Medium Format Camera News

Phase One announced it has joined forces with Sony to design a new 100MP CMOS sensor for the new Phase One XF 100MP Camera System. The Phase One XF 100MP Camera System is shipping now and is available through the company’s sales partners worldwide for a whopping $48,990 USD. (The system comes with a Schneider Kreuznach 80mm LS lens.)

Phase One has started selling its new A-Series medium format camera systems, the company announced this morning. The new Phase One A-series combines the Danish manufacturer’s current medium format digital camera backs with a Travel Compact body from Alpa and a Rodenstock lens for a rustically modern set-up.

The Phase One XF 100MP is a medium format camera with extremely high sensor resolution. It is a modular concept comprised of the Phase One XF camera body, which was introduced in the summer of 2015, and the brand-new IQ3 100MP digital back. The body has a 90-degree prism viewfinder and includes a Schneider-Kreuznach 80mm LS f/2.8 lens. As expected, this does not come cheap: the total price for this kit is $48,990 USD, as of this writing, and is the most expensive camera system we’ve ever tested.

Shutterbug, a member of the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA), once again joined forces with 30 other member magazines from around the world to choose the winners of the annual TIPA Awards for the best photo/imaging products in 40 different categories. The award process began in early 2017 with an initial selection of a wide range of products conducted by TIPA’s Technical Committee, on which Shutterbug’s Editor-at-Large George Schaub serves. 

Our show report this year is an amalgam of product news and trend spotting, which pretty much reflects what photokina has stood for in our minds. The sense of a United Nations of photography still prevails at this increasingly European-directed show, but the image and its uses is still the universal tie that binds.

Fujifilm made more medium format camera news at the photokina show in Cologne, Germany today, saying it is developing a new flagship model, which will have a 100MP image sensor. 

Large format cameras, in the sense of "cameras that take large sheets of film," are ever rarer at photokina. There are still plenty of cameras, and sometimes (it seems) almost as many manufacturers, but because so many of the manufacturers are so tiny, making a few score cameras a year, they are known by word of mouth in the large format "fine art"...