mind that no medium format back has Live View on the Back's LCD - this is only when shooting tethered, and the quality/responsiveness/situations-in-which-it-works is not the same as the Live View from Canon/Nikon. However, with those caveats, I can say that the P65+ Live View looks very good compared to the other P+ backs I've used Live View with (P25+ and P45+). For tabletop shooters, still-life shooters, food, and in some situations interior shooters (situations in which the amount of continuous light is under your control) this Live View is a welcome way to see changes in composition, subject placement, and focus, in near-real-time (about 1 second delay in my findings) on a very large monitor (I was doing it on my Eizo 30" - smaller screens will refresh faster, but show less pixels when zoomed to 100%).
Doug Peterson ()
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Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Leaf, Cambo, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
RSS Feed: Subscribe (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/08/11/rss-feeds/)
Buy Capture One at 10% off (http://www.captureintegration.com/phase-one/buy-capture-one/)
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doug - what other additions does this firmware update bring - can these backs now take full advantage of the UDMA 6 latest Gen CF cards?
the installer crashed my Macbook Pro halfway through the process.
very surprised at that, but a restart seems to have fixed everything.
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doug - what other additions does this firmware update bring - can these backs now take full advantage of the UDMA 6 latest Gen CF cards?
the installer crashed my Macbook Pro halfway through the process.
very surprised at that, but a restart seems to have fixed everything.
From 4.7.2 the only feature addition is Live View.
Not entirely uncommon; historically I've received many reports from users that needed to run a Phase One firmware updater more than once (sometimes up to three times) in order for it to successfully update the firmware. The good news is that in 2.5 years I've only seen one case where a firmware updater was not able to work at all, and it was most likely a symptom of the problem we were trying to solve by doing the firmware update.
Doug Peterson ()
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Leaf, Cambo, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
RSS Feed: Subscribe (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/08/11/rss-feeds/)
Buy Capture One at 10% off (http://www.captureintegration.com/phase-one/buy-capture-one/)
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From 4.7.2 the only feature addition is Live View.
Not entirely uncommon; historically I've received many reports from users that needed to run a Phase One firmware updater more than once (sometimes up to three times) in order for it to successfully update the firmware. The good news is that in 2.5 years I've only seen one case where a firmware updater was not able to work at all, and it was most likely a symptom of the problem we were trying to solve by doing the firmware update.
Doug Peterson ()
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Leaf, Cambo, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
RSS Feed: Subscribe (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/08/11/rss-feeds/)
Buy Capture One at 10% off (http://www.captureintegration.com/phase-one/buy-capture-one/)
OMG, the installer crashed my MBP too! I had a mini-heart attack, but the software seemed to carry on fine after reboot.
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yep, first thing in a long while I've had that crashed my MBP !
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Can someone upload a screen shot of the live view interface with the P65+? If it's as great as everyone is saying, it may be the kick I need to upgrade from my P25+.
Thanks
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Can someone upload a screen shot of the live view interface with the P65+? If it's as great as everyone is saying, it may be the kick I need to upgrade from my P25+.
Maybe you could arrange a demo in person with a dealer nearby? If you're anywhere on the east coast we'd be happy to oblige.
Doug
Doug Peterson ()
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Leaf, Cambo, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
RSS Feed: Subscribe (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/08/11/rss-feeds/)
Buy Capture One at 10% off (http://www.captureintegration.com/phase-one/buy-capture-one/)
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Thanks Doug.
I'm in NYC and may take you up on that offer in the new year. I do however see that the P65+ only allows exposures of 1 minute or less. Is there an anticipated update that will allow longer exposures (much like live view)?
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Thanks Doug.
I'm in NYC and may take you up on that offer in the new year. I do however see that the P65+ only allows exposures of 1 minute or less. Is there an anticipated update that will allow longer exposures (much like live view)?
In short: no.
Long exposure capabilities are not likely to improve significantly on the P65+ / P40+ from where they stand today. Since the 65+ launched the longest good exposure has about doubled due to improved firmware and software. With that latest firmware and software, and (depending on your usage and ambient temperature) 1 minute will look pretty good. Anything past that gets bad pretty fast. The engineers tell me they think they've done just about everything that can be done by firmware/software. So while this limit might be increased a bit in the coming months the bottom line is that the Dalsa sensors just don't do long exposures as well as the Kodak P+ backs. The trade off is that the Dalsa chips do have some very favorable noise, color, and gradation characteristics.
If you do exposures longer than a minute on a regular basis then the 65+ is just not right for you. The Phase One P45+ will likely be the king of long exposures for the foreseeable future. That system can expose for 1 hour at normal ambient temperatures, and much longer in colder weather.
If you only occasionally do long exposures then you might consider these "work arounds" (again, I'm not saying any of these are ideal, and if good long exposure is critical or frequent to your usage then I've already stated this is not the right system for you).
- you can take multiple shots in a row at 1 minute and blend in software to decrease noise, and then push in post - effective for, in my experience, about a 1 stop gain assuming your subject is static
- you can turn the back to sensor plus mode and shoot at ISO200 for 1 minute. the resulting file will be 15 megapixels, that, due to lens quality, and the inherent sharpness gain of downsampling and lack of AA filter, will match a 1Ds III or 5D II 22 megapixel file for actual resolved subject detail
- you can open up a stop or two and, if DOF is not enough at the lower f-stop, stack two or three images in Helicon Focus
- you could buy a film back and a few rolls of film (of course you'll have to re-remember how to compensate for reciprocity failure!) for long exposures
Note that there are some very aggressive upgrade deals right now that end December 31.
Doug Peterson ()
__________________
Head of Technical Services, Capture Integration
Phase One, Leaf, Cambo, Canon, Apple, Profoto, Eizo & More
National: 877.217.9870 | Cell: 740.707.2183
Newsletter: Read Latest or Sign Up (http://www.captureintegration.com/our-company/newsletters/)
RSS Feed: Subscribe (http://www.captureintegration.com/2008/08/11/rss-feeds/)
Buy Capture One at 10% off (http://www.captureintegration.com/phase-one/buy-capture-one/)
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well, there ya go.... hardly sucks at all. Runs pretty slow, but functional enough... P65+ Arca M2 Rodie 90HR