Phase One news….

/4 Comments/in /by

Ok, now this is something worth sharing 😀
Today Phase One introduced a completely new digital back, and what a beauty it is.
I know I’m a big advocate for the Leaf digital backs, and I hope Leaf will also release something similar in the 33MP range (80 is a bit overkill for me) but till that time you can see what the future of Medium Format looks like (well actually the future is now).

One of the biggest problems with digital backs has been the display, where Canon/Nikon etc. give the photographer an amazing display the Medium format backs always has been, well put it lightly bad… or in other words almost useless. Of course they work but you can’t really see what you want and add some sunlight and the images are just very poor. This is one of the reasons I always loved the new AptusII from Leaf, they had a huge screen and the brightness was good enough to operate the camera in bright sun and the images… well ok they looked ok (nothing more).

The new IQ series from Phase are going to change all that.
Let’s look at some of the features I think are very interesting….

1. New display
a retina 3.2″ display and if it looks like the iPhone that would be awesome.
It promises 1.15MP 290ppi and a 170degrees viewing angle.

2. Gestures
think about instant zoom, histograms zoom in when touched etc.

3. Enclosed battery
It charges when shooting tethered so you never have to worry about an empty battery again when switching from tethered to shooting on the card.

4. Focus mask
LOVE this feature in Capture One and now it’s on the back.
This is something that got me really excited (after the display that is), this makes live so much easier to quickly check if you have a shot in focus, talk about a huge improvement over everything else, actually I hope that Canon/Nikon and Leaf will soon have this as a standard option, it’s really priceless.

5. Fast tethering
Firewire 800 but also USB3 !

6. Sensor +
For people not knowing what Sensor + is.
With Sensor + you can choose to use less pixels but higher ISOs (up to 3200)

7. Vertical and horizontal capture guidance
A build in capture guidance helps you to level your shots.

The new IQ range will consist of three backs at the moment :
IQ180 a 1.0 crop 53.7 x 40.4 sensor with 80MP (20 sensor+)
IQ140 a 1.3 crop 43.9 x 32.9 sensor with 40MP (10 sensor+)
IQ160 a 1.0 crop 53.9 x 40.4 sensor with 60MP (15 sensor+)

All backs have 1GB advanced high speed RAM buffer.
Pricing is higher than the AptusII backs (a lot) but the specs look real promising and I hope Leaf will soon release something similar, can’t wait to have a better display and focus mask 😀

For more information please visit www.phaseone.com

4 replies
  1. HG
    HG says:

    minor improvements, we need HD video more than any more pixels! Otherwise, the RED Epic will be a much better deal.

    • Frank Doorhof
      Frank Doorhof says:

      I do find it a huge improvement, we really needed a better display, also the speed looks incredibly improved with the gestures, and don’t forget the usb3.

      Video on MF I don’t care about, try to keep a 5dmkii in focus at f4 😉 a MF sensor would mean you had to shoot at at least f8 and high iso to keep everything in focus.

      Also I think the 5dmkii is already pretty good for video, my MF system is used for different stuff.

      Price wise it’s steep so for most people it’s out of range, but it’s a step towards adding this to the rest of the lineup of course, just wait a year I guess and we will see this in the cheaper lines (I hope).

      At the moment I’m more than happy with the aptusII7 and image quality will be roughly the same, but again a better display and the sensor plus technology is very interesting. And the focus maske is always nice to have but I hope that will be possible with a firmware upgrade somehow

Comments are closed.