6
Previews
At a recent press event, PN’s editorWill Cheung got to put the 645Z through its paces – albeit briefly. What are his first impressions? Pentax645Z
SPECS
The Pentax menu system is similar to most brands, so anyone familiar with tabs running across the top and specific items running down won’t be fazed. With plenty of tabs, it might take a while to get familiar with them, but it all seemed pretty straightforward. The 645Z has so many commonly used functions controlled by buttons (some are customisable too) and switches on the body itself that there’s not much need to go into the menu structure too often anyway. The monitor itself is lovely, big and clear. It’s tiltable, but not touch sensitive. You can record JPEGs at differing quality levels and Raw, in either PEF format or Adobe DNG. And you can record them together or individually. With a PNY Pro-Elite Plus SD card, continuous shootingmode and Adobe DNG Raw and the biggest JPEG file selected, I got five shots at 3fps before the camera buffered and then it took around 20 seconds to clear. While the 645Z is not designed for high speed shooting, this performance is perfectly good. While my hour with the camera and a few Gigs of files don’t rate as a thorough going over, first impressions are certainly favourable and I’m anticipating a longer, more in-depth partnership next time around.
Words by Will Cheung
STREET PRICE £6800 body only £7700 with the 55mm lens CONTACT www.ricoh-imaging.co.uk SENSOR 51.4-megapixel CMOS FILE FORMATS Raw (PEF/DNG), TIFF, JPEG SHUTTER SPEEDRANGE 1/4000sec-30secs, bulb ISORANGE 100-24,800 AUTOFOCUSING 27 AF MOVIE Full HD MONITOR 3.2in, tiltable TFT colour, approx 1037k dots DIMENSIONS (WXHXD) 156x117x123mm WEIGHT 1.55kg inc. battery & card points, 25 cross-type SHOOTING SPEED 3fps
Not every photographer wants to shoot medium- format and it’s true not every photographer can afford or needs the image quality of medium-format – but a great many photographers want the best image quality they can get and are not afraid of digging deep to pay for it. And at £6800 body only and with 51 megapixels, the Pentax 645Z could tempt them. With all that in mind, I got to spend an hour with a pre-production sample. And I’m happy to admit that I was impressed – and now I’m looking forward to trying a finished test sample when they arrive in the UK later this summer. The 645Z features a 14-bit 43.8x32.8mm Sony- made CMOS sensor and its ISO range is more in keeping with the 35mm full-frame rivals than with medium-format contenders. The ergonomic handgrip is excellent and deep so holding the camera single-handedly is no problem at all. Your right hand is kept very busy as many of the key controls are under it. Control layout and design is first-rate. Everything felt positive and assured, so no issues here.
ISOperformance
ISO 25,600
An impromptu ISO performance test reveals that digital noise is minimal until 3200. Colour noise is very noticeable from 25,600 onwards, but you’re unlikely to want to use those settings anyway. Please note these images were taken using a camera with beta version firmware, not the final version.
Tamron 16-300mmf/3.5-6.3 PZDVC
Getting hands-on with the new all-in-one contender fromTamron
The lens also includes Tamron’s VC (Vibration Compensation) feature and it really makes a difference when shutter speeds start dropping down. I was getting sharp pictures at 16mm at 1/6sec and 300mm, and I had success as low as 1/20sec and 1/30sec. Optically the lens impresses too. We’ll have a full test of this lens in the next issue of PN so we will cover this (and everything else) in more detail then. For now, it’s safe to say that if you are after a one-lens solution, this could be it.
Words by Will Cheung
SPECS
STREET PRICE £529 CONTACT
Tamron’s superzoom for the APS-C format impresses from the moment you pick it up. It’s remarkably light given the massive zoom range it encompasses and the 16 lens elements it contains. In the 35mm format this lens covers an equivalent of 24 to 450mm, which is remarkable for an interchangeable lens. I tried it on a Nikon D7100 and the combination was well balanced. The lens features Tamron’s PZD technology so the AF operates with barely a whisper. Perhaps more impressive, though, is its speed – even in low light it latched onto scenes with little or no hesitation. If the system does need help, there’s full-time manual focus override so fine adjustments can be made without having to switch the lens over to manual focus. Focusing is down to 39cm and this is possible at all focal lengths without any need to switch the lens over to any macro setting. It does mean that at the longer focal lengths you can successfully tackle subjects like insects because you get a nice working distance and a macro magnification of 2.9x.
www.tamron.co.uk CONSTRUCTION 16 elements in 12 groups APERTURE RANGE f/3.5-6.3 to f/22-40 MINIMUMFOCUS 39mm (at all focal lengths) giving 1:2.9
16MM
300MM
magnification FILTER SIZE 67mm LENS HOOD Supplied
DIMENSIONS (LXD) 99.5x75mm at 16mm, 181x75mm at 300mm WEIGHT 540g FITTINGS Canon, Nikon, Sony
It is impossible not to be impressed with this Tamron’s 18.7x zoom range. Just look at the two shots here taken without changing camera position.
Photography News | Issue 9
www.photography-news.co.uk
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