Well I did some shooting with the Phase One P45+ in the last few days. As I have mentioned before, in the past I have used the Leaf 65 and the new Mamiya 645ZD. Both have given me superb images on ads and editorial assignments. I also continue to shoot medium format film.
So these are my immediate impressions from someone who has not used a Phase back, especially a 39 mpx back.
The back is simplicity itself to use, the menus are obvious, the screen easy to read. It operated flawlessly. Battery life was a little less than what I expected but not an issue, at least for my shooting. In sunlight the images on the LCD are useless, cannot be seen. For all the complaints about the Mamiya back, for me the LCD on the Phase was not that much more helpful either in sunlight or indoors where you can see it although the Phase LCD seems sharper with better color.
Shooting at 1.5 seconds per frame is maybe slow but the strobes take that long to cycle anyway. Even without cycling strobes I could live with that.
Capture One software to process the files seems like the way to go, for sure! They process quickly and they just pop. Much better than Adobe programs.
The downside with this back is the huge information in the file! Less than perfect makeup on a less than perfect complexion and you are going to be in for some skin work in PhotoShop. But this back can sure put out a photo. Colors, shadows, highlights and sharp. Very impressive. But it also does slow down my otherwise capable computers.
I used the back on a Mamiya 645AFDII with the 105-210AF Mamiya lens.
As a note, I only posted these comments just to share my first impressions AND NOT to start any kind of argument about one brand or another.
Thanks
