End of Life: Phase One P Series

From April 11th 2018, Phase One A/S will no longer offer service for the P20, P21, P25, P30, and P45. After the above-mentioned date it will still be possible to download software, manuals and get support for the products, however, Phase One A/S will no longer provide any form of service for this product. This will seriously limit the depth of support and service that Digital Transitions can offer our clients with this series of digital backs. Phase One is providing one final upgrade offer to help you upgrade to a modern system.

The History of the P-series

Phase One P20 and P25 were introduced in 2004. This was the first range of truly portable camera backs from Phase One which included storage and TFT screen. The P25 had a 22mp sensor in the size of 48×36mm (1.1x crop factor), while the P20 had a 16mp square sensor in the size of 36.9×36.9mm.

In 2005, Phase One introduced the updated range of P21, P30, and P45. The P21 and P30 had sensor sizes of 44×33 mm (1.3x crop factor) and a resolution of 18mp and 31mp respectively. At the time it was released the P45 was at this point the top of the line of any medium format camera back with a physical sensor size which was equivalent of the P25 but with a resolution which was boosted to 39mp.

Last Chance to Upgrade

Phase One hates discontinuing support of their hardware, and support their cameras far longer than other camera makers. The P series is now 14 years old, and sourcing repair components has simply become impossible. Still, Digital Transitions and Phase One wishes to take care of its loyal customers, and are offering one last chance to upgrade these legacy backs with new or factory refurbished IQ series digital backs. Where the P series only had FireWire, the IQ series added USB3. While the P series LCD was mediocre, the IQ is a retina-grade modern touch LCD. And whereas the P series had only basic review tools in-camera, the IQ series offers a robust and powerful set of review and editing tools in camera. Whereas previous medium format bodies were built in the film era the XF was built from the ground up for digital and has a litany of powerful features such as focus stacking, Profoto flash control, AFr autofocus and recompose mode, and vibration-evasion.

This is the last time Phase One will offer upgrades for this end-of-life series. If you ever wanted to upgrade, do it now.