Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic - Review 2022

Some cameras are crowd-pleasers, others make full a niche. The Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic ($54,990 with XF body and lens) is beyond niche. The digital medium format back packs a full-size 645 image sensor with a staggering 100MP resolution, and those 100MP photos are black and white. The sensor omits both color and infrared filters, which boosts effective resolution and, when paired with the right lens filter, lets you capture light that's outside the visible spectrum. It's a powerful creative tool, and the perfect fit for a few. Our Editors' Pick medium format camera in this price range is also from Stage One, the IQ3 100MP, which captures images in color.

Design

Phase One sells modular medium format systems. That ways the digital back, in this case the IQ3 100MP Achromatic, can be used with other camera systems, including big format cameras. The back is priced at $49,990 on its ain.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic : Sample Image

I tested the Achromatic with the XF body and the 80mm LS f/ii.8 lens. This is the second time I've shot with the XF system. For a deep dive on how the camera performs, head over to my XF 100MP review. Apart from the black-and-white output, shooting the XF with the Achromatic back fastened is exactly the aforementioned as shooting with the color IQ3 100MP back.

If yous need a refresher, the XF is a big SLR with a modular viewfinder—it ships with an eye-level prism, only you lot tin can swap information technology for a waist-level finder. It supports autofocus, has a focal plane shutter, and sports 3 command dials to accommodate exposure settings. The torso itself has a meridian affect-sensitive display to configure settings, which works in conjunction with the back's touch on LCD. It includes some forwards-thinking features, similar a seismograph to trigger exposures when photographic camera shake has been eliminated, and automatic focus stacking for macro photography.

The Benefits of Monochrome

Despite almost every camera on the market capturing photos in colour, sensors are inherently monochrome. In order to capture photos in color, a filter array must be integrated into the design. The virtually popular design is the Bayer assortment, although Fujifilm uses a more circuitous X-Trans design in many of its cameras.

The Bayer array filters cerise, light-green, and blue light on a pixel level. One-half the pixels are sensitive to green light, and a quarter each record blue and red data. Because you're non getting data at every pixel site, the camera's image processor has to perform some interpolation in order to fill in the blanks.

Eliminate the Bayer filter and that guesswork is gone. The Achromatic records luminance information for each of its 101,082,464 pixels. Y'all may non encounter the improved resolution in every photograph—interpolation can exercise a slap-up job for many subjects—but it'southward especially noticeable when shooting images with notable texture. Accept a expect at the shot of the aged barn door above, and the pixel-level crop below. The camera picks upward more tiny details in the woods than y'all'd get with a black-and-white image converted from a color photographic camera.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic : Sample Image (Crop)

Detail isn't the merely reason to cull a monochrome sensor for black-and-white piece of work. But as I experienced with the 35mm total-frame Leica M Monochrom (Typ 246), a black-and-white sensor acts much similar blackness-and-white film when it comes to tone. Transitions between lights, midtones, and shadows are subtle, and y'all can apply the bundled Capture One software to suit images to taste. If you prefer a low contrast wait, you lot can have it, and if you want punchy, loftier contrast shots, they're a few slider adjustments away.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic : Sample Image (Dynamic Range)

And there'due south the dynamic range. The back only captures in a 16-bit Raw format, which Stage I promises delivers 15 stops of dynamic range. I found it easy to pull particular out of both shadows and highlights, capturing backlit scenes with the vivid sun in the frame and deep shadows without losing data at either end of the histogram. The side-by-side comparison above shows an prototype as exposed in camera and later on processing the image in Capture One to pull out details in the shadows and reign in the highlights.

Beyond the Visible Spectrum

The Achromatic is sensitive to low-cal on the infrared spectrum—calorie-free that'due south not visible to the human eye. Typically you'll want to block the IR light, which requires a filter over the lens. Phase One provides a 486 UV IR Cut filter, manufactured by Schneider and sold under its B+W brand. The filter looks articulate when viewed head on, but you tin can run into its actual magenta nature when viewing it from an angle.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic : IR Comparison

Photographers who remember the Leica M8 will know 486 filters quite well. Leica'due south first digital rangefinder, a color camera, had a weak IR filter over the sensor, which caused color shifts, especially when photographing synthetic black fabrics. Leica provided 486 filters with the purchase of the camera to cake IR low-cal. The filter serves the same purpose here, although the Achromatic's sensitivity to IR is an intentional pattern option.

