Oh man, here I go again...
Johnny, I can feel for you as well, but do you really expect any manufacturer to give you a full picture of a products use in their marketing literature? Come on guy, your an actor, you KNOW not to believe everything you see.... or read.
That said, you'll never find out the whole truth about anything from looking at marketing materials. They're designed to direct your attention to just what they intend your attention to be directed towards! Guys like me get paid lots of bucks to make anything look good... and sell because of it. You were doing fine shooting film, and now making the change over to digital. Welcome to Club-Shed. Shedding lots of cash to find out that digital is different from film is something many of us experienced. If some are a bit sharp in their answers to you, it's likely due more to our own similar foolishness having already poured countless thousands ourselves down that rat hole called "gaining experience."
When you are pushing the edges, expect to get some push back. That back your climbing down into a dark hole to shoot was never designed to be used down there either, and no, they don't tell you that in the marketing materials over a PhaseOne or at 'Blad. Buy yourself a box of your favorite emulsion, and go shoot. If you need more than a handful of film holders, your subject matter isn't suitable for view camera use. You won't have to deal with color shift issues, and you won't spend another small fortune switching over to yet another digital system that isn't perfect. None of them are. Neither is film, but then you are already used to the problems it presents.
Johnny, sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but there isn't any holy grail for view camera users when it comes to using digital. Every manufacturer's products have problems. Just as every manufacturer also has work around solutions, including Hassy. Some are tougher, some easier, but they are ALL workarounds. NOBODY makes a back just for view cameras. The market simply is not large enough. With that said however, there are several who have developed a decent workflow that allows them to produce very stunning work. Don Libby is one. There are many others. If I were you, I would not be looking for more or for different gear. I would be looking to invest a small amount of time and money into some very good instruction on how you can develop a workflow yourself that meets your own needs. Even if you eventually do change to different manufacturer's gear, your still going to need that workflow if you ever hope to see the difference on your own screen. With cameras it's all about the glass; with processing it's all about the workflow. Develop one with the right help, your life is a dream. Dream one up yourself based upon some marketing wonk's handywork and I promise you are only building a nightmare, not a dream.
You didn't learn to be an actor from just your first roll on stage. You can't expect to learn to be a view camera toting photographer shooting difficult lighting setups out in the wilds from a few hundred failed test shots, whatever your Brand of gear. Crazy artists like ourselves always jump head-first into the soup, often to find we're over our heads. Welcome to the "poor and often starving" side of the photographic artist life. I doubt you will listen to the following advice any more than I did, but I'll go ahead and say it anyway, as I sense a kindred spirit.
Before you go and beat up PhaseOne too, if you decide to buy one of their products, let me also enlighten you on the facts about view cameras since you are new to them. THEY AREN'T EASY TO LEARN TO USE. And almost impossible to learn from reading alone. Good instruction on their use is very much a necessity so you avoid all the bad habits!
So many naive people invest thousands of dollars on camera gear, but for some reason refuse to invest a few hundred bucks learning how to use it properly. Thank God they make surgeons go to school before cutting on any patients. Any fool can buy a scalpel.
Those in the know call "View" cameras "TECHNICAL" cameras, and for a reason. They are VERY technical! You need to know a whole lot more about a whole lot more things than you can even imagine, just to get a decent picture out of one. THEN add in the digital parts.... Forget the huge trophy landscape print up on your wall, at least for now.
You'll be lucky if you get a couple decent "keeper" frames your first six months using it. Just my perspective, others may see things differently. I've owned and shot technical cameras for several years on and off as jobs have required, with four different digital backs from three manufacturers. I STILL own one of the dang things, though an older one. It's a love - hate kind of relationship my view camera and I have. I love the photos, but HATE the workflow getting them demands.
But I still can't see, setup, adjust, frame, adjust, frame, adjust, move right, backup, frame, adjust, move forward and slightly left, frame, adjust, drag 50lbs of tripod up the next rise for a better composition, set, frame, adjust, move right two feet, set, frame, adjust, focus, replace battery, reconnect cable, shoot, OOPS - quickly cock shutter!, shoot again - only to lug all that heavy gear back to the truck as the light is now GONE and that one frame is worthless - nearly as fast as Jack Flesher or that bloody fool Don Libby who drags one of the suckers through swamps on his belly and makes it look so darn easy. Ask one of those two guys for advice on using a Technical camera, as they both have invested the 10,000 or so hours it takes to learn to use one right.
And if you think I'm exaggerating calling it a 10,000 hour time investment, please understand that is just my own estimate. I've got around a quarter of that in so far, all off an on - and figure I'm about a quarter of the way there to getting to a point where the artist inside me wants to be, a level with it like Don or Jack, and a few of the others possibly around here, seem to be. I'm a hack with it, and possibly always will be.
That is also something that Hassy, PhaseOne, Leaf, Sinar, Alpa, Cambo, Rollei, Linhof, and even good old Plaubel, who's camera I presently own, ALL failed to mention in their marketing propaganda I too read when I jumped into this fiasco we fools call a "View" camera. They're a view alright - a view down a very difficult road few will ever travel successfully, and none without investing a whole lot of time, energy, and money - first in the gear, then in the education to learn how to use it, and finally in the 4x4's gas tank you drive to haul the dang thing around!
