By Ian Burley
17th October - 2001
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Photographic products distributor, Milton Keynes-based Calumet Digital Solutions, last night announced the pricing and availability of a digital camera with a 35mm equivalent full-frame (24x36mm) 6 megapixel sensor in the UK.
But before you rush out to your nearest camera store with chequebooks at the ready, I have to reveal that the Leaf c-most Back launch was for a large and medium-format interchangeable ‘film’ back aimed at the professional market, including Hasselblad, Mamiya and Contax 645 users, but not consumer digital camera users, nor professional users of 35mm SLR system cameras.
Significant
But the news is significant because professionals we have spoken to about the product think it’s remarkable value for money at £6995+VAT and the sensor could, conceivably, find its way into a 35mm form factor SLR camera relatively soon. It’s not vapourware, according to Calumet, which promises initial supplies of the Leaf c-most Back next month.
CMOS sensor
The Leaf c-most Back is the product of Leaf Products, CreoScitex, a division of Creo Products Inc. The prototype sensor was first shown at the big biennial Photokina show in Cologne, Germany, last year. The fact that it is a CMOS sensor, instead of the dominant CCD alternative, is interesting too. Canon was widely expected to implement a full-frame 6MP CMOS sensor in its new EOS-1D pro SLR launched recently, but chose a more conservatve sub full-frame 4MP CCD sensor instead.
For those of us who have been brought up on ‘real’ 35mm SLR cameras, a full-frame digital sensor represents a quantum leap as it means we can retain our precious interchangeable lenses without the penalty of focal length compromise imposed by smaller sensors.
Even Canon’s brand-new EOS-1D, with the biggest sensor in a 35mm system camera to date, increases the effective focal length of any lens by 30%, making expensive wide angle lenses rather ordinary in their coverage. Other 35mm system digital SLRs can artificially force a focal length shift of up tp 60%, making a 21mm wide angle lens, for example, not much wider than a 35mm medium wide angle lens.
Contax is a beneficiary of the new Leaf c-most Back for its medium format 645 camera. But Contax has been openly saying it aims to launch a 6MP full-frame 35mm system digital SLR, the Contax N Digital, as soon as it can.
Contax/Pentax...?
Contax and Pentax had both indicated they would use a CCD produced by Philips, but we understand that chip has proved problematical to manufacture. Maybe the CreoScitex CMOS chip could fill the gap?
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