Adjusting to the new camera and back

Picture courtesy of 9days.hk

I received my Hy6 and Leaf Aptus II 12 (AFi version) a few days ago and have been familiarising myself with the new system.

- The Hy6 feels MUCH better in my hand, and really solid and tightly constructed.
- It is smaller and lighter
- The mirror is much quieter and more damped
- I can now lock mirror up for as many shots as I want and lock it back down whenever I want, without having to make an exposure. With the mirror up, the leaf shutter is almost silent. This would be ideal for multi-shot backs too
- There is no more flash sync cable connecting camera and back! A huge bonus
- The battery system is modern
- I can run both the camera and back from the one battery in the camera, making the whole thing lighter, and meaning I just have to watch one battery indicator rather than two
- I now have EXIF data
- The camera turns the back on and off at the same time
- I now have a histogram showing on the handle of the camera, which is a lot more convenient than checking the back. The camera gets this histogram from the back after the exposure. Pretty cool!
- The sensor in the back rotates internally, meaning I don't have to remove the back and re-attach it to swap between portrait and landscape modes. It's also safer. This is a big plus.
- The Leaf GUI (they just revamped it) is much nicer than the Sinar e54LV GUI was
- The articulated LCD screen means that I can flip it up when using the waist level finder and the screen is right next to the finder. I don't have to move back and crouch down after every shot to see the screen. It will also be very helpful with low camera positions
- There is AF calibration (thought I don't currently use any AF lenses)
- There are other AF features I haven't even tried yet like focus bracketing and focus trapping. Focus bracketing might help out with some hand help shooting - I should try it
- The sensor is bigger than the e54LV sensor was, meaning that my lenses are slightly wider. My 40mm which was equivalent to 30mm before is now equivalent to 27mm.
- The active viewfinder image is also larger (the sensor is 54mm wide rather than 48mm)
- 80 megapixels is an eye-watering amount of detail
- Moiré seems to be a thing of the past
- the Leaf back looks great!

Downsides:

- I would prefer a plain black Hy6!
- the settings on the side of the Hy6 can be knocked out of place if dropping the camera into a tight fitting bag. You should always check your settings anyway before shooting so it's not a big issue.
- The camera and back together really chew through batteries. Again, not a big deal. I have 5 batteries and a double charger so I should be well covered.
- the huge files make the Leaf back slower to work with than Sinar back. This affects preview times, file transfers, retouching, frame rate. It's basically the most unwelcome feature of the new back for me.

I am having some teething problems with the back though. First I had lots of crashing and corrupt files. This seems to be due to the use of a brand new Lexar 600x 16GB CF card. After switching to another card, the problems are gone. Whether there is a compatibility issue or if it's just a bad card, I don't know yet.

Then on further testing, I discovered that if I shot the same scene with ISO 100 and ISO 800, the ISO 800 shot had a huge colour cast, making the image unusable.



A similar effect happened when underexposing an ISO 100 shot and pushing it 3 stops:



I opened a support case about this with Leaf and they agreed yesterday to replace the back, so I won't be doing any critical shooting with this combination just yet.

Interesting that the cast seems to be in the shadows? Is there "live view"? I guess there must be!

Asher Kelman said:

Interesting that the cast seems to be in the shadows? Is there "live view"? I guess there must be!

Click to expand...

I guess there is but not on the camera LCD, just the tethered computer screen. It's not a useful feature for my line of work.

Graham,

I'm wondering how you came to the decision to go with the HY6 outside of the current ownership of great lenses. Was there anything in the body that's superior to the Phase One/Mamiya or Hassy solutions?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

,
I'm wondering how you came to the decision to go with the HY6 outside of the current ownership of great lenses. Was there anything in the body that's superior to the Phase One/Mamiya or Hassy solutions?

Click to expand...

Well, many of the features I listed above are unique to this camera. The main selling points for me apart from lenses are:

- waist level finder in portrait and landscape modes (Hass is a 645 camera so it must be rotated. Phamiya has no waist level finder)
- being able to switch between portrait and landscape by rotating internal sensor and not rotating whole camera (not available on Phamiya or Hass)
- viewfinder options (not available on Phamiya)
- ergonomics, inc. rotatable handle (unique)
- running camera and back from one battery, with battery level displayed on back (not sure but I think it's unique)
- display of histogram on camera to stop you chimping at the back all the time (unique)
- 1/1000 flash sync (highest available)
- some say fastest AF but I haven't had a chance to test
- fastest shutter delay at 2ms

Well that's stellar list! The synch speed is important for dance and moving fabrics and hair and controlling the natural light when it's to contrasty and one want's to use flash.

Asher