Unboxing the Pentax 645Z

Ladies and gentlemen, I've got him!

Unboxing the Pentax 645Z

Guess what arrived today? Yes, my brand new Pentax 645Z medium format digital camera. Pentax was my ticket into the world of medium format photography and this is the latest addition to my small collection of Pentax cameras. As I have a nice set of lenses for the 645 system I bought just the body and I had it delivered home. 

The outer box when opened reveals a grey box with just Pentax on it. When you open the grey box a black box appears with 645Z on it. A nice touch is the inside of the top cover of the grey box, with Ricoh pledging to be a companion to form important moments with in my life. 

The goodies

When the lid of the black box is lifted it reveals the camera body, nicely packaged against scratching. Below the body the necessary accessories are found. I am quite pleased that the 645Z uses the same kind of D-LI90 battery as the 645D. This means that I can use the spare batteries I bought with the 645D with the 645Z too and I now also have a spare battery charger.

I fitted the eyepiece to the body at once and found it to be rather loose. I probably didn't fit it correctly though. I left the camera strap in its packaging for now. I always use Op/Tech camera straps on my heavier camera's and with a weight of 1,555 kilo (including batteries) this camera certainly qualifies in that category. 

Old versus new

If you've read my thoughts on the Pentax 645D a few years back you know I love the ergonomics of these cameras. They fit comfortably in my hands and I use them hand-held quite regularly. I am not going to repeat my rundown of the 645D here (I might do a more thorough comparison later) but for now I will focus on the differences that appear when seeing the 645Z next to its older brother.

The first thing you notice however is how alike these two cameras are. At first glance, the differences are minimal. Yes, there is a new and shiny silver Pentax badge that replaces the black badge on the 645D but the other changes are less conspicuous. 

After the badge the first thing you'll notice is a different view screen. Unlike the 645D, this screen can be moved and that is quite useful combined with live view (another improvement) when you're shooting at otherwise awkward angles. The buttons on the right of the screen are positioned slightly different from those on the 645D and not without reason, as the 645Z sports the already mentioned live view and the possibility to shoot videos. The operating buttons for these functions had to be included.

Looking at the top of the camera a few things are different: The options wheel has three extra user options (U1 to U3) and tiny holes appear on the left (1) and right (3) side of the viewfinder prism housing. These are the stereo microphones and a small two-hole speaker the camera uses when capturing or viewing video. Also the four buttons on the left have been rearranged.

But there is more than meets the eye in the Pentax 645Z. It had a new 51,4 megapixel CMOS sensor - yes, the same one that equips the Hasselblad H5D-50C and the Phase One IQ250! Also the processor is quite a bit faster and that leads to a (for medium format cameras) whopping 3,1 shots per second. 

I am quite keen to discover what all this means for the actual images so I'll be off shooting soon!