Remove the 486 filter and the Achromatic becomes a wide spectrum photographic camera. It picks up low-cal that human being eyes can't come across. If you look at the centre shot in a higher place you'll run into that the nighttime leafage of the visible spectrum and the white foliage of infrared live together in one shot. You will demand to manually focus and set exposure using the Live View display when shooting in this fashion—the XF's autofocus system and in-camera meter are tuned for visible light.

Phase One IQ3 100MP Achromatic : Sample Image (Infrared)

You can as well record images in infrared but (the far correct portion of our comparing shot). You'll need to put a filter over the lens to block visible light from inbound. I used a B+W 092 filter for infrared imaging. With the filter attached the viewfinder looks almost black, except when pointing the camera at an extremely bright light source (an afternoon sky, for instance), where information technology takes on a dark red look.

As with broad spectrum shooting, you'll want to employ the rear LCD to frame and focus when making infrared images. The XF organisation lends itself to tripod utilize to brainstorm with, but information technology's almost essential for shooting IR. Thankfully the back's rear LCD is sharp, and you lot tin can magnify any portion of the frame up to 400 percent in order to nail focus. You'll all the same need to prepare the exposure manually, using a longer shutter speed or higher ISO than you'd use for a visible light exposure.

One feature that comes in very handy for IR work, or any sort of Live View use for that matter, is an electronic shutter option. When combined with shooting using the rear LCD it eliminates vibration from paradigm capture. Sensor readout speed is a concern, so you'll just desire to use it for static subjects, and information technology can't sync with a flash, but for natural light landscapes, it'south a good option.

Image Quality

The Achromatic has a college base ISO than color backs. Its range starts at ISO 200 and goes all the way to ISO 51200. Compare this with the IQ3 100MP, which ranges from ISO 50 through 12800, or the IQ3 Trichromatic, which has a stronger than average Bayer colour filter and starts at ISO 32.

The higher base ISO gives the Achromatic an edge over color models when shooting in low light. But if you want to incorporate long exposures into your landscape photography—to smooth running water or cloudy skies—you'll demand to accomplish for a neutral density filter to cut incoming calorie-free.

Related Story See How We Test Digital Cameras

The amount of dissonance in the Achromatic's images depends on your processing choices. By default Capture One applies noise reduction to Raw images, and if you get out default settings on the dorsum keeps noise under one.5 percentage through ISO 3200. With noise reduction disabled completely at that place's more visible grain, and the files show i.1 percent noise at ISO 400 and 1.7 percent at ISO 800.

I've included pixel-level crops of the output, without dissonance reduction, in the slideshow that goes along with this review. Despite showing a fair amount of grain at high ISOs, detail holds upwards well through ISO 12800. Images appear rougher at ISO 25600, which detracts from fine detail, and take a more noticeable step back at ISO 51200. But that'southward an extreme setting for medium format photography, and when you consider the amount of resolution y'all're getting to begin with, image quality at the top sensitivity should exist considered strong.

Conclusions

The IQ3 Achromatic is an extremely powerful photographic tool. Information technology offers incredible resolution and dynamic range, summit black-and-white output, and infrared imaging capabilities. If monochrome imaging is your forte, and you accept the budget, in that location's nothing else that matches information technology.

That's non to say it'south perfect for every awarding. Medium format photography lends itself to a disciplined approach. It'southward wonderful if you honey working from a tripod or carefully crafting exposures in studio. But if y'all prefer to shoot in a documentary style, wandering through urban streets to capture candid moments and scenes from life, the 35mm full-frame Leica M Monochrom is a improve fit for dedicated black-and-white work. And don't count out high-resolution color cameras, like the Sony a7R III and Nikon D850 if a rangefinder is not your style. Their sensors are among the best out there and handle black-and-white conversions quite well.

We go on to recommend to Stage I IQ3 100MP every bit our Editors' Choice for high-cease medium format imaging. Information technology's not every bit specialized as the Achromatic, but gives you the option of shooting in color and converting select images to black and white as needed.

There are likewise options out there for photographers who lust after medium format systems, but don't accept the budget for a Phase I arrangement. Our top pick amid a pocket-size sampling of depression-price models—low-toll existence a very relative term—is the Fujifilm GFX 50S. Its sensor isn't as large as 645 film and it "merely" delivers 50MP resolution, merely it's more attainable and handles more than like a traditional 35mm SLR.