Pixiq

Expectations have been pretty high for Pentax’s 645D. I mean, a vaguely affordable medium format camera is going to have people interested, never mind how heavy its magnesium-steel alloy dust-resistent body is. I have to say, what I really like about the camera is that it has dedicated buttons for almost all of its features, like aperture, ISO, metering mods, and on/off. Okay, at 30Mbs images take almost five seconds to save, but this is a medium format camera. Fancy knowing what the reviewers have said about this beast? I thought that you might…

Amateur Photographer says ‘As a professional tool the Pentax 645D offers an interesting alternative to the Hasselblad, and a huge increase in image quality from the Pro 35mm models. It is certainly at the affordable end of medium-format models, with a feature set and handling that either matches or betters the competition in many areas – and yet there was the potential for it to be even better, had it included Live View or even just a faster write and preview time.’ –  Read the full review at Amateur Photographer

DPReview says ‘The PENTAX 645D’s Hyper Program function allows the user to instantly switch from Programmed AE mode to Shutter- or Aperture-Priority AE mode with a simple turn of the electric dials positioned around the grip. A single push of the green button shifts the exposure mode back to the original Programmed AE mode.’ – Read the full review at DPReview

ePHOTOzine says ‘There is not a huge choice if you fancy a medium-format digital SLR and  you need a pretty healthy budget whichever model you go for. The Hasselblad H3DII-50 with a HCD 35-90mm f/4-5.6 lens kit costs around £18K and the Leica S2 comes in around £20K. In that context, the Pentax 645D is certainly price competitive – very, very competitive. In fact, it is competitve on many levels including handling, resolution and system support.’ Read the full review at ePHOTOzine

Imaging Resource says ‘As you’d expect from its 40-megapixel resoluton and medium format sensor size (actually, 44 x 33 mm; somewhat smaller than the 56 x 41.5mm 645 film frame), the Pentax 645D captures phenomenal amounts image of detail.’ - Read the full review at Imaging Resource

Luminous Landscape says ‘The 645D has changed the landscape of medium format digital.  Pentax has given us the best handling MFSLR at the lowest price thus far. Image quality is excellent, and the high ISO is very usable. The Mamiya DF and Hasselblad H bodies have suddenly started to look very long in the tooth. All is not perfect, because Pentax really needs to release a full line of digitally-optimized lenses. The 55mm SDM is but a start, and a few question marks hover over the quality of their ‘legacy’ lenses.’ - Read the full review at Photo Guru

Photo Guru says ‘Taking full advantage of the unique capability of digital cameras for the automatic shifting of sensitivity at any time, the Shutter/Aperture-Priority (TAv) mode automatically selects the most appropriate sensitivity for the user-selected aperture/shutter-speed combination. It allows the user to effortlessly experiment with a greater range of photographic expressions.’ - Read the full review at Photo Guru

Photo Radar says ‘The Pentax 645D has a beautifully engineered body with a grip that is a joy to hold. The focusing screen and LCD pack in lots of detail, and there are well-designed buttons and knows for practically all key controls. The 645D produces very detailed pictures, which offer an impressive colour gradation and tone. Its high ISO performance is outstanding. Processing speeds could do with being much faster, however, as you have a five second wait before shots appear on screen.’ – Read the full review at Photo Radar

What Digital Camera says ‘The Pentax 645D uses a Kodak 40MP CCD sensor, which outputs at 7264×5440 pixels in 14-bit Raw (PEF or Adobe DNG) or JPEG. At 44x33mm in size it’s smaller than a true 6×4.5cm frame but still 1.7 times larger than a full-frame (35mm) sensor. This means its new lenses have a 0.79x crop factor.’ – Read the full review at What Digital Camera