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Author Topic: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)  (Read 10081 times)

hubell

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #60 on: January 17, 2019, 09:57:39 pm »

Back on topic:

Was out with my IQ4 today, and still suffering from the Beta firmware. SO much is missing, it's really ridiculous.
Working tethered on XF,  couldn't find the power options (slow/fast charge from laptop USB-C) that were on the nicely evolved IQ3 firmware.
Anyone?

It's beyond me how Phase could try to change so much in one go, and end up with something that looks completely unchanged!

Basically feeling like I should hibernate for 3-5 months till firmware 2.0 comes out, and this thing is actually functioning like an IQ3.

In better news: Alpa has an IQ4 now, and are working hard on patching/hacking firmware that will work with their tech cams, especially the sync needed for FPS and Silex users.

Welcome to the reality of what happens when you order a $50,000 state of the art electronic device sight unseen and in advance. You are a beta tester. The only question is for how long.

Christopher

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #61 on: January 18, 2019, 05:49:28 pm »

While I agree that it has quite adequate things lacking it also works great since the last firmware. I didn’t have many problems and I for one am actually using it and it’s making me money.

Sure the IQ3 does that as well, but what’s the fun in using a 3 year old back for a job.


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JKevinScott

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #62 on: January 18, 2019, 06:40:46 pm »

While I agree that it has quite adequate things lacking it also works great since the last firmware. I didn’t have many problems and I for one am actually using it and it’s making me money.

Sure the IQ3 does that as well, but what’s the fun in using a 3 year old back for a job.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Same here.  Using it daily for stuff that matters.  There are issues that I hope get fixed soon.  But for studio work, it's on the whole a noticeable improvement over my IQ3-100 and I'm quite happy to have upgraded early.

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narikin

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #63 on: January 19, 2019, 08:35:12 pm »

Welcome to the reality of what happens when you order a $50,000 state of the art electronic device sight unseen and in advance. You are a beta tester. The only question is for how long.

That's harsh.

Phase have an upgrade path that has been pretty decent to regular customers, and... it always worked.
I've personally done:
P45+ to P65+,
P65+ to IQ180,
IQ180 to IQ3-100,

and all worked seamlessly out the box. Sure they added some extra features later (thank you!) but... it worked from Day 1.

it's just with
IQ3-100 to IQ4-150, that they seem to have stumbled.

It does work pretty darn well with the XF, so if that is your mainstay, then there is very little to gripe about. Enjoy!
Tech users however have been definitely overlooked, and that's a large group of Phase users, so it's very surprising.

I would not call this a disaster - the sensor and back are phenomenal advance. Phase One however needs to look hard at how it treats its partners (Alpa, Cambo, etc) and realize there are a significant group of users who simply can't use an XF, as it is not capable of what they need - maybe they work with tech movements or use stripped down lightweight hiking outfits like Alpa TC - but are loyal customers/ investors in the Phase One backs.   

To switch out the back connectors and not tell your 'partners' is wrong, to not give them sufficient heads up with pin specifications and suppliers of new plugs, so they can make cabling/ adapters well in advance, is wrong, to not have sync protocols for tech users from firmware 1.0, is wrong.

That's it. I think these issue will be resolved in a week or two, and every step after will be a delight as they unpack the incredible capabilities of this sensor.

I've already found the much faster ES sweep, despite the extra 50Mp, means I can shoot some movement I couldn't before, with IQ3.

Onwards!


« Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 08:50:15 am by narikin »
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Dan Wells

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #64 on: January 21, 2019, 12:39:58 pm »

How many IQ backs does Phase sell in a year? A few hundred? A thousand at most? This probably really limits their selection of components. It sounds like the battery itself is not bad - people have been putting better and better cells in that same physical form factor (they started out at 1900 mAh 15 years ago, and are now at 3400 in the same package).  Because it's an old design, it doesn't have the "smart" sensing circuits that allow Sony batteries or Mac laptops (for example) to report super-accurate remaining power figures.

Probably worse than the battery is the power to performance ratio of the electronics. You can't just call up Tim Cook at Apple and say "I'd like to buy 750 A12 processors, and oh, can I have iPhone X screens to go with them?". They don't sell those parts. Even commodity Android smartphone components are probably not available in the small quantities Phase needs, at least if you want anything modern, and especially if you need the board in an odd shape to fit in a back. Yes, a Phase back running the latest iPhone processor would be faster and much more power-efficient than whatever they're using (nobody's taken one apart, but one logical possibility is a tablet-spec ARM processor from 2-3 years ago or more - from Qualcomm, Samsung or someone else). It has to be an off-the-shelf processor that either Phase themselves or some custom shop is putting on odd-shaped boards - and processors take a while to trickle down from the state of the art that goes in high-end smartphones to what you can buy a few hundred of from a catalog.

