Pentax Releases New Medium Format Camera

It's been in the making for 5 years now.  Often times spoken about as "vaporware" by the online community due to so many perceived false starts, Pentax has formally announced the launch of the new medium format 40MP 645D camera.

It appears to be an impressive camera.  It touts a Kodak made CCD sensor that's claimed to be "high performance" with an effective resolution of 40 megapixels.

It shoots to two SD/SDHC cards and has a new 11 point AF system that is claimed to give good coverage of the view finder area.

It does only sport a 98% coverage view finder though, which shouldn't be too much of an issue for most users.

It also sports a new HDR function that takes 3 different exposures and automatically merges them into a single high dynamic range image.

So far we don't have a firm price.  I'm hoping it comes in below $10k as that would really change the market landscape and potentially push Canon and Nikon to offer competitive products.  We can only hope!