Now that I have burst your bubble and possibly ruined your afternoon, let me see if I can't give you some solid advice that may prove useful for the future. First, let me caution you and anyone else fortunate enough to read this before making any buying decisions. The camera business is a very competitive market, one that is well oversupplied with options you can choose. These companies are consolidating very rapidly. There are rumors abounding about Hassy and even the Great Yellow Father of it all, Kodak, being up for sale. Contax is gone. So is Rollei. They both made the superior products in their respective fields, but as Brands they just didn't sell enough of them to stay in business. Bronica was another.
The old Hassy who built all that great gear that EARNED that Brand's well deserved present reputation was merged with a Danish film scanner company who also made digital backs, to form what is now called "Hasselblad" but it is not the same company, nor is it the same people running it. Those old 500 series 'Blads of mine weren't perfect by any means, and constantly required repairs, adjustments, lubrication, and a pretty fussy workflow loading, cleaning, tweaking, praying and kissing them to keep it all moving the right way, but at the end of the day it all got worked out and the dang things kept going.
Part of that was good design and great engineering, part was simply great service from a great company that old Victor founded with a very sound set of values and standards. That vision and Victor's determination as his company's CEO to build the finest gear possible in his day, built one of the two premier brand names in the camera marketplace today when you think of quality, both quality of IQ and manufacturing/design/service, the other being Leica. Hasselblad has everything PhaseOne has, save for good old Victor running the place, or someone with Victor's same values and vision. Hassy doesn't need to be sold, it just needs someone like me as it's CEO. Yes, I also run companies in my off hours as a photographer. If their Board of Directors is listening, my email is below. Please consider this my application for the job. And I promise my first act as CEO will be to fire all the dumb *** sales types who don't know the difference between an Alpa and an Alpha, even when the tech support guy for his main competition's primary dealer politely, and in a very gentlemanly manner too Doug, points out his error. <Grin>. Doug's boss would not have been so kind, nor am I to vendors only here to sell us product, not offer constructive suggestions on how to solve our real world problems.
My second act as CEO would be to immediately call in the entire Sales & Marketing departments and fire the lot of them. The Executives first, and likely most of the rest. I'd cancel the entire advertising budget for the year, and put the account up for review and proposals from other agencies for the new advertising to be done next year on the new product line. And would immediately have a balanced budget once again.
The new products, 203Dii, the 205Dii, and the full frame sensor 206Dii. As accessories, the Arc-Body, Flex-Body, and SWC/Mark III are all available when the first body ships next spring. In full production quantities, with great German glass again, but also supporting the huge glass investment most folks already have. Enough of the "closed" system and it's lousy electronic manipulations trying to correct for poor optics. That guy who thought that up is gone, time to retire his products as you did him.
Myself and a small group of other professional photographers sat in a closed, private meeting with the President & CEO of Hasselblad who thought that whole thing up. We listened very politely to everything he had to say, then tried to tell him it sounded great, but wasn't going to work for us before he went and blew it. He's gone, but the chaos he caused is still hanging around.... it needs to go too. Mistakes happen, admit them and get on with life. Not saying you can't take great photos with an H, many do it every day. It isn't the camera though it's the photographer using it. Time to give them a better tool.
So I would also announce the demise and departure of the whole H system, may it rest in peace along with all those Danish bean counters who though it up in the first place. A VERY fair trade in policy though as a courtesy to our loyal customers will be made, as we will recycle and reuse the sensors those bodies presently have, and will return to our customers their own sensor and usable other parts in their new 203Dii, with the only cost being the difference in the parts and labor and our production costs necessary to effect these upgrades. I estimate this would be about 50% of the retail price of these new bodies, and would carry the same five year warranty all of the new bodies would have. This warranty cost would also be calculated in the upgrade fee.
And yes, if you buy one of the present products today prior to our shipping the new series cameras, you would get the same guarantee of your upgrade. In fact, if you want the new camera first, our present customers would come first; be the only customers who get a new 203Dii or 205Dii until we have met the demand for upgrades, and extra parts were available to build new bodies for retail sale. Hasselblad would once again appreciate having loyal customers, and would be very happy to prove it by who they take care of first. The lowest cost to market to are a loyal present customer base. Take care of those folks, and you don't need a big advertising budget, costly international shows, advertising agencies, or any of those hundreds in the marketing department. You just need the engineers, men of vision to direct them, and good honest feedback from your existing customer base on how to meet their needs.... You simply need to learn to listen once again.
Now, if you want the new 206Dii body with the 120MP sensor, THAT puppy is gonna cost you some BIG BUX, but you won't believe what it can do! <Grin>.
Sorry Johnny, I do tend to wander around when I get started chewing on vendors sometimes.... comes with the territory. Back to your problems, and how to fix them, here's my view. I found Phocus is a good tool if you can ever figure out how to use it, though the same FOOL marketing wonk that thought up the name Phocus must have also designed the user interface. It SUX. So does C1's, in my opinion. But I work and think differently than most folks, so I can't expect much of the world's designs to be for artists. We're weird, right?
So here is how I fixed the problem. Profiles. Go download CornerFix (google it for sources) and give that a try first. It will probably do all you want for now, and will cost you absolutely nothing. How's that for value? Donate a few bucks to the project too if you keep using it, as that's what keeps the programmers programming new updates. I presently use a much more complicated system of building my own profiles but am discovering that CornerFix can probably do most of what I need too, and much easier.