Reader Comment: “painful to watch the slow death of Pentax”
Related: black and white, digital sensor, Fujifilm, Fujifilm medium format, Hasselblad, Hasselblad medium format, medium format, Pentax, Pentax 645Z, Pentax DSLR, Pentax medium format, reader comment, Roy P
re: Reader Comment: Black and White Photography “samples you have are some of the best I have seen”
Roy P writes:
Didn’t realize Pentax was still making its 645 cameras – I thought this line had ended with the Pentax 645D.
Well, it looks like somebody there woke up and read a newspaper ad for the Fujifilm GFX100S. The camera design shows how dated it is. Painful to watch the slow death.
Interestingly, here are the sensor comps:
Fujifilm GFX-50S: 8256 x 6192
Pentax 645Z: 8256 x 6192
Hasselblad X1D II 50C: 8272 x 6200So the Pentax 645z has the same sensor as in the Fujifilm GFX50S. Not sure what sensor the Hasselblad X1D II uses.
DIGLLOYD: I don’t think the sensors are the same in the Pentax 645Z as in the Fujifilm GFX-50S. I might be wrong, but the GFX50S has problematic color moiré and color aliasing issues (perhaps due to its micro lenses) and I don’t recall seeing that on the 645Z or the Hasselblad X1D II 50C. Plus the 645Z is a camera from 2014—a design that is 7 years old and 3 years older than the Fujifilm GFX-50S.
The Pentax 645Z offers superb image quality (see below), and without PDAF pixels. It would make make a superb monochrome camera if it can be converted, presumably even better than the Nikon D850 monochrome, but with (mostly) inferior lenses to Zeiss Milvus and Zeiss Otus. Maybe if the cost were half of what it is?
And it looks like Pentax (B&H Photo page) the pricing figures have been transposed for discount versus the price given current market conditions — seems like the discount of $2700 and price of $5000 should be swapped. And the Fujifilm GFX-50R was as low as $3500 for some months last year.
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Image from Aperture Series: Green Aspen Leaf on Black Rock (Pentax 645Z). Toggle to compare B&W to color.
PENTAX 645Z + Pentax 645 D FA 90mm f/2.8 Macro ED AW SR @ 70mm equiv (90mm)
RAW: push 0.8 stops, +20 Whites, +15 Clarity, USM {8,50,0}
[low-res image for bot]
