ON WITH THE SHOW!

With a bit more experimentation I now know the P25’s problem is NOT lens cast, it is sensor cast. Whether the sensor cast is from the sensor itself, or caused by the IR filter - that is unknown. In December the P25 was tested on two different Mamiya 645 AFD & AFD II bodies and produced the same cast with two different 80mm F2.8 AF lenses. About a week ago the Mamiya 200mm F2.8 APO arrived and the cast is identical whether shot with the 80mm F2.8 AF or the 200mm F2.8 APO. I will continue to update the blog as more information comes available.

WHAT’S NEW

I have been using Phase One’s latest release of C1 (Version 4.01) since its release about a month ago. With the Canon dSLRs I used DPP for years. Like most people I tried other converters as they came available, but I always came back to DPP. DPP produced the best color and cleanest files, so it became my benchmark. I can say with complete confidence that the P25 blows away the Canon 1Ds Mark II in terms of color, sharpness, contrast, etc.

I am still getting used to the C1 workflow and the Phase One way of doing things, but when comparing a raw file from the Canon 1Ds Mark II processed in DPP and converted to a 16 bit TIFF against a raw file from the Phase One P25 processed in C1v4 and converted to a 16 bit TIFF - the difference is huge. I love the Canon 1Ds Mark II for its ergonomics, auto focus, ease of use, etc., but when it comes to image quality the Phase One P25 wins - very easily.

Highlight recovery and shadow detail are nothing new for most raw editors - but it is new to C1 and it is nice to have these tools in C1 rather than performing the edits downstream in Photoshop CS3. C1’s s-curve tends to push exposure about .5 to .75 stops, so the highlight cover is somewhat bogus because in part it is “recovering” what the s-curve just blew out.

The colors produced by C1v4 are very rich and vibrant. I feel like the images have more pop to them than those processed in C1 Pro 3.7.7. It is probably due to the more intelligent levels editing. C1 Version 4 is not perfect and I am not trying to convince anyone that it is digital nirvana. My point is simple - I’m not missing Canon’s DPP software and that is a big step for me.

NEW TOYS

A host of new gizmos have arrived over the past couple weeks - a Mamiya 12mm tube, 36mm tube, 2X extender and the Mamiya 200mm F2.8 N APO. The tubes are for the Mamiya 80mm F2.8 AF lens. That brings us to the 200mm F2.8 APO which has been been a really nice surprise. Feeling a bit bored one day, I clicked the buy and hoped for the best. Normally I do not have much use for 200mm on a full-frame 35mm dSLR, but on a 645 medium format camera 200mm fits my style. The Mamiya 200mm F2.8 APO is very sharp wide open and color & contrast are excellent. The files really pop compared to the Canon 200mm L F2.8 II. With ISO 50 getting decent shutter speeds is tricky at times, but the lens itself is very good. There are some images from the APO added to the P25 gallery; they speak for themselves.

There is not any particular reason why I like the Mamiya 200mm F2.8 APO. After several hundred more images I may be able to come up with specific reasons, but for now it just reminds me of the Canon EF 200mm L F1.8. The depth of field is very thin, so the shots have wonderful background blurs - almost to point to complete abstraction. It is very sharp wide open, so it is just a fun lens to shoot with for now.  The three images on this page were shot with the Mamiya 200mm F2.8 APO.