Hasselblad has been sold

[ptomsu]

David, all the best for the future. In many ways, the 50MS outperformed my IQ180 so I can just imagine what the 200MS can do.

Perhaps the new management will phocus (heh) on your reliable and lucrative institutional customers. However, VCs tend to want growth areas. Is there a growth future for ultra high end still photography?

If that remains the primary interest, here is what I would do to expand share:

1 People buy what they see. Put the best display on the camera.
2 People buy what is easy to use. Dump the Phocus code body. Contract out a ground-up rebuild and pay a proven architect to design it with interface standardization as a priority.

Yes, these are both obvious and hard (= expensive) problems. I assume Hasselblad would have already done them if they were justified by revenue projections. Will Hasselblad improve old things with new money, or will it make new things with its great brand identity?

The cultural basis of imaging is changing so fast and investors will want you to lead the change. I wonder if we will recognize Hasselblad products in five years.

I agree on a very much needed rebuild of Phocus and I also agree on much better to operate and innovative backs for the H system.

 

[David Grover / Phase One]

It's a relatively large market however its nature is changing rapidly and many of these customers are moving from 90's technology MS and scanning backs to new 80MP single-shot solutions

Suffice to say that many new prospects in emerging markets are looking mostly at single-shot solutions because of their simplicity, speed and low running costs

The cameras these days are operated by people who are not trained as photographers. The camera and software are locked at certain settings; aperture, shutter speed and processing parameters and they just press the button, or the book/ cradle/ copy stand does it for them, automatically

Many of them run their own bespoke front end for operating the camera and just use the back's SDK to drive it. In fact there are several dealers who specialise in these areas and can offer a complete solution. Lance's company is a good example.

When they look at the costs involved in running a slow and complex MS system in terms of capture-to-final product time and shutter life (and lights if they use flash), a single shot option makes a lot more sense to them

In many of these applications, namely the ones who utilise pneumatic/ mechanical/ robotic book cradles, MS is not a viable solution anyway since the pages, when lifted are not frozen still yet they still require a large file size.

Moreover there are companies who develop their own "camera" platform with bespoke shutter solutions and use the back as an OEM component. Naturally these people do not visit these forums but you see them at shows like CeBIT and other machine-vision oriented events

The present and future belong to single shot if you look at the sales figures of the 80MP backs. MS will gradually disappear as people move to the simpler, cheaper solutions

IMO

Yair

I guess The Tate, Van Gogh Museum (Tested Leaf Single Shot, went Hasselbald), National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery (London).. National Library in Jerusalem, to name a few, would disagree.

To quote the curator of the National Gallery of Australia..

"When people call me to advise them on what system to use, I tell them that hands down the Hasselblad MS system is the only camera of choice for the reproduction market".

At the same conference an independent expert showed results from a Single shot 80MP back (manufacturer not identified) that still showed moire on a fine etched image. The comparative multi shot captures (still no identified manufacturer but you can guess) did not show this error.

So not only my opinion, but of those in the industry.

David

 

[David Grover / Phase One]

David, all the best for the future. In many ways, the 50MS outperformed my IQ180 so I can just imagine what the 200MS can do.

Perhaps the new management will phocus (heh) on your reliable and lucrative institutional customers. However, VCs tend to want growth areas. Is there a growth future for ultra high end still photography?

If that remains the primary interest, here is what I would do to expand share:

1 People buy what they see. Put the best display on the camera.
2 People buy what is easy to use. Dump the Phocus code body. Contract out a ground-up rebuild and pay a proven architect to design it with interface standardization as a priority.

Yes, these are both obvious and hard (= expensive) problems. I assume Hasselblad would have already done them if they were justified by revenue projections. Will Hasselblad improve old things with new money, or will it make new things with its great brand identity?

The cultural basis of imaging is changing so fast and investors will want you to lead the change. I wonder if we will recognize Hasselblad products in five years.

Thanks Peter!

I am really excited to hear of their plans. Anything else is speculation at the moment.. but still fun.

David

 

[fotografz]

While I could not care less about a GF645 or similar, there is a lot of truth in what you say about Leica etc.

But would a Hasselblad version of the S System be successful now? Now that we already have Leica? I think this market is so very small and tight that it is tricky to find new business areas which could be successful.

Well, IMO, it could be successful if it was 1/2 the price of a S2 and also had a focal plane shutter ... so the HC lenses could used AND all of the V and F lenses could be also used ... especially since Phocus already has the 3F DAC corrections for most of those V lenses.

There is a huge installed user base with Zeiss legacy lenses ... and the only Hasselblad camera to use the F lenses has long been discontinued. A used 203FE with a CFV/39 back runs about $17.5K with no lenses, and $20.5K with the CFV/50. Plus the 203FE tops out at 1/2000th and has a sync speed of 1/90th. A new camera could up those spec's considerably.

The S2 market is indeed relatively small, but that is primarily because it is at least $30K for the most basic two lens system. If you had a Hasselblad camera with a H mount and V adapter, I could easily see a $10K camera and basic kit with two lenses at around $14K ... Less if you bought used lenses. Trouble with the S system is the other lenses are upwards of $7K and there aren't many used ones to be had. As I said, there has been a huge amount of interest in this form factor for MFD, but the only player in town is financially way out of reach for most that would like to migrate from 35mm digital.

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

It's a relatively large market however its nature is changing rapidly and many of these customers are moving from 90's technology MS and scanning backs to new 80MP single-shot solutions

Suffice to say that many new prospects in emerging markets are looking mostly at single-shot solutions because of their simplicity, speed and low running costs

The cameras these days are operated by people who are not trained as photographers. The camera and software are locked at certain settings; aperture, shutter speed and processing parameters and they just press the button, or the book/ cradle/ copy stand does it for them, automatically

Many of them run their own bespoke front end for operating the camera and just use the back's SDK to drive it. In fact there are several dealers who specialise in these areas and can offer a complete solution. Lance's company is a good example.

When they look at the costs involved in running a slow and complex MS system in terms of capture-to-final product time and shutter life (and lights if they use flash), a single shot option makes a lot more sense to them

In many of these applications, namely the ones who utilise pneumatic/ mechanical/ robotic book cradles, MS is not a viable solