Last year I got a "used" back with few hundred captures (probably a demo unit), it was still new and I paid a fair price for it.
In the package the dealer left a leaflet saying all the nice words that good marketing makes say and ended with something on this line "now you will have your back that will serve your for many years".
That is true, and I will hardly buy another one in a long time.
I did a few thousands captures only with it, since i'm using DSLR 99% of the times and when I trave to Europe and I need a back, the clients rent me one. I do not bother carrying my cameras with me if I can.
In the fashion and AD related to fashion photographers field, the only ones who eventually cares about all the subtleties of shooting with a back, are eventually the photographers. otherwise nobody else care.
And 99% photographers in those fields can care less.
If I was to upgrade to a new 40/50 grands medium format package, I feel that the DB dealers are more on competition with my car and furniture dealers.
Yes Ziocan.
But then that would be also true regarding the Pentax. It is much cheaper and brings on the table impressive features, but as you pointed, at least in the area of fashion it is true that the only one who cares about high-end backs IQ is the photographer.
Canon or Nikon are hassle free, universals (specially Canon), cheaper, faster, lighter etc...Strictly talking, this Pentax is still a classic MF camera.
People who need perspective correction will need the backs, not this pentax, and even, as it has been said before, a tilt-shift Canon will do the job. I actually know a landscape and arquitecture photographer here that bought this year a 5D II and the tilt-shift and he is very happy with it to the point that it has become his first camera.
I think this Pentax will really tempting the landscapers and weddingers and the not-so-wealphy serious amateur.
To me, if I have to invest 7000euros cash on a gear, then I rather take a second-hand back because I can use it on different sort of cameras, or even a new Nikon D3s sold at that price + a decent lens. ( no Bernard, I'm not hill and you read well ).
As megapixels are not all, even buying 2 used first generation backs for that price or one back+ a 5D+laptop...the combinations are indeed extended.
Maybe we'll see very soon the traditional MF manufacturers (Phase, Hassy, Sinar etc...) in the hand of fewer people: very specific needs like museums, research, wealphy photographers that really want the best IQ for themselves, for their personal pleasure, artists that produce very large prints (and that sell high) etc...
If they don't react from now and start to be more creative, bringing new designs, new prices, new customer services etc...their range of potential buyer will reduced in a tiny exclusive niche. Instead of decreasing, prices will be higher. Many small MF brands will probably disapear.
So this is a serious situation for them.
They could for example provide the laptop included in the price to live view tether if they are not willing to improove that in the back itself.
Or provide for free to every buyer a pro website solution included in a bigger brand's web (ex: Phase users) with unlimited disk space, stable html platform, possibilities to generate jpegs in real time, client's control panel with customizations, professional data base with profile etc...
If your work is based on landscape big prints, then this Pentax is indeed a very very good choice. But then you really have to have this money and print big to make it sense. For very little you have a full frame 24MP sony that if not pushed in higher isos, delivers a fantastic IQ, and in prints the differences are not so drastic than on screen.
Also, I'm waiting to hear the current back users and how they will receive the Pentax file in real world. Remember that they are used to ASA 50 and huge room for post prod, and my first impression (it is just a first impression looking at the Pentax files) is that they are a little behind to what the Hassy and Phase and others are currently producing. Some samples are indeed impressive, but...sensor is not all, then all the savoir-faire behind and after. So far, I'm not sure about the room they really give in post-prod. Got the feeling that backs are doing slightly better than the Pentax in that aspect but it has to be confirmed in extensive use.
The today's reality is that this Pentax exists and at the same time, the second hand MF backs market is active and the world is in recession...3 factors that can change the game in the industry.
