Phase One IQ4 series. Much more than resolution.

[narikin]

Currently ISO 400 is my max on the IQ3 100 that I have comfort in printing large prints. I suspect I might gain two stops with the new back for my conservative comfort level. We will see. This would be huge for someone that shoots in a forest with moving leaves and stitching in the forest would be way easier.

Agree 100%. this is my #1, alongside more pixels.

I too find 400asa is the maximum, and that is only used if really needed. 200asa is dramatically better, so if there is the light/ no movement that is my default. (Funnily enough the step down to 100asa is less dramatic, imho)

If the IQ4 gets 200 results at 400, then I'll be very happy.
(you don't buy these backs to use them at 25/50Mp, so pixel binning has always been a non starter to me)

[eronald]

As an existential question: if noise exists but is smaller than the dot of ink you print it with, is it really noise?

In a way the noise on a small scale is positive - it acts as dither, allowing smooth transitions around edges. 

Edmund

[JoeKitchen]

Something else I am wondering, is there any evidence that they are working on getting the BSI technology into a lower MP (but still full framed) sensor? 

I realize there a lot of landscape (f/64 club) shooters out there and rich hobbyists buying these cameras that put a big emphasis on higher mega-pixel, for different reasons, but, for us commercial shooters, we really just don't care.  (I mean no knock on landscape shooters.).

I have not had a serious conversation with any other commercial shooter about resolution in like 6 or 7 years, which is about when clients stopped asking us about the resolution of our files since all cameras gave them a file size that was usable for their needs.  The 100 MP offering seemed overkill to me, and nearly every other commercial shooter I spoke to, even clients, and this 151 MP is just insane. 

About a year ago I was shooting a penthouse in Manhattan and my assistant, who just started with me, asked if I can use the fact that I shoot with a high mega-pixel back as an additional selling point for my services.  My response was, "no, nobody cares anymore about MP."  My client was standing right next to me during this and he looked at my assistant and said, "yeah, nobody cares anymore."

At the end of day, most of us commercial shooters just want a camera that we can use in the style that is best suited for us with little obstacles in the way.  I realize for landscape photographers, this may mean better ISO performance (taking downsizing into account) to allow for faster shutter speeds to freeze movement.  For me though, this means shooting on a tech camera and not having to think about whether or not lens cast will be a issue with the amount of shift/tilt I am using.  And I also don't want to be carrying around giant Rodenstock lenses that weigh up to 2 pounds, take up a lot more room then my symmetrical lenses, and have an unique mustache distortion meaning I need to record my shifts for each image. 

[Doug Peterson]

Something else I am wondering, is there any evidence that they are working on getting the BSI technology into a lower MP (but still full framed) sensor? 

No. I would not expect that now or in the future. It's not really how sensor development trends work.

That said, the IQ4 150mp shoots faster, reviews the image in back faster, and tethers faster than the IQ3 100mp, so in most real senses you'll experience an increase in working speed, not a decrease.

Capture One's proxy system and the growth in GPU speed also mean that handling 150mp raws is easier today than handling 22mp raws just a few years ago. We tested processing the IQ4 150mp raws in C1 on our new iMac Pro and full res 16-bit TIFFs came out at a rate around 1 per second. We'll do more formal testing on that soon.

So the philosophy, for better or worse, is you always capture these very high res raw files, and you are free to crop, not crop, process at full res, or process to some smaller format size. If storage size is a concern the IIQ-S raw format is ~80mb.

