The HASSELBLAD announcement

The Hasselblad announcement turned out to be two minor announcements of some importance: The launch of the H4D40 and the launch of The Hasselblad Owners’ Club forum, both to be launched on February 10, 2010. See the Hasselblad site for details.

All this is of course good news for H-system users and all Hasselblad owners. These launches have little or no impact in the field of architectural photography.

I would really like to see a major shift in Hasselblad’s strategy pointing towards a more open and flexible system. The H-system and the V-system are really two different animals that are not compatible with each other, even if V-system lenses can be used on the H-system via an adaptor. Hasselblad designs different bayonet lens mounts for each Hasselblad system instead of giving photographers long term compatibility. Even the X-Pan had a Hasselblad only lens mount instead of using e.g. the world standard Leica M-mount. Perhaps this was not possible due to the fact that X-Pan lenses are actually medium format lenses with large image circles covering the panoramic format of 24x65mm. The X-Pan is a wonderful rangefinder camera with great ergonomics and tactile quality. The X-Pan is discontinued in the wake of digital image capture. What a wonderful camera a digital X-Pan would be or a digital Hasselblad rangefinder full-frame 35.

What we really want to see is a full-format digital back for the V-system with a square chip and an area of 56x56mm, 55x55mm or 54x54mm. 48x48mm or 49x49mm doesn’t really cut it but might do while waiting for the ultimate square format chip to be applied to the V-system. A high pixel count is not important. High quality clean images are important and even 16MP or 25MP would be fine for most photographers. When this goal has been achieved V-system lenses can be used with the view angles they were designed for.

Another major issue for Hasselblad is their premium pricing for their premium products. The other major player in the field of medium format digital photography has lowered their prices substantially for their premium products. The clock is still ticking for the survival of Hasselblad.

Bo Malmlow, architect