MarkBarbieri
Semi-retired
- Joined
- Aug 20, 2006
- Messages
- 6,172
OK, were definitely not there yet, but Pentax has certainly staked out a much lower price point in the market ($10,000 for the body). There is an interesting review on The Luminous Landscape. I must say, it looks luscious. The problem is still the cost. It's not just the $10K; it's also buying new lenses and those things are also staggeringly expensive. I expect that the price of MF digital bodies will keep going down (although I don't think we'll see any jumps as dramatic as this for a while), but the glass prices probably won't drop.
So what do you get for all that money? A bigger sensor. 40 megapixels. You don't get much else that you normally expect as you move up the camera food chain. Compared with a high end DSLR, you actually step backwards in high ISO performance, AF performance, and stuff like that. The bigger sensor primarily benefits you with higher resolution and the ability to use larger lenses with better resolving power. Basically, it's for people that want to print big. I use a 21 megapixel camera and print on a 24" wide printer and I can definitely say that the extra pixels would be welcome for some types of shots.
How much bigger is it? It's not quite traditional medium format size. I think the crop factor relative to MF is 1.3x. It's 1.7x larger than a "full frame" sensor. For comparison, FF is 2.4x larger than APS-C, which is 1.5x larger than the Olympus 4/3rds sensors.
Do I want one? Yep. Will I get one? No. It's a bridge too far. That's a lot of money for incremental gain.
So what do you get for all that money? A bigger sensor. 40 megapixels. You don't get much else that you normally expect as you move up the camera food chain. Compared with a high end DSLR, you actually step backwards in high ISO performance, AF performance, and stuff like that. The bigger sensor primarily benefits you with higher resolution and the ability to use larger lenses with better resolving power. Basically, it's for people that want to print big. I use a 21 megapixel camera and print on a 24" wide printer and I can definitely say that the extra pixels would be welcome for some types of shots.
How much bigger is it? It's not quite traditional medium format size. I think the crop factor relative to MF is 1.3x. It's 1.7x larger than a "full frame" sensor. For comparison, FF is 2.4x larger than APS-C, which is 1.5x larger than the Olympus 4/3rds sensors.
Do I want one? Yep. Will I get one? No. It's a bridge too far. That's a lot of money for incremental gain.
