Pentax has just recently announced the launch of the PENTAX 645D medium format digital SLR camera with interchangeable lenses. The large image sensor, measuring 44mm by 33mm offers equal performance as standard medium-format camera backs, but instead as digital images instead of film.
Don't believe it? 40 megapixel effective resolution provides the highest resolution and detail ever seen in digital imaging, allowing these images to be blown up to incredibly large sizes and still maintain a high degree of fidelity. In addition, this new medium-format digital SLR is easy to handle, offering superb maneuverability and comfort, even in outdoor shooting. The PENTAX 645D was developed with the goal of super high resolution images in mind - thus the very large image sensor.
The easy to handle body makes it ideal for serious outdoor and landscape photography. While the exceptionally large image sensor provides unrivaled image quality at 40 effective megapixels, a lightweight yet solid body that is dust proof and weather resistant offers up exceptional durability. You even get reinforced glass LCD protectors so every part of your expensive new tool is protected.
Another outstanding feature is that the PENTAX 645D is designed to be compatible with the existing PENTAX 645 medium-format camera, which means existing 645-series users can interchange their lenses with the new digital model. The PENTAX 645D really does offer unprecedented image quality. The Kodak CCD image sensor it incorporates measures 44mm by 33mm, making it roughly 1.7 times larger than 35mm (full frame) DSLR image sensors. With a 40 MP effective resolution, you're assured a wire dynamic range that provides smooth and realistic gradients, and true to life textures. The most impressive image quality is further assured by the inclusion of the acclaimed PRIME II (PENTAX-original Real Image Engine) imaging engine. This engine produces super high quality images with faithful color reproduction and high speed data processing, along with fast data transmission - something desperately needed on this camera, since the RAW-format images produced by this camera are about 50MB per file. The PENTAX 645D features an advanced, high performances A/D (analog/digital) converter which accurately converts these huge amounts of analog image data from the CCD sensor to digital signals.
The PENTAX 645D also includes a plethora of other impressive features, including dual SD/SDHC memory slots, advanced sensor dust removal, 11 point auto-focus, 77-segment light metering, and custom image settings - allowing you to set saturation, hue, contrast, sharpness, and shadow/highlight contrast, as well as offering a Reversal Film mode mimicking a more classic image appearance. Additionally, there is the standard gambit of exposure and priority modes, along with a few bonus features, including an HDR setting which captures high dynamic range exposures and instantly creates one HDR image, under/over exposure repair, and chromatic aberration compensation. Truly, this is a highly impressive camera that you'll want to keep an eye out for - It is no doubt going to be turning lots of heads.