Same with screens - they don't say much about it, except that it's an LCD (they'd love to use an OLED, but you can't buy those in small quantities). It's almost certainly whatever they can buy in a smallish size (there's no room for even a small phone screen), in small quantities. Even Nikon (who makes 20,000 Z-series cameras per month) can only get rear displays that are as good as a 3 year old phone. Phase is probably a generation farther back in the queue (and can't get a custom size - they have to use the largest standard size that fits).
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BernardLanguillier

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #65 on: January 21, 2019, 04:04:00 pm »

That's harsh.

Phase have an upgrade path that has been pretty decent to regular customers, and... it always worked.
I've personally done:
P45+ to P65+,
P65+ to IQ180,
IQ180 to IQ3-100,

and all worked seamlessly out the box. Sure they added some extra features later (thank you!) but... it worked from Day 1.

it's just with
IQ3-100 to IQ4-150, that they seem to have stumbled.

It doesn't take much to understand that P1 simply had to be the first with the 150mp sensor available in a product.

Since they have completely lost the 33x44mm sensor market to Hasselblad and Fuji (to the extend that they stopped selling backs with these), their survival depends on being the top player with the 150mp sensor.

It seems they made a call that rushing an announcement ahead of Hasselblad was the way to go.

Having suffered for nearly a year of a partially functioning firmware on the H6D-100c, I can completely relate to the complains.

Cheers,
Bernard

eronald

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #66 on: January 21, 2019, 09:48:55 pm »

It doesn't take much to understand that P1 simply had to be the first with the 150mp sensor available in a product.

Since they have completely lost the 33x44mm sensor market to Hasselblad and Fuji (to the extend that they stopped selling backs with these), their survival depends on being the top player with the 150mp sensor.

It seems they made a call that rushing an announcement ahead of Hasselblad was the way to go.

Having suffered for nearly a year of a partially functioning firmware on the H6D-100c, I can completely relate to the complains.

Cheers,
Bernard

Reminds me of a Japanese story, about suffering the hardware:  A young Samurai in a rush to get ahead went to a Master Swordsmith and asked him to forge the sharpest blade ever made. But during his first engagement the shiny new Katana broke in two, and shortly thereafter.the young Samurai himself was also bisected. Moral of the story: They who want to live on the bleeding edge of untested tech should remember that the novel sharp blade may often be brittle.


Edmund


« Last Edit: January 21, 2019, 10:28:38 pm by eronald »
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Doug Peterson

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #67 on: January 22, 2019, 09:56:07 am »

How many IQ backs does Phase sell in a year? A few hundred? A thousand at most?

Significantly more.

As to the rest of your speculation...
- An IQ4 has roughly the same computing power as an iPad Pro
- The screen on the back is not OLED, but it works very well for its intended purpose: quick evaluation of exposure, focus, and composition. Like with the IQ3 the IQ4 has built in WiFi so the user can use a phone (with some fancy new screen if desired) for live view, image review, rating etc. Note that this works today for the IQ3 but is still pending on the IQ4 and will come via a free firmware update.
- It’s true the batteries used in the IQ4 don’t have any fancy electronics embedded in them, but the difference there is pretty small in terms of performance. This also means that the Official Phase One battery is only $70, which is a pittance compared to the batteries for some other high-end cameras.

eronald

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #68 on: January 23, 2019, 12:26:03 am »

Significantly more.

As to the rest of your speculation...
- An IQ4 has roughly the same computing power as an iPad Pro
- The screen on the back is not OLED, but it works very well for its intended purpose: quick evaluation of exposure, focus, and composition. Like with the IQ3 the IQ4 has built in WiFi so the user can use a phone (with some fancy new screen if desired) for live view, image review, rating etc. Note that this works today for the IQ3 but is still pending on the IQ4 and will come via a free firmware update.
- It’s true the batteries used in the IQ4 don’t have any fancy electronics embedded in them, but the difference there is pretty small in terms of performance. This also means that the Official Phase One battery is only $70, which is a pittance compared to the batteries for some other high-end cameras.


Although the Phase batteries are well priced, I think I detect room here for a capacious third-part battery module :)

Edmund
« Last Edit: January 23, 2019, 09:44:44 pm by eronald »
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Dan Wells

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #69 on: January 31, 2019, 11:51:02 pm »

It would be hard to put a more capacious battery in the same slot (and the battery is internal). Whoever makes the batteries for Phase is using high-performance cells. The dimensions of the battery make it very likely that it's essentially two 18650 cells in parallel, and the highest capacity 18650 cells around are only 3600 mAh (many are in the low 2000s). 3400 mAh cells are very close to the best available...
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Jeffrey Lubeck

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Re: IQ4 150 first thoughts (and about that battery life!)
« Reply #70 on: February 02, 2019, 12:00:21 am »

Great perspectives on this post.  I have a little over a month under my belt with the IQ4 151 (also have IQ3 100 to compare for benchmark).

My first impressions are here:

www.jefflubeck.net.

I have moved on to testing with my Technical Camera (Cambo) and lens kit (Rodenstock, Schneider).  Given lack of device specific cables, I am using Electronic Shutter.  I have a day under my belt and am rather blown away by some of the results.  I did not expect the color accuracy, sharpness and depth of field to be so superb using ES.
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