{"id":4156,"date":"2014-10-25T17:00:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=4156"},"modified":"2014-10-25T17:05:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-25T16:05:44","slug":"pentax-645z-hands-on-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/?p=4156","title":{"rendered":"Pentax 645Z Hands On Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

The last time I got to play with a medium format camera was a few years back at Hasselblad<\/a>. Back then I loved the quality of the photos but found the experience of using the camera cumbersome compared to a DSLR.<\/p>\n

Jump forward to late 2014, switch brands to Pentax and things have really changed for the better.<\/p>\n

I got some hands on time with the Pentax 645Z<\/a> <\/strong>thanks to a Park Cameras and Pentax\/Ricoh offering a two hour group try-out session. Shooting time was limited and the style was a studio shoot run by my good friend Will Cheung. With that in mind please remember this isn\u2019t a full on camera review.<\/p>\n

\"Untitled-2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

First impressions<\/strong><\/span>
\nComing from a Canon 5D2, the Pentax 645Z feels\u00a0big and heavy but I\u2019d expect nothing less. \u00a0Once you get past the size it\u2019s a great camera to hold and feels very DSLR in design.<\/p>\n

The viewfinder was big, bright and brilliant to use and same could be said for the LCD screen on the back. In fact I swear some of the buttons and controls have been lifted from the Pentax DSLR range, they looked so familiar.<\/p>\n

The first big surprise came when I popped my 32GB SD card into one of the two slots. Even though the card was empty I had just 219 available (RAW+JPG) photos before it was full. The Pentax packs a whopping 51.4 million pixel sensor with RAW files averaging out at around 65MB and JPG\u2019s at 18MB each.<\/p>\n

\"IMGP9994\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In Use<\/strong><\/span>
\nUsing the Pentax 645Z was real pleasure, the shutter fired with a satisfying clunk and the photos appeared almost instantly on the LCD. Pentax made a big thing about the focusing system, with its 27 AF points 25 of which are cross type and so on. However in practice I found the focus slightly sluggish. Not sloooow but certainly not as fast as I\u2019m used to. To be honest I can\u2019t say if that\u2019s just how it is with this camera or if it’s down to the\u00a090mm lens I was using.<\/p>\n

Those big files take time to write to the card. Fortunately I packed one of my fast SD cards that I use for capturing video but I noticed a couple of the other photographers were using standard SD cards. At the end of their session they needed to wait some time before the files had been written to the card and they could safely remove it.<\/p>\n

Features<\/strong><\/span>
\nPentax were really keen to talk up a few of the features that make the 645Z different from other medium format cameras. For example it can shoot at 3 frames per second, it\u2019s weather sealed, it shoots video and it shoots at high ISO. I really wanted to test the last one so here\u2019s a series of (JPG) photos starting at ISO6400 (Where my Canon 5D2 stops) right up to a jaw dropping and utterly useless ISO204800<\/p>\n

\"Pentax645-HiRes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s hardly a definitive test but from what I can see that\u2019s probably one of the best high ISO performances I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

Reviewing the photos<\/strong><\/span>
\nSo the big question is how did the photos look? In a word they were\u2026 detailed!<\/p>\n

We only got the chance to shoot portraits but when I viewed at 1 to 1 in Lightroom every little blemish, imperfection and detail could be seen. That level of detail is perfect for\u00a0many photographers needs but for my portraits it would\u00a0mean a little more retouching might be required!<\/p>\n

Yes the sensor has lots of pixels but it\u2019s also big in size at 43.8mmx32.8mm. The bigger the physical size of the sensor the shallower the depth of field and when reviewing my photos I could see that my usual f\/8 was giving me a noticeable reduction in depth of field.<\/p>\n

\"IMGP0097\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Final thoughts<\/strong><\/span>
\nWith a price point of \u00a36800 body only and limited selection of lens to choose from, the Pentax 645Z isn\u2019t on my real world shopping list but part of me wishes it was.<\/p>\n

The price may seem high but compared to its competitors at Hasselblad and PhaseOne it a bargain. And when you consider the Pentax uses exactly the same sensor as it\u2019s medium format competitors, it\u2019s not surprising that the Pentax 645Z is constantly on back order at retailers.<\/p>\n

\"20141022_150908\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to thank Mark and Luke from Pentax\/Ricoh for letting me get my hands on the camera, Park cameras for providing the venue and Will Cheung for being a brilliant teacher\/assistant and for continuing his tradition of wearing truly terrible shirts \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The last time I got to play with a medium format camera was a few years back at Hasselblad. Back then I loved the quality of the photos but found the experience of using the camera cumbersome compared to a DSLR. Jump forward to late 2014, switch brands to Pentax and things have really changed … Continue reading Pentax 645Z Hands On Experience<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4160,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45,23,171,36,24],"class_list":["post-4156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-camera","tag-featured","tag-pentax","tag-photography","tag-spotlight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4156"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4170,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4156\/revisions\/4170"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gavtrain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}