[hubell]

Phase's strategy seems more clear than ever....retreat to the highest end and not offer backs in the cropped sensor format. However, that's not really a strategy, as the market made the decision. Try selling an XF system with a 100mp cropped sensor for $35,000 when Fuji and Hasselblad are selling a GFX and X1D with the same sensor for less than $10,000. What isn't clear is whether Phase has abandoned all development efforts with the cropped sensor, including for a new mirrorless platform. I hope not, but I am not optimistic. I think Phase is terrified of spending the huge R&D dollars to develop a new system that would cannibalize the XF system and lenses and, more significantly, force it to compete on price and features with Fuji and Hasselblad. All in all, this a stunning sea change in the medium format landscape. Phase was the 800 lb. gorilla. Hasselblad was on life support and all but done with after the Stellar/Lunar debacle. Fuji didn't exist in this space. Now, we have two amazing new cameras, the X1D and the GFX, with amazing lenses, at amazingly low price points.
One interesting nugget is that the new IQ4 150 will NOT be available in an H mount. Only for the Phase XF. Thus, there is no longer a Phase One upgrade path for the owner of an H series camera and lenses. The circle of Phase One hypocrisy is now fully closed. Back in the day, Phase (and its partisans) screamed loudly about Hasselblad closing off the H system to third party (i.e., Phase One) backs. Now, you no longer can use a Phase IQ4 back on a Hasselblad H camera body; you can't use a Hasselblad back on an XF; and you can't use Capture One software with any medium format camera not made by Phase One. Since the rental houses have typically offered H bodies and lenses with Phase backs, I guess Phase has decided that most wouldn't upgrade to 150MP anyway, so they will try to force the few that might upgrade to switch over to the XF platform.
The new IQ4 150 is not "Trichromatic." Phase says it's not necessary with the new sensor. That's today. In 2 years, will we see a repeat of the Trichromatic update of the IQ100, after we were told that the color of that back was so exceptional?

[stevenfr]

Hi Doug

Can you explain exposure simulation and how it might be helpful with ND filters.

Thanks Steven

[Doug Peterson]

Can you explain exposure simulation and how it might be helpful with ND filters.

Live View can now be used in two modes. In the first, it behaves like today's IQ3 does, automatically compensating the live view brightness. In the second, "Exposure Simulation" the back uses the shutter speed set in the ES to simulate the brightness of the final capture based on how much light is currently making it to the sensor.

In Exposure Simulation, if you add ND filters you'd see right away the decrease in brightness and you'd need to compensate with the shutter speed setting.

Because of the improved quality of the live view, compared to the IQ3 100mp I expect you'll be able to use 1 to 2 stops more ND filtration before the live view slows down and gets noisy. Likely, even very strong ND filters for daytime-long-exposures will still result in a usable Live View (even if it's not as fast/clean as without the filter on). But only testing will tell.

In short, WYSIWYG!

Exposure Simulation will likely be most people's preference, unless they are shooting with strobe. When shooting with strobe the Exposure Simulation would be way dark, since the ambient modeling light during live view is not nearly as bright as the flash exposure at capture.

[Joe Towner]

Congrats to Team Phase for keeping everyone in the dark during the run up - it's a lot more fun than dealing with leaks.

On first glance, I'm quite happy with the upgraded guts of the back. Faster storage interface (though I'm not sure about SD personally).  I'm ok with not releasing a crop 100mp, in reality there isn't a good reason to do it when there will be plenty of 100mp CPO backs.  Phase currently sells the crop 100mp 33x44 in their iXU line for industrial use - so they know the chip well enough, but don't want to muddy the waters with it.

[stevenfr]

Thanks Doug

[BernardLanguillier]

Some first thoughts:
- on my current 100mp back, the challenge really is to achieve critical focus when the subject isn't dead centered. It sometimes works, sometimes not,...
- moving from 100 to 150mp will only deliver value for tripod use
-> I would rather have an EVF based camera staying at 100mp than a 150mp without an EVF, that is unless I would use the camera exclusively in live view mode.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Doug Peterson]

I think Phase is terrified of spending the huge R&D dollars to develop a new system.

