As you may recall, a few months ago I sold a bunch of my K-mount and APS-C gear and applied the proceeds toward the purchase of a Pentax 645Z. This is my story… ------------------ Comments/reflection on my experience to date with the 645Z
I’ve had my 645Z for about 3 months now. What follows is melange of my thoughts and feelings about the camera. I come here neither to praise it nor to bury it; rather I hope to provide a personal viewpoint which may provide a different perspective for anyone looking for information and trying to decide whether they should contemplate such a purchase. Many of my comments are going to be a compare/contrast with Pentax APS-C DSLR’s, particularly the K-5 and K-3. I held a 645D once for about 5 minutes and don’t feel qualified by that experience to make many comparisons between the 645D (still marketed at $5000) and the 645Z ($8500). It is, however, quite well established that Pentax has leveraged their 35mm and APS-C developments when building their medium format cameras. The original 645 used A-series style lenses with metering and other electronic and mechanical components directly cloned from or inspired by contemporary pre-AF 35mm bodies. Then came FA-style 645 lenses and bodies to match. When the 645D was introduced in 2010, it borrowed heavily from the then current K-7 firmware and systems. No surprise then that the 645Z, introduced this last spring/summer borrows heavily from the K-3. I am not sure if the DA-style lenses are new with the Z or if they were available for the D; in any case, as with the K mount, Pentax has modified and updated their 645 mount but has never lost backward compatibility. There are bucket loads of good-condition A and FA lenses out there on the used market. There have been several reviews of the 645Z done by people who regularly do reviews of cameras. The most recent I know of was on the Pentax Forum site (first posted in October) and that is actually quite well done. I strongly suspect that the reviewers have never seen any film camera, much less the Pentax 645’s, and so their comments are unbiased by any deep knowledge of the system. They do seem to know the K-3 though, and use that and the 645D as points of comparison throughout their review. If you are interested in a more “professional” review, complete with specs and frame rates and ISO limits, go there and read that. OK, enough disclaimers and background. Part 1: What’s to like and not like about the 645Z? (in no particular order with + for good, - for not so good, and • for neutral)) - no built-in flash. On K-3 etc the built-in can be an effective trigger for a remote flash.With the 645Z you need a second flash to mount on the camera to serve as the controller, or you need to buy into a 3rd party trigger system, or you need to directly wire your remote flashes. + no built in flash. Most people most of the time are not going to want to use wireless remote flashes; those that do can buy what they need. Those that don’t can be glad there is one less system to go wrong. + The O-GP1 unit works just fine, as expected, as a GPS tracker/logger. - No in-body SR. The sensor does vibrate to shrug off dust but it does not move to compensate for camera movement while shooting. Maybe the sensor is too big a mass to be able to adapt/adopt the K-20/7/5/3 SR mechanisms? The newer DA-series lenses are coming with in-lens SR, so I see little chance that in-body SR is ever going to happen. - No Astrotracer. Yeah, the O-GP1 communicates with the body just fine, but with no SR-derived mechanism to move the sensor, Astrotracing is not going to happen. + Large bright tilting LCD display. A wonderful complement to the Liveview system for precise focusing. + Uses the same SD cards as the K-3 etc. + Two cards slots as with the K-3. 51mb+ files can fill up a 16 or 32gb card in a hurry. - The firmware to manage the allocation of images to cards in the two slots is no better than on the K-3. (You may recall a thread from Rob Studdert a few months ago re his struggles with the two-card system.) - The SD card slots are on the left side of the camera. Minor nuisance, but after 12 (?) years of inserting SD cards into the right side of APS-C bodies, I seem to have this tendency to look for the slots on the right. - The AF button is the same as on the 645D, the same relative position as the AF button on the K-5 and earlier. A major benefit to me of moving from the K-5ii to the K-3 was what I consider a better design, a better location for the AF button on the K-3. Not such a big deal that the 645z does not incorporate the K-3 style positioning of the AF button since mostly the 645Z will be on a tripod, but still it is an annoyance that slows me down. - Size and weight. This is a big heavy beast. Twice the weight of the K-3. Takes up significant real-estate in a camera bag. + Size and weight. This is a solidly built camera that should last a very long time with reasonable care. I remember the second (film era) 645 I bought many years ago whose plastic body shell got cracked in shipping, even though it was well packed and there was no visible damage to the box. Ain’t gonna happen with this beast. - Size. I’ve now traveled with this camera through parts of Ontario, Michigan, and New York. Some small portions of England, five Atlantic and Caribbean islands, and Puerto Rico. I am used to being somewhat unobtrusive, if not invisible, when walking the streets. Carrying a tripod somewhat blows my cover, but even when I left the tripod behind, I was surprised to get a comment every hour or two such as “wow, that is a big camera. Is it heavy?” This is when carrying the camera loosely in my right hand by my side, not hanging around my neck or on my shoulder, up where it would be more obvious. + Uses the same battery as with the K-3 and earlier APS-C bodies. I love being able to take a small handful of spare batteries on a trip, not needing to plan ahead what the likely usage of the K-3 is going to be vs. the 645Z. And I only need the one charger. [to be continued] -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
