The biggest attraction in digital medium format to me is the image quality. Sure, the huge file sizes can come in handy but the dynamic range and the depth in the images are even more important to me. I’m sometimes frustrated with the lack of range and gradual transitions in standard DSLR images. But on the other hand I find that the ergonomics and slowness of medium format, often slows me down to much to shoot in my style for a majority of the jobs I do. And then there is the price tag of MF. So I only rent a digital MF camera if the job really requires the image quality and comes with the budget for rental and spending more time on the shoot.

But things are changing in the digital MF world, and because I like the image quality so much, I keep an eye on the evolutions. Pentax announced the 645D so long ago and kept postponing the release so often, that many thought it would never come. But it’s here now. The specifications look very interesting and promise a medium format camera that handles like an ordinary DSLR. So when I was asked by Shoot Magazine to test the Pentax, I jumped to the occasion.

All medium format camera’s work well in studio or another controlled environment but I wanted to see how the camera handles in a real world location shoot. It was also a last minute thing so we improvised a fashion/portrait shoot in the snow. Lien volunteered to model, Andy assisted and Pieter walked around with a video camera (yes, there’s a behind-the-scenes-video). I wanted a challenging environment and that’s exactly what I got, maybe even a bit too challenging as it was terribly cold. It was just unbearable to work for more than 5 minutes at the time before taking a 15 minute heating up break in the car. So we had to improvise and working really fast. I was curious to see how the Pentax handled such a situation.

First impressions count, so here they are: Even though the camera came without a manual and I’ve never shot a Pentax before, I was shooting within a couple of minutes. The shape of the body may look a bit weird but is very ergonomically and surprisingly light yet sturdy. All the buttons are where you’d expect them to be and I could even operate them with big gloves. Pentax Belgium delivered the camera with the relatively light and compact 55mm 2.8 lens which is like a 40mm on a full frame DSLR.

The viewfinder may not be as big as some of the other MF camera’s but it’s still a lot bigger than your average Canon or Nikon. The LCD screen is also pretty good. Some people say the LCD-screen on a MF camera is unimportant because you’re supposed to tether it to a computer. I don’t agree. I like to shoot tethered whenever possible but sometimes it’s just not practical and then I like to have a decent LCD.

The autofocus is fast and accurate with several focus points. That’s a pretty normal feature in DSLR land, even the entry level camera’s have decent autofocus but not all medium format score very well in this discipline.

The buffer is big enough to keep shooting at a normal pace while the camera writes the images to the card. Dual SD card slots instead of CF, seem a bit of an odd choice to me, but hey, why not? The downside of the buffer is that it has to be emptied completely before you can go through the images. I found out that 10 seconds can seem really long when your genitals are freezing off.

Another downside is that the flash sync is only 1/125 while some MF camera’s can go to 1/500 and higher. It may seem like a small thing but I know shooters who switched to MF only for the faster sync speed.

For this kind of work, I’d normally shoot a longer lens but the Pentax 55mm lens pushed me towards more creative angles and compositions. It seems to distort very little but this isn’t a lens for headshots off-course.

When I looked at the picture on my computer later, the first thing you notice is how big 40 megapixels really is. Even for high end commercial jobs, 40 megapixels is often not a must for the end result. But more pixels, means more options when retouching. But like I said before even more important than the image size, is the image depth and the Pentax certainly didn’t disappoint. Even at high iso’s the noise levels where pretty acceptable and the colors are crisp and clean.

Conclusion: I’m pretty impressed with this camera. It’s a nice combination of image quality and usability. When my work shifts even more towards bigger commercial jobs and pure portraiture (and less reportage style work), I will strongly consider going the medium format way and the Pentax would stand a good chance. I hope to test out some other MF-systems in the near future so that I can compare them to the Pentax.

The behind-the-scenes video is coming very soon!
EDIT: here’s the video