I couldn't speak to any project, or lack thereof, to develop a small/compact camera. But here are some examples in recent years of P1 investing tons of R+D money into long-term projects:
- XF: they had to have a team working to improve/stabilize the DF/DF+ while also making a from-the-ground-up new camera
- C1v4: they had to keep a full software team working on updating Capture One 3 for several years worth of developing Capture One 4, which was a ground-up rewrite
- Schneider LS and LS Blue Ring line: they had already released a bevvy of Phase One D focal-plane lenses. Some of the LS versions were simply D lenses with a shutter, but many were ground-up new designs.
- iXG a ground-up redesign/reimagining of the DT RCam
- IQ1 a ground-up redesign of the P+
- IQ4 while it shares the "IQ" name prefix, it is as internally different from an IQ3 as the IQ1 was from the P65+

I think you could easily find forum posts from a month/year before each of these releases where people speculated if P1 was willing to invest long-term R+D money into brand new systems.

If had to rank the most compelling/unique company-attributes for P1, "investing in long-term R+D" would be second on my list, right after "ability to drink heartedly after hours".

Also, an IQ4 150mp on a small tech camera really isn't that large or heavy. It lacks autofocus of course, but that's not a major hinderance to many architectural/landscape/still-life/interior photographers, especially given the addition of better/faster live view with Live Focus Mask (focus peaking). An XF with one of the smaller lenses (e.g. 55/80/110) with a WLF is also pretty light (everything is relative of course).

All that said, I think the XF IQ will still be a big part of the lineup five or ten years from now. It's not a small/light system, but there are always compromises made (ergonomics, functionality, quality) required in going small, so whether or not they add a smaller/lighter system to the lineup (personally I hope they do) there will still be many use cases for an XF IQ or an IQ on a tech camera. This is, simply put, a camera where the only compromise is weight/size. In the past some (not many, but a meaningful niche) went for 4x5 or 8x10 over 645 or 6x7 or 6x17 even though they were meaningfully larger and heavier to carry. That is still the case today, and will still be the case tomorrow. To me the best possible case would be some big-brother little-brother pairing of an XF IQ with something smaller that could share as much as possible (lenses, accessories, interface, viewfinders, color response, even sensors somehow) and would allow you to pick form factor for a given job/shoot. When I'm shooting Terra Nudum I don't mind the XF size/weight one bit. When I'm shooting a wedding I still carry an XF but I'd be the first to say I wouldn't mind if it was half the weight!

[Doug Peterson]

Phase currently sells the crop 100mp 33x44 in their iXU line for industrial use - so they know the chip well enough, but don't want to muddy the waters with it.

Indeed. They've been shipping iX cameras with that sensor for a while. The main advantage there is that this smaller sensor can shoot FAST (many frames per second) and that's a big advantage for aerial mapping systems where it means you can fly the plane faster (or at lower altitude). The 150mp sensor will do ~3fps in ES mode, which seems more than fast enough for 99% of the use cases for commercial/fine-art medium format photography.

[Gerd_Peters]

Live View can now be used in two modes. In the first, it behaves like today's IQ3 does, automatically compensating the live view brightness. In the second, "Exposure Simulation" the back uses the shutter speed set in the ES to simulate the brightness of the final capture based on how much light is currently making it to the sensor......

That's what makes my IQ3 Tr. already out via HDMI. There is only one error in the firmware. The lowest ISO value in the menu is ISO 50. However, the base value for the back is ISO 35.

I have a question for you.

The sensor of the IQ4 100 Tr. is the same as the one in the IQ3 100 Tr. (Sony IMX211 FI). This means the improved LiveView is at the back rather than the sensor. Or does the IQ4 have 100 Tr. a worse LiveView than the 150 MPix. Versions?

Greeting Gerd

[Joe Towner]

Indeed. They've been shipping iX cameras with that sensor for a while. The main advantage there is that this smaller sensor can shoot FAST (many frames per second) and that's a big advantage for aerial mapping systems where it means you can fly the plane faster (or at lower altitude). The 150mp sensor will do ~3fps in ES mode, which seems more than fast enough for 99% of the use cases for commercial/fine-art medium format photography.

