Phase One IQ3 100mp. Shipping now.

[eronald]

Dear Bernard -

 You don't need to tell others what I think, I can do the telling quite well.

 I think institutions looking to do reproduction will buy the 100MP as a safe one-click hi rez digitizer, no surprises.

 I think pro photographers will do a very careful check whether the back works for them; if they know about shifting, then they will know about testing the shift before they buy.

 And lastly, I think that anyone who believes they can predict the shift properties, CA, vignetting  crosstalk etc of an unseen sensor with no datasheet and unqualified coverglass,when combined as a photographic system with lenses yet unused on this sensor, and make relevant contributions on this topic that others will base a $50K buy decision on is ... overenthusiastic.

 My take on the new Phase is that it is a safe buy but probably overkill for institutions, has in fact an affordable price for pros who have the customers who need the resolution - but they will need to check it out- and will make amateur buyers happy. My take on the tech forum contributions of late is a lot of people are talking in huge tech detail about topics they don't really know much about, and not enough about stuff they are good at, like in your case I would be interested in a discussion about how one gets good at stitching.



Edmund

 

As of now, people who are considering buying 50K$ gear. Which is the whole point of this discussion.

You apparently think that the only people buying such equipement are super rich and therefore don't really care about the value delivered since the cost is insignificant, I have no problem with that being you opinion.

But I would just appreciate if you could avoid contributing turning this into a self realizing prophecy by not giving this camera the chance to prove its ability to perform up to its price tag. Which you are trying to do by killing a relevant technical discussion.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BernardLanguillier]

Edmund,

Well, I don't see anyone making forecast in this thread, only people commenting about actual images shot with this new sensor and some of the most widely used wide lenses for technical cameras.

Sorry, I still fail to understand why this discussion is pointless.

As far as stitching goes, I have written articles on the topic and am always willing to answer questions when asked.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

A lot of things can be quite accurately predicted.

Folks have experience with existing backs. Highly unlikely that say Phase One would use thinner cover glass on IQ3 100MP than on older backs as the cover glass needs to be taken into account in optical calculations, at least on non retrofokus wide angle designs.

It is also highly unlikely that Sony makes a sensor in small series that radically departs from their standard designs. Some of their designs are BSI, though.

Now, folks have experience with existing designs like the IQ 250 and for that matter the A7rII, that is often used with shift. Also, Alpa has shared some shifted images, so you can test expectations against actual sample pictures.

Best regards
Erik

Dear Bernard -

 You don't need to tell others what I think, I can do the telling quite well.

 I think institutions looking to do reproduction will buy the 100MP as a safe one-click hi rez digitizer, no surprises.

 I think pro photographers will do a very careful check whether the back works for them; if they know about shifting, then they will know about testing the shift before they buy.

 And lastly, I think that anyone who believes they can predict the shift properties, CA, vignetting  crosstalk etc of an unseen sensor with no datasheet and unqualified coverglass,when combined as a photographic system with lenses yet unused on this sensor, and make relevant contributions on this topic that others will base a $50K buy decision on is ... overenthusiastic.

 My take on the new Phase is that it is a safe buy but probably overkill for institutions, has in fact an affordable price for pros who have the customers who need the resolution - but they will need to check it out- and will make amateur buyers happy. My take on the tech forum contributions of late is a lot of people are talking in huge tech detail about topics they don't really know much about, and not enough about stuff they are good at, like in your case I would be interested in a discussion about how one gets good at stitching.



Edmund

 

[synn]

Why am I not surprised to see the usual buncha suspects turning this into a discussion about everything but the actual back!

Phase haters before the P65:

" 44x33 is barely MF! Who pays 5 figures for this crap when my **Insert Canikon** sensor is almost as big?"

Phase haters after the P65:

" Sure it is a full frame chip, but have you seen the LCD at the back? It is useless for such a high res back! Who pays 5 figures for this crap when my **Insert Canikon** has a better screen?"

Phase haters after the IQ series:

" Sure they have a good screen now, but who uses CCD anymore? CMOS is the future! Who pays 5 figures for this crap when my **Insert Canikon** has a CMOS sensor?"

Phase haters after the IQ 250:

" 44x33 is barely MF! Who pays 5 figures for this crap when my **Insert Canikon** sensor is almost as big?"

Phase haters after the IQ3 100MP:

"Sure it's a full frame CMOS sensor MF with industry leading DR, MP count and unprecedented connectivity options, but who pays 5 figures for this crap when my **insert Canikon** does... er... hold on... umm....


NO MULTISHOT!!!!

