[drphoto]

I can't wait to try this, as I really miss view camera capability, and haven't been willing to shell out the $17K to over $25K for the competition.

Hope this lives up to the hype and is not another Kodak 14N moment. (man, what a complete POS that was!)

Only 14 bit, not 16 like the competion, but still a step up from 12 bit DSLRs.

[JohnR]

What would it fit on? (Sorry, I have no idea...!)

[nathanm]

According to the press release PDF it only works with three Mamiya bodies.  That would seem to rule out using it on a view camera.

[Woodsea]

Uh, yeah  I am asking for the Panasonic fz18, from Santa this year.  You guys are waay outta my league.  Kudos

[drphoto]

Spec page says adapter for view camera to be released later. Some 3rd party will do it too. Like that company that makes the sliding adapters for PhaseOne (can't remember the name)

[nathanm]

Oh it's waaay out of my league too, Woodsea.   But no matter, with film I've already got a 100 "megapixel" back anyway.  Now I wonder what would happen if you mounted a flatbed scanner onto a view camera...hmmm.  I must be missing something obvious.  Not bright enough perhaps?  I dunno why a Betterlight back is thousands when you can get a flatbed scanner for 80 bucks.  Does anyone remember those handheld scanners from years back?  They were like 4" wide and you had to drag them across stuff reaaal slow and real straight or it would go all wavy. 

[JohnR]

There's a guy that did that. Pretty interesting photos if anything was moving. I'll try dig up a link later.

[nathanm]

This guy's shots make a pretty ringing endorsement for the coolness of a high end digital back.  Now you must must must click All Sizes and view the original images.  And to think that these are limited by Flickr's 10MB upload.  Damn.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/karlstaddon/tags/p45/

Almost like being there!

[navi]

I've been thinking about the new canon 1Dsmark 3 (22mp) but the mamiya would be so much better. The only problem is having to buy all new lenses for the mamiya

[drphoto]

Hey Navi,

As an owner of the Canon 1Ds MKI and MKII, I'd be willing to bet that the MKIII will be outstanding. It even has 14 bit depth.

I want a digital back so I can do view camera stuff. My main thought is to shoot architecture using a normal lens, but slide the back to get a wide view (stiching them together digitally) without wide angle lens distortion. I'm not convinced that you can pan a fixed lens camera and stitch and get the same effect, as you are changing the perspective.

I'm much more of a technician than a creative, so I think architecture is an area I can get some solid work.

If you don't have that need, then the Canon should flat out kill. Other than their somewhat clunky interface, I think Canon rules the high end digital SLR market.

regards,

joe