Re: Whatever happened to Pentax?

John McWilliams wrote:
> Pudentame wrote:
>> David J. Littleboy wrote:
>>> "Pudentame" <no.one@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>>>> I don't know if the market is really there for medium format 
>>>> digital, since all the MF digital I know of on the market are 
>>>> actually crop sensors, none of them actually 6x4.5, 6x6, or 6x7.
>>>
>>> (Note that the actuall MF frame sizes are 42x56, 56x56, and 56x70mm.)
>>>
>>> The current "cropped" MF digital sensors are 36x48, which is exactly 
>>> twice the area of "FF", and so does have a theoretical advantage. It 
>>> also turns out that MF lenses are razor sharp on 5D density digital 
>>> sensors, so 24MP and higher images that are painfully sharp corner to 
>>> corner are a piece of cake for MF digital. Anything 24MP and over in 
>>> FF is going to be a stretch for even the best Nikkor or Canon lenses 
>>> at anything other than f/8 or f/11.
>>
>> There's also the cost. Medium Format film was affordable, medium 
>> format digital not so much, with digital backs selling upwards of 
>> $10K, although, IIRC, the Pentax 645D was planned to come on the 
>> market around $4K.
>>
>> Medium format film thrived because even rank amateurs could afford it. 
>> I don't know if we'll see medium format digital get there.
> 
> We will, as to affordability, at least.

Not with the current technology any time soon though. Big sensors cost 
big bucks and the future cost savings is in miniaturization. But you 
never know, I was reading about OLED technology that can make large high 
res monitors on paper thin, high dynamic range, low energy use materials 
that can roll up like a sheet of paper; maybe something like that will 
come along for image sensor technology. If it did, we'd be back at 
square one where you'd need a big klunky outfit to get a limited 
expensive choice of lenses, painfully slow exposures & vani****ngly 
shallow depths of field. But that could be fun if the latest sensor 
could be printed out on an inkjet for $40.

> Marketability is possibly a 
> bigger question. I'd sure like one at less than $3,000, but not a back, 
> and integrated design.
>