ALSO; THEY ARE NOT GIVING ONE TO ME FOR FREE!!!!!!

RABBLE RABBLE


---

Meanwhile, those of us who are actually intersted in taking pictures, after seeing the samples:




Carry on. Nothing will ever change here.

[torger]

The latest tests of the tech camera lens combo is over at getdpi, and it now looks more promising than before. A recent version of Capture One had LCC bug which made some of the initial tests look bad.

My current guess is that I think it will be popular among tech cam users, perhaps more so than the IQ250.

Crosstalk is something us tech cam users need to get used to though because we can no longer count on getting sensor designed for out lenses. You can see it as a sort of gradual image quality falloff like corner sharpness, a "color fidelity vignetting" if you like. All sensors have some pixel crosstalk even when light comes in straight on, but here it becomes higher than normal. Fortunately as most natural color are low saturation you can have pretty high amounts of crosstalk without much or any visible effect. You could say that in center the camera is probably the best so far regarding tonality, while in shifted areas the tonal separation is probably more similar to a mobile phone camera, which still is okay. Not all will enjoy this type of compromise with a $44k back, but tonality is overrated anyway, people think they can see it but few actually does, what people can see is pixel peep noise and sharpness and here it looks very good.

[BernardLanguillier]

The latest tests of the tech camera lens combo is over at getdpi, and it now looks more promising than before. A recent version of Capture One had LCC bug which made some of the initial tests look bad.

My current guess is that I think it will be popular among tech cam users, perhaps more so than the IQ250.

Thanks for the update. These look like good news. I guess that Doug's results will probably confirm these findings with the Rodenstock 40mm lens. Still interested in seeing how the 32mm behaves though.

I'd also be interested to see some results with lenses being tilted. Could such tests be made also?

Thanks.

Cheers,
Bernard

[torger]

Thanks for the update. These look like good news. I guess that Doug's results will probably confirm these findings with the Rodenstock 40mm lens. Still interested in seeing how the 32mm behaves though.

I'd also be interested to see some results with lenses being tilted. Could such tests be made also?

Tilt? Now you're being old-school many cameras used in the tests don't even have tilt capability and since tilts usually is like 1-2 degrees when it comes to wides it doesn't make that much of a difference, so I would not worry about that. I use tilt and swings myself quite frequently but have never run into issues of that it changes color cast significantly compared to the basic shifting, and from a pure geometric perspective it's the expected result.

It should be noted that Rodenstock wides have varying degrees of retrofocus, longer lenses have less meaning that longer lenses can stress the sensor too. The Schneider Digitar 60XL is still a very popular high end lens but as it's symmetric and can do large shifts you can run into issues with that too despite the relatively long focal length. Of course if you do product/macro photo you may be using large tilts and might run into issues but I doubt that becuase the macro focal length is typically ~120mm.

Hopefully good results can be had with a shifted 32HR too, most certainly not to the 90mm IC edge but that 10mm shift in the Alpa shot may be feasible. I suspect Alpa used a buggy C1 version for their posted test shots. We'll see in the next few days.

I've only seen landscape orientation shifting so far. The IQ250 sensor is more robust in portrait orientation, but my old Dalsa was more robust in the landscape, it depends on chip wiring (the wiring is in front and works like a crosstalk barrier), and I've seen Dalsas wired in both portrait and landscape directions. That is we can't be sure the IQ3100 sensor has its wiring oriented in the same way as the IQ250 so we should wait for portrait results too. It's quite certain that this is not a BSI sensor, based on rumoured inside information and guesses from the behavior seen so far. BSI is probably not mature enough for this size, and probably not mature enough when it comes to maximizing base ISO DR.

[dchew]

I agree Torger. Bernard, tilting does not change the angle at which light rays hit the sensor pixels.

Dave

[BernardLanguillier]

I agree Torger. Bernard, tilting does not change the angle at which light rays hit the sensor pixels.

Cool, I am the tilt guy now!

In fact I believe that tilting downwards for typically landscape application does move the sensor closer to the edge of the image circle also, so it does change the angle. It just does it less than shift because the amount of tilt typically used is less.

Cheers,
Bernard

[AreBee]

Bernard,

...I believe that tilting downwards for typically landscape application does move the sensor closer to the edge of the image circle...

It does, which slightly changes the composition. However, a rise/fall adjustment will counter the effect, while preserving tilt.

[BernardLanguillier]

Bernard,

It does, which slightly changes the composition. However, a rise/fall sdjustment will counter the effect, while preserving tilt.

Indeed.

