Medium Format (film) - Digital Medium Format

Digital Medium Format

Digital photography came to the medium format world with the development of digital camera backs, which can be fitted to many system cameras. Digital backs are a type of camera back that have electronic sensors in them, effectively converting a camera into a digital camera. These backs are used predominantly by professional photographers. As with film, due to the increased size of the imaging chip (up to twice that of a 35 mm film frame, and thus as much as 40 times the size of the chip in a typical pocket point-and-shoot camera) they deliver more pixels than consumer-grade cameras, and have lower noise. Features like fan cooling also improve the image quality of studio models.

This market began in 1992 when Leaf Systems Inc. released their first digital camera back (4 Megapixels), named, fittingly enough, the "DCB" (often described as 'a brick'). Initially mounted on Sinar Studio cameras, the camera backs were later moved to medium format units. By the late 1990s, a number of companies produced digital camera backs of various types.

In the 2000s, the number of vendors of both high-end medium format camera systems and digital backs began to decrease. The performance of digital SLRs cut into the sale of film-based medium format systems, while the tremendous development expenses for medium format digital systems meant that not all vendors could profitably compete. Contax and Bronica ceased production of cameras, Kodak stopped making their DCS series of backs, and camera and back manufacturers began to integrate.

Camera maker Hasselblad merged with digital imaging firm Imacon and partnered with Fuji to design and produce a new line of digital-friendly medium format cameras, the H-Series. Since the manufacturer plans to sell digital backs integrated with the camera, other makers of digital backs are far less likely to be able to sell backs for this camera.

Camera maker Mamiya has developed the Mamiya ZD back, but also announced a partnership with back maker Phase One. Camera maker Sinar was taken over in stages by the digital camera back manufacturer and developer Jenoptik, and partnered with Rollei for the development of the Hy6 medium format camera systems. DHW Fototechnik presented at Photokina 2012 an updated version of the Hy6, called the Hy6 Mod2.

The Leaf Aptus 75S digital back offers 33MP resolution, with a shooting speed of 50 frames a minute. In early 2006 Hasselblad (H2D and H3D) and Phase One (P45) released a 39 megapixel back. In 2008, Phase One announced the P65+, a 60 megapixel back, the highest resolution single-shot digital back to date. Phase One continues to dominate high end non-interpolated imaging with the largest market share. Sinar continues to provide its primary Digital View Camera system while still supporting the HY6 medium format with a new platform independent eSprit 65 LV digital camera back. On 20 September 2010, Leaf released a 80MP digital back, the Aptus-II 12. The Leaf Aptus-II 12's sensor size of 53.7 mm x 40.3 mm is 60% of the area of a 60 mm x 60 mm standard-sized frame, and 40% of the area of a 60 mm x 90 mm frame (however a 6x6 full-frame film exposure will still yield significantly larger amounts of detail).

Available since December 2010, Pentax 645D is 40 megapixel medium format DSLR. The camera has 44x33mm image sensor and the raw file is in DNG format. It is the first digital version of the company's 645 medium format camera system and it is compatible with the existing 645 system lenses.