~3fps for how many shots - until it runs out of XQD storage?  It'll be interesting to see how the HAP1/2 upgrade will play into this - does the higher mp sensor really need the advances in the AF?  I still want to see how the HAP2 does with soccer.

I love the ethernet port - will the IQ4 do the multi-camera sync like the iX line?

[Doug Peterson]

~3fps for how many shots - until it runs out of XQD storage? 

The XQD standard is very fast. We have an entire article about the choice of XQD on the IQ4. I can't confirm length-until-buffer, but my guess is it will be jaw dropping how fast you can shoot (in ES mode) without any buffer/lag either to card or tethered.

Do keep in mind the 3fps is for ES in 14-bit mode (no moving parts flopping around). When using the Leaf Shutter or Focal Plane Shutter the speed will be slower. Preliminary spec for normal shooting is 1.4 frames per second for focal plane shutter and 1.2 frames per second for leaf shutter (14 bit) and 0.7 frames per second 16-bit. It's possible those will change as they work on optimizing the timing of the sensor and mechanical bits.

It'll be interesting to see how the HAP1/2 upgrade will play into this - does the higher mp sensor really need the advances in the AF?  I still want to see how the HAP2 does with soccer.

Soccer may be a challenge. I find the XF HAP2 autofocus to be quite fast, but sports is a world unto its own when it comes to AF requirements. That said, it's definitely worth the try and depends very much on your needs. For example, a pro sports shooter for a magazine/newspaper knows there may only be three or four total moments in the game that really matter (maybe as few as one) and he/she needs to get great images of every one of those. In contrast, a parent shooting their child might, realistically, only care if they get two stellar shots the entire season; they just want a keepsake of their kid at that age playing that game (rather than extensive documentation of each game).

I love the ethernet port - will the IQ4 do the multi-camera sync like the iX line?

The iX line uses a very sophisticated timing system for multi-camera sync since those systems must fire within microseconds of each other.

That feature is not on the IQ4 but I can think of a number of ways to get them to fire at *very* similar times. For example you could set multiple XF IQ4 backs to Profoto Trigger and use use one Profoto Air trigger to fire them all. Due to a variety of reasons the timing wouldn't be as close as the iX but it would be very close by most non-industrial standards.

What would be your use case?

[pschefz]

only going with the largest sensor size makes sense, the question is how big is the difference in IQ between the new 33x44 100mpix sensor and the larger 150mpix sensor? throw in much better AF in a much smaller and lighter package for the 33x44 systems and the difference will be even smaller....
the IQ4 looks like a great back but i am not sure about what is in front of it....and now that is the only option....
at the end of the day sony spent most of the R&D that went into this....the sensor....and they are able to spread it around in a very wide net....

[Doug Peterson]

at the end of the day sony spent most of the R&D that went into this....the sensor....and they are able to spread it around in a very wide net....

I think this vastly underrates the amount of work that goes into a camera system.

An engine is a very important and very complex component in a car. But a car is far more than an engine.

[pschefz]

I think this vastly underrates the amount of work that goes into a camera system.

An engine is a very important and very complex component in a car. But a car is far more than an engine.

I dont doubt that phase has put a lot into this and making sure to optimize what they do best, get the best result off the sensor and into C1 for highest quality processing.....and now it looks like phase is the only one left standing in the large (ish) sensor camera game....the problem is that now (unless you want a tech camera) you have to use the XF....and the available lenses....
this sensor along with the pipeline screams for a mirrorless solution and i seriously doubt phase has the resources to come up with a solution worthy of it

[hubell]

I couldn't speak to any project, or lack thereof, to develop a small/compact camera. But here are some examples in recent years of P1 investing tons of R+D money into long-term projects:
- XF: they had to have a team working to improve/stabilize the DF/DF+ while also making a from-the-ground-up new camera
- C1v4: they had to keep a full software team working on updating Capture One 3 for several years worth of developing Capture One 4, which was a ground-up rewrite
- Schneider LS and LS Blue Ring line: they had already released a bevvy of Phase One D focal-plane lenses. Some of the LS versions were simply D lenses with a shutter, but many were ground-up new designs.
- iXG a ground-up redesign/reimagining of the DT RCam
- IQ1 a ground-up redesign of the P+
- IQ4 while it shares the "IQ" name prefix, it is as internally different from an IQ3 as the IQ1 was from the P65+

I think you could easily find forum posts from a month/year before each of these releases where people speculated if P1 was willing to invest long-term R+D money into brand new systems.