Cheers,
Bernard

[jsiva]

Anders,

One concerning item in the new posted samples is that purple/green glow around blacks.  Do you think this is also related to the C1 bug or something else? 

[Bo Dez]

I still have mixed feelings about this but am excited to see more.

Phase, IMO, need to create a motion back. This is plausible after all and I would feel far, far more comfortable and interested investing such a sum in the system that could cater more securely for the future.

Also if Zeiss would jump in on the Medium Format game (and if Phase One allowed it) and could re-instate/re-design some of the exciting designs they own, namely the 110mm f2 and 80 f2 then I would get very, very excited.

For me, equipment is still too much in transition and it is very difficult to find a system that caters for my commercial needs and also aesthetics.

[torger]

Anders,

One concerning item in the new posted samples is that purple/green glow around blacks.  Do you think this is also related to the C1 bug or something else?

Haven't seen that before so I don't dare to guess. I'm also curious about why they got a bug now, maybe because they're making some sensor-specific LCC improvements due to some specific issues with this one. When I get time and files I'll do some own probing, very curious to see the good, the bad and the ugly under the software correction surface.

[Chris Barrett]

Well, Kevin and I spent yesterday with the new back and my Sony grabbing some interiors of really beautiful spaces.  It wasn't an ideal test, as neither of us had the lenses that you would really want to use with this back for shooting architecture.

I've also had a look at the tech cam tests on GetDPI and was glad to see those.

I'm going to do a write-up over the next few days with images, but wanted to drop my initial thoughts.  The Sony holds up decently against the digital back, decently.  I've always known that the A7r files we're not as pretty but felt that they could be worked in post to get where I needed them.  When you start pulling up shadows, however, The Phase really seems to shine and exhibits less noise.  It also has better color, micro-contrast, DR, and sharpness out of the box.

I don't have any great wides left from my tech cam kit but still had this Rodie apo-sironar digital 45mm kicking around so I used that for both these shots.  I didn't employ any movements, because I didn't feel the lens would hold up to it.

So, you can definitely get the nicest files out of the digi-back.  It is, however, way less convenient to work with and from what I've seen, there will be less shifting available than there was with my IQ260... no matter what lenses you buy.  I'd really love to make this back work for me, but I just don't know if I can live with less movements.  As a 20+ year veteran of professional architectural photography, I'm beginning to feel like my dream system may never exist.

More to come...

IMHO
-CB

Both images on the MF2, Rodie 45mm, f/11, 2s, base settings with 50/50 hilight shadow recovery (just for yucks)
The Phase feels sharper, but focus could have been off a touch on the Sony, so nothing conclusive there.

[jsiva]

Chris Barrett and I will be shooting tomorrow with the ALPA system and numerous lenses.  I just did some tests shots with the 23mm Schneider and they are pretty damn nice.  It's a problem putting RAWs up on the Luminous-Landscape site because of the size.  Our download file system has a max of 100MB and the RAWs exceed that.  Our IT guys are looking into seeing if it is possible.  Chris and I will report back plus we'll have a more in depth report in the weeks to come.  If you can make it to Indianapolis and I'm around you're welcome to give it a try with me.

Any samples with the above mentioned 23mm Schneider...I assume it is the 24mm?

[Chris Barrett]

Any samples with the above mentioned 23mm Schneider...I assume it is the 24mm?

Kevin has the 23mm Rodie HR.  I don't have any samples.  He didn't employ any shifts, but from what I saw, that lens is TOTALLY usable on the 100 when centered.

[jsiva]

Kevin has the 23mm Rodie HR.  I don't have any samples.  He didn't employ any shifts, but from what I saw, that lens is TOTALLY usable on the 100 when centered.

Thank Chris.  Initially misread what you posted.  That is great news!  I don't shift that lens on the IQ180 anyway.  This could be very good!

[Kevin Raber]

We'll have sample images from the 23mm to show in a follow up article soon.  The LLC part of C1 has a small bug in it so waiting fro Phase One to correct that.  We can then do a final process on the 23mm.  Thanks Chris for the great day, as always was fun shooting and chatting with you. 

[Harold Clark]

The new 100MP back certainly looks impressive from initial reports. I think the ideal all round architectural camera would be a Sony mirrorless with a 33x44 sensor of 60-65 MP. Such a camera would offer a good combination of cost, quality and speed when paired with T/S lenses via adapters.

Even better if Canon would update their 45 and 90 TSE lenses, and also produce something in the 32-35mm range, maybe a 65 TSE as well. Alas, neither the camera nor lenses exist at this point, but one can always hope.