September 9, 2005 - Hot on the heals of Hasselblad’s 22 megapixel medium format camera, announced last month, Mamiya and Leaf have announced their medium format, 22 megapixel contender, the Leaf Mamiya ProDigital II, a paring of the Mamiya 645 AFDII camera with last year’s Leaf Aptus 22 back.
The camera relies on a large 48 x 33 mm sensor, with a dynamic range of 12 F-stops, to form its huge, 126 megabyte, 4056 x 5356 pixel files. With such large files, the ProDigital II supports CF cards as well as Leaf’s 20 and 30 gigabyte “digital magazines” and third party FireWire drives.
The ProDigital II features a unique 3.5-inch LCD touch screen for viewing and in-camera editing of images. Navigation of the menus comes via a stylus and users are able to zoom and manipulate images as well as write image annotations using the stylus.
A number of features designed to improve the user’s workflow are included on the ProDigital II, among them the ability to create folders on the camera’s back as well as the ability to create and store different user settings for the 36 custom functions. The camera also features support for Bluetooth connectivity and can operate in a tethered mode.
The ProDigital II offers improved autofocus over its predecessor, the ProDigital, and features user selectable spot and wide focus modes. The camera has an ISO range of 25-400 and supports a burst rate of 1.2 frames per second.
