What's wrong with Hasselblad?

[Rangefinderfreak]

I agree with you, up to a point. As I see it, European companies gradually lost the initiative in providing saleable products for the consumer market. It seems to me that companies age just like people. Eventually, I think, they just wear out and become irrelevant, no longer producing new products that meet their markets' needs. Remember Angénieux, Bolex, Linhof, Plaubel and Ross, to take just a few examples? In their day, they were the inovators, the companies that were out in front.

I don't think that high taxes have anything to do with it, though. My view is that paying taxes is how we pay forward the debt we owe to the country that raised us, providing the education, healthcare, emergency services and infrastructure that allows us to thrive and prosper.

Let´s take the fate of NOKIA...
It was ( and partly still is) a Finnish company. The guys were well paid, the production however very soon was transferred to countries as Estonia, taiwan, Vietnam etc. as it was pretty easy to teach the workers the simple movements to feed the robots. It actually was not important where the factory was, as long as the design, programming and marketing knew what they were doing. The bosses became too rich, got too many millions to really have the desire to innovate, to follow the trends. Soon a "Troijan horse" came that steered the company to all time low and it was sold to another giant, MICROSOFT. The lesson ? You only can survive in marketplace if you are a bit ahead of your time, but just enough so, that your products feel to be still familiar. This is what Nikon and Canon can do. Advance by little steps... maybe Hasselblad has hope, as there are maybe guys wanting to get a new mousetrap to play with their existing equipment.

 

[ian_watts]

Wouldn't that be Imacon under the Hasseblad label. Hasselblad doesn't really exist anymore. The X-Pan = Fuji; H Series = Fuji; DigiBacks = Imacon; so where is Hasselblad certainly not in Sweden producing cameras or any other photo product.

Contrary to popular opinion, Hasselblad, for all it's faults and problems, still manufactures the H bodies in Sweden.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

Contrary to popular opinion, Hasselblad, for all it's faults and problems, still manufactures the H bodies in Sweden.

Indeed but not the viewfinders :angel:

 

[Turtle]

With FF digital bodies becoming every more capable, they are eating upwards towards the mainstream limit of what level of resolution we need from our cameras. Sure, more will always be more, but only a few years ago, MFD was able to do a lot of stuff that FF could not do. This is no longer the case and the amount of people needing to do what only MFD can do is dwindling.

I'm not saying FF will 'destroy' MFDB at all, but it seems pretty easy to understand why MFD is struggling in light of what can me made from FF files these days.

The appearance of super high resolution lenses like the Otus all help further marginalise MFD. The achilles heel of FF is in the lenses and it will be some time before we have good lineups that can exploit the super high resolution of future sensors.

 

[traveler_101]

Sweden has a lot of money. It's not a matter of whether firms should pay taxes; of course they should if they are making money. Yes, firms wear out, but they are also reborn; of course Europe has lost out to cheap Asian producers, but the circumstances behind this (mainly financial) will not last--just saying as an historian. The Swedish state should have asked Hasselblad to come up with a new business model and then (depending on its merits) financed it. They could have done the same with Saab. You don't throw away names and traditions like this.

 

[ian_watts]

MFD was able to do a lot of stuff that FF could not do. This is no longer the case and the amount of people needing to do what only MFD can do is dwindling.

This is true but MF isn't all about resolution. Part of its attraction is the 'look' which is, at least in part, a consequence of the size of the sensor/film neg and the use of longer focal lengths for a given angle of view. There is also the credibility of the camera system which is important for many photographers when it comes to justifying their day rate.🙂 A Hasselblad makes a statement that is reassuring to many art directors.

 

[DominikDUK]

When it comes to raw quality and power no DSLR comes close to a Digital MF camera. Where DSLR shine is in all things that require lots of speed and little light. Where DMF shines is in pure resolution and tonality and it still beats even the best FF DSLRs in those fields. The reason why many pros chose a DSLR is the price and the fact that a digi MF is overkill for lots of applications.

"A Hasselblad makes a statement that is reassuring to many art directors." I have to agree with that statement and have to add that for most photographic applications you don't need an art director let alone see one.

 

[mwoenv]

Let's face it, it's almost impossible for a company that makes very high quality products, built to last a very long time and with little to no need for variations or improvement, to survive in a world where product life is a year or so and consumers are always looking to buy the latest. In the past, you'd buy such a camera and use it for at least a decade. Now, who knows what cameras will even look like a decade from now.

 

[Samouraï]

This is true but MF isn't all about resolution. Part of its attraction is the 'look' which is, at least in part, a consequence of the size of the sensor/film neg and the use of longer focal lengths for a given angle of view. There is also the credibility of the camera system which is important for many photographers when it comes to justifying their day rate.🙂 A Hasselblad makes a statement that is reassuring to many art directors.

I agree. 35mm, no matter what the resolution, doesn't look like medium format. Why would a professional with the budget and application choose anything else?

 

[hepcat]

They should start working on a (relatively) cheap 20MP (non-croped) digital back for V and be ready when last color film from Kodak/Fuji is discontinued.

Unfortunately, they will probably be out of business by then.

This post is months old, but is spot-on. There are a half-million 500 bodies in the hands of consumers... God only knows how many lenses. While there are undoubtedly folks who need 50mp sensors, a 20-25 mp sensor back, like the CFV backs that are reliable would be more than enough for 95% of the folks who own a 500 body. Having an inexpensive, reliable 25mp digital back would not only tap that market of current owners, but would re-vitalize the 500 series line.

I hope that somebody gets the message and that we see an affordable, self-contained, non-cropped back for the 500 and F series cameras as the technology continues to improve.