Hi, David,
Thank you for taking the time for your considered response. It is a real pleasure to be able to communicate with a manufacturer.
I'll agree that perhaps I should not have used the word 'abandoned' with respect to Zeiss glass. I'm aware that Hasselblad worked very hard to develop modern designs with the Zeiss and believe that Hasselblad must have tried hard to continue with Zeiss as the H was being developed.
From a business perspective, Hasselblad may have done the right thing for its business with this switch to Fuji. But as a landscape photographer, and speaking selfishly, unfortunately the decision was not the right one for me. Now I understand my ilk are a vanishingly small percentage of Hasselblad's business, so I can understand the choices and optimizations made with the Fuji glass. So yes, perhaps the right choice for 'blad, but perhaps not for me personally.
H3D understood. My experience with the H-series is the H1 and H2 with the Phase back; and for this, two power buttons are needed. I stand corrected on the H3D.
True Live View: Can't get there from here, I understand. But in the end, it's another check that makes the small format alternatives that much more compelling.
Weather Proofing: Ditto. Even studio shooters sometimes shoot on location.
High ISO performance: Again ditto. For critical work, I'm effectively limited to ISO 200 with most MFDB solutions today. This is painful. If I had my druthers--this is the issue I'd wave my magic wand at first. A crystal clear ISO800+ would be a very compelling upgrade. If it takes a switch to CMOS, then so be it. (And then Live View and improved battery life become possibilities.)
Long Exposure: I have not tried the H3D's long exposure capabilities. I have found that most MFDB's become quite noisy at 30s, which is not my experience with small format (specifically Canon). Phase is a notable execption. But even with Phase, a dark frame exposure must be taken following the exposure; of equal length. Thus, to take a series of 20-minute exposures, one must wait for an additional 20 minutes between exposures! Canon will allow you to defer the dark frame subtraction, so that you can continue exposing. I imagine there is a slight loss of quality for doing so, but I appreciate having the choice, on cold desert nights or in the mountains.
Ergonomics: I can't say much here, as these are so subjective. But my H2 battery/handle has come apart during a shoot, and I wouldn't call the handling of the H-series very ergonomic. That being said, I do know folks who love the H's ergonomics.
Power up times: 4 seconds is much too slow; again, as a nature photographer, a shooting day can be hours of trekking followed by intense minutes of photographing. I have been come across wolves, bison, eagles and even scenery where I didn't have four seconds to wait. Case in point--"Making Friends" on
http://GibsonPhotographic.com. I never want to wait for the gear. A few hundered milliseconds at most to be fully functional and shooting would make for an ideal experience.
Battery Life:Yes, this is one I can live with, but it is cumbersome. In planning for a week on snowmobiles next winter in Yellowstone I'm looking at some pretty creative (and painful) solutions to keep my system running. I do understand the tradeoffs I've made to go medium format, but again, significant strides in this area would also remove another advantage of the small format camp.
Anyway, as I say, I do realize that not every camera system will be ideal for me. I just want to encourage all of the manufacturers to really look hard at their offerings from the perspective of their customers, and to look for ways to break down the barriers/reasons for not delivering on the above pain points.
I doubt I'm mentioning anything you haven't already heard time and time again. Taken in aggregate, I think these issues do contribute to weakening the MF industry, and I would love to see a healthy industry with a long future.
I have three photographer friends who have been considering moving to MF, and have been watching my move over the past two years. Given the experiences I have had with Phase/Hassy V, Phase/Hassy H, Sinar/Hy6, and testing both Hassy and Contax system, not one of them is ready to take the plunge to medium format.
To me, that is a huge opportunity lost for the industry. They're not buying small format (actually one just bought a 5Dmk II, but this will not preclude moving to medium format), because small format just doesn't deliver what they need. But despite the better image quality, neither does medium format for all intents and purposes. Money is not the issue--the products simply aren't (yet?) there.
Cut the bulk--shrink the backs, drop the weight; move to CMOS, get ahead of the curve and kill the mirror and mechanical shutter; offer sensor-based IS; make the screens visible from any angle, in any light; improve the ISO, the AF and the battery life. IMHO, these things just aren't happening quickly enough.
Please understand, this is not aimed just at Hasselblad, this is across the industry. And let me apologize in advance if this is at all insulting, but I am reminded of the auto industry in many ways. I've been looking for a practical series-hybrid plug-in vehicle for more than a few years now. And all I've heard are reasons why it can't be done at scale. Or that what I want is a prototype--fleet vehicle, or whatever, but it'll be "ready in 2 years". I know it can be. That's why I'll need to build one. It just takes a really hard look at some assumptions that are being taken as Truths today to to get past these limitiations.
One way or another, for both industries, I am certain it will happen.
Best regards,
-Brad