photo related announcements

KonicaMinolta has finally expanded its lineup by introducing  Dynax 5D. If it’s at least remotely similar to 7D it should do quite well.
They’re introducing  three[ (well actualy  four ) new lenses to go with it.
A sweet 35 mm F1.4 lens and three digital specific lenses covering wider angles. 11-18 seems to be a standard range for extreme wideangles from everyone except Nikon and Canon.

What I’m even more excited about (even though I’ll probably never be able to use one, maybe I’ll get to hold one) are the new Phase One medium format backs.

The P45, P30 and P21. The numbers do not indicate megapixels although they’re not that far away to be honest. The P45 holds together a whopping 39 megapixels making it the

…highest resolution single-shot imaging device ever made. This produces a 112 Megabyte file in 8 bit mode, and a 224 megapixel file in 16 bit mode. Yes – almost a quarter Gigabyte file from a single one-shot frame. Using Phase One’s IIQ Large lossless file format each image will occupy approximately 47MB in the CF card. (Don’t even think of opening a quarter gig file in Photoshop unless you have at least 2GB of RAM in your computer).

The retail price is hardly worth mentioning, I spend that much just for lunch every day – US $29,995 plus US $3000 for The Value Added offer that provides:


– a 3 years warranty
– 24 hour replacement service
– Capture One Pro software (also supports a wide range of DSLRs)
– A 1GB CF card
– Free exchange of the back for another of the same type, but for a different camera model, within the first year
– free installation and training

Would I want one? Not really, it only shoots 35 frames per minute and has a usable range of ISO 50-400. It’s relatively slow and since I shoot above ISO800 almost 50% of the time it’s not really what I’m looking for.
Plus it probably weighs a ton without the actual camera body.

And of course we can’t forget the fact I’d fill my 20GB Image Tank in a matter of minutes, a DVD would hold some 20 shots…. I wouldn’t even bother

No… what I’d like is something like  Leica Digilux 2 but with a larger sensor (4/3s format would be ideal) with high ISO capabilities of my 20D and a larger buffer.

No comments yet. Be the first.

Leave a remark

Gallery