Hi JS, welcome to forum. Unfortunately I no longer have the MX winder, I traded it at a dealer some time ago.

John.

Great images, a very good demonstration of what MF (and 6x7 in particular) is capable of. Print film negatives usually have a base colour designed to make printing easier (usually an orange hue). Different films are however different and you may need different scanning/post processing profiles for them.

As for high speed flash, the P6x7 has a blistering flash sync speed of 1/30th and no ability to use HSS flash. If you'd like faster flash sync, you need one of the leaf-shutter lenses which will sync up to 1/500th with any flashgun or studio strobe.

I bought one of these for my SFXn, great lens and although I now have the FA50/1.4, I have no intention of selling mine. It's supposed to be less prone to flare than the FA50/1.4 (front element shielded better), and on film AF camera, it seems to focus faster (there seems less resistance in the focus mechanism). The FA50/1.4 has a better manual focus feel as the AF mechanism seems better damped (but nothing like a manual focus lens). On APSC it makes a great portrait focal length, and the aperture ring and 'A' setting means it works on all Pentax cameras K mount cameras.

For an extreme example, see: link.

Different digital media technologies (and manufacturers) have different prospects. Compact Flash cards are probably more stable than SD cards (and probably easier to read as they follow standard IDE interfaces). As many OEM memory cards are no longer available, readers for them will disappear sooner.

I have digital images going back to 2002 (Sandisk Compact Flash) which are still readable, I only use Sandisk SD cards. I have other OEM memory cards with computer data on from much older than that. how you treat them has an impact - constant writes & deletes will degrade the card much more than writing only once.

I store my digital images on the original SD card, buying more when I need them. I scan my film (or get it scanned) for convenience, but my archive is always the film itself. My images are important to me, but if there's a catastrophe, I'll probably have a lot more to worry about than a few photos (however a hard disc can fail at any time).

My old Land-Rover once passed its mot with inoperative* wipers, washers & demister - the tester pointed out that when it rained, I would have to fold the windscreen down instead. My old Rover SD1 failed its mot on many counts - 'corroded to excess' was a regular theme. It also failed on 'rear doors inoperative', one wouldn't unlock (70's Rover central locking), the latch cable had slipped off the handle on the other (Haynes were very helpful - step 1 'open the door'...).

* They were all broken, but even when 'working' they were all useless...

DSLRs are really complicated to build compared to mirror-less cameras. At one point, the EVF was an expensive addition (costing up to £200 on top of the camera when sold as optional extras). Mass production minimises that cost to the point where it becomes insignificant (although it's has different advantages/disadvantages to an optical finder). Most users jumping into 'fads' don't care how poor the experience is, many will never have looked through an optical finder*.

By comparison, the optical finder in a DSLR requires a whole load of precision manufacturing - the prism, mirror, focussing screen, mechanism to flip the mirror, secondary mirror for phase detection AF, phase detector etc. Not only do these all need to be manufactured consistently to a high degree of accuracy, but they all have to be positioned accurately relatively to each other and the sensor. On a mirror-less, all you have to do is pipe the image from the sensor to an EVF or rear screen and do some processing electronically for focus peeking and the like.

* I showed someone at work my P6x7 with the WLF, his blurted statement went some thing like "Holy ...... that's the best LCD screen I've ever seen..." he hadn't even noticed everything was backwards.

Nikon refused to make an FF DSLR for years (initially saying they wouldn't as there was no need). Don't forget the development & purchase costs then were huge - my Pentax EI-2000 (2Mp 'DSLR' with fixed zoom) cost more than a K-3ii does today. The technology was moving very quickly, the EI-2000 lasted about 3 months before being replaced by the EI-3000 (3Mp). Pentax would have needed very deep pockets to compete (the EI-2000 was a joint venture with HP).

Great shots - which film did you use? I'm looking for either a 90/2.8 or 105/2.4, I'd probably prefer the 90 as it's closer to the 43 (my favourite 135 focal length) but with so many good comments about the 105 I wasn't sure. Now I've seen these, I'm leaning towards the 90 much more.

John.

I haven't gone FF yet, I have.a bag of P6x7 lenses and the adapter for the 645. Obviously, I'm used to the bulk, weight and limitations of a P6x7 - a 645Z would be smaller, lighter & easier. The K-1 is a compact FF SLR, but those from other manufacturers (with grip & fast standard zoom) aren't much smaller or lighter than my P6x7 with a standard or wide-angle prime. Recent 'mirrorless' MF cameras are smaller still.

As I haven't gone FF (and might not), all options for me are open & interesting. I have long experience shooting MF film in various formats, creating a high bar to beat with a 'cropped' MF sensor. It's not just the results but the process and experience all count at the end of the day - if I'm not excited using the gear I don't put the effort in to get the best out of it.

John.

I guess, the biggest differences are depth of field can be narrowed (although note that many MF systems have much slower lenses than typical FF systems) and tonal graduation is generally much smoother (the same tonal range is spread over more grains/pixels).

However, MF film formats go all the way up to 6x7, 6x9 or 6x12 whilst MF digital is 'expensively affordable' only to 33mmx44mm or so - much reducing these benefits compared to, say, 6x7 film. 33x44 is nearly double the area for an FF sensor but only about half of 6x7 film.