If had to rank the most compelling/unique company-attributes for P1, "investing in long-term R+D" would be second on my list, right after "ability to drink heartedly after hours".

Also, an IQ4 150mp on a small tech camera really isn't that large or heavy. It lacks autofocus of course, but that's not a major hinderance to many architectural/landscape/still-life/interior photographers, especially given the addition of better/faster live view with Live Focus Mask (focus peaking). An XF with one of the smaller lenses (e.g. 55/80/110) with a WLF is also pretty light (everything is relative of course).

All that said, I think the XF IQ will still be a big part of the lineup five or ten years from now. It's not a small/light system, but there are always compromises made (ergonomics, functionality, quality) required in going small, so whether or not they add a smaller/lighter system to the lineup (personally I hope they do) there will still be many use cases for an XF IQ or an IQ on a tech camera. This is, simply put, a camera where the only compromise is weight/size. In the past some (not many, but a meaningful niche) went for 4x5 or 8x10 over 645 or 6x7 or 6x17 even though they were meaningfully larger and heavier to carry. That is still the case today, and will still be the case tomorrow. To me the best possible case would be some big-brother little-brother pairing of an XF IQ with something smaller that could share as much as possible (lenses, accessories, interface, viewfinders, color response, even sensors somehow) and would allow you to pick form factor for a given job/shoot. When I'm shooting Terra Nudum I don't mind the XF size/weight one bit. When I'm shooting a wedding I still carry an XF but I'd be the first to say I wouldn't mind if it was half the weight!

Doug, in all candor, R&D projects you cite are yesterday's news. Not very exciting today. The heavy lifting on the R&D front these days is not coming from Phase. It's coming from Sony. Whatever improvements there are in an IQ4 150 back compared to the IQ3 100 are primarily a function of Phase One leveraging off what Sony has done with the new sensor. Hopefully, there is lots going on behind the scenes to develop a new from the ground up mirrorless system. I mean that sincerely. I have a great deal of respect for Phase's sensibilities about camera design, user interface, and color. If Phase gets the form factor right this time, I think they are likely to produce an exceptional, "Eurocentric" alternative to the GFX, albeit at a somewhat higher price point.

[Doug Peterson]

Doug, in all candor, R&D projects you cite are yesterday's news. Not very exciting today.

Absolutely. You don't get to rest on your laurels and none of the older projects mean anything today (except the IQ4 of course).

I only point them out as evidence that Phase One has shown, a consistent willingness to invest long-term in R+D projects. The past is never a guarantee of the future, but it's often the best indication we get.

Again, I'm not hinting at anything. Just speculating with the rest of ya'll.

The heavy lifting on the R&D front these days is not coming from Phase. It's coming from Sony. Whatever improvements there are in an IQ4 150 back compared to the IQ3 100 are primarily a function of Phase One leveraging off what Sony has done with the new sensor.

All of these are entirely unrelated to the sensor:
- Infinity Platform
- Capture One Inside
- Dual Next-Gen storage: XQD and SD with future support for CFexpress
- USB-C and Ethernet tethering
- Wireless Tethering (actual raw file transfer)
- In camera JPGs
- Pinch to Zoom
- Multi-finger gesture ready
- Brighter, Sharper, Faster LCD Previews
- Improved Dark-Frame workflow

And this is just the launch feature set. Look at the XF and where it was at launch vs the features it has gained (for free) since launch. That's the plan with the IQ4.