medium format
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Leaf shows off new AFi medium-format cameras, you can't afford one
Leaf's new AFi product line is out of prototype and being shown to a lucky few on a pan-European road show -- like all great medium-format cameras should be displayed. The new AFi 7, AFi 6 and AFi 5 are 6 x 6 medium-format shooters take up to 70 shots per minute, sport Schneider AutoFocus Digital lenses designed for 30+ megapixel camera backs, and can be swapped from landscape to portrait mode by simply turning the camera back. Demo units should be out by mid-October, and you should be able to purchase one of these for some indeterminate large sum by the end of this year.
Pentax busts out Hasselbladian 31.6 megapixel 645 Digital
Pentax has apparently tapped Kodak to provide its 31.6 megapixel KAF-31600 medium format CCD for the upcoming 645 Digital, which would seem to be the company's highest resolution digital camera to date. So far all that's known from the pre-PMA announcement is that the 645 will sport both SD and CF slots, and will ship with a specially-built 55mm lens that's also compatible with 645-series SLR film cameras. We should find out more about this behemoth in early March -- although possibly not pricing and release info -- but one thing we can say for sure is that if it's priced anything like the Hasselblad H3D-31 whose sensor it shares, expect to pay out well into five figures.[Thanks, David N.]
Another forgettable compact from Rollei: the da6324
You'd think that a company like Rollei with such a proud history of manufacturing fine cameras with quality optics would be a little more discriminating about the digital models they release under the esteemed brand name, but lately all we've seen is a bunch of generic, re-badged OEM offerings that probably don't really represent the vision of founders Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke. Take the "new" 6.36 megapixel da6324 that the company introduced today, which is the exact same camera we saw yesterday being sold by Pentacon as the "Praktica Luxmedia 6203" -- 3x optical zoom, 2.4-inch TFT and all. Instead of watering down the brand with forgettable $250 models like these, maybe the company should concentrate on those medium format cameras they're famous for, and leave the crowded compact digicam market to players who want to offer the consumer some innovation.
