Now that is a nice comprehensive checklist of the usual things a pro who puts his job at stake with the camera/workflow he uses needs to know! I suggest to the Jenoptik people that they print it big and hang it in their testlab for everybody involved to look at, every day, before any new announcement is being made. (I am personally sick of this whole concept where the testing has to be done by the clients - after they have spend their money. At this level of professionalism (and price level) products have to fully work as advertised in the environment where they are supposed to be used. Why do I have to agree to a disclaimer that says "software is supplied 'as is' and no warranties are made that it will work" in order to be able to use very expensive, professional equipment?)
I could/should have added to this but it was late.
1. Does tethering work up to 30' without a powerered firewire repeater?
2. Does the camera/back self power in tethering, i.e. for problematic mac's with limited firewire power or working pc.
3. Does the software require special graphics cards, i.e. will it work with a macbook pro, 24" I-mac, etc.
4. Does the back have the ability to shoot jpgs or raw/jpegs to the cf card simutaneuously when tethering.
5. Can you set color, tone, (your film look in the software) and then embed that into the back for non tethered shooting, so if you go from tethering to portable you have the same look?
6. Does the software require online activation (God I hate this as I own a lot of computers, including backup, but NEVER run the software more than on two computers at once, so with Phase I own two liscenses).
7. Does the firmware upgrades come from the software or the firmware and if so, if a firmware upgrade has a glitch, i.e. bad green color previews, lines in the frame, half black frames, centerfold, wonky grey balance settings (I've seen em all) can you go back to a previous version so you can keep working?
8. Are the previews in the software smooth and film like or hard and crunchy, think C-1 3.78 for the hard and crunch, think EOS utility for nice and smooth and film like.
9. Does the software retstart quickly. If the firewire cord is pulled out during working is it a 1 minute restart of software or a 10, 15 minute troubleshooting session of restarting computers, drives, etc.
10. Can you rename on the fly?
Now this and the other list is off the top of my head and this comes from experience of having everything happen as above and how to work around it.
The thing is the Phase and C-1 do most of the good things I've mentioned and a few of the bad, (the previews and sometimes some firewire issues), though at least the back powers itself.
I would suggest strongly that your new camera/back has previews still in the back for review or at least hold the last frame until you start shooting again, so the photogrpaher doesn't have to run over to the computer station to check the last frame.
Now the real kicker to all this is the 1ds3 does everything on these two lists and does it for $7,000. I would imagine the 5d2 will also for $3,000, so we are now in no excuse land where any medium format back will have to work as well and as functional as a professional dslr.
This isn't direct to Sinar, this is directed to all medium format. NO more excuses. Make your equipment as usable and reliable as a Canon, make it EASY to buy, make it EASY to rent. If you hae good dealers, reward them, bad dealers . . . drop them. Get this stuff on the shelf and ready to buy. Also paint it black.
No more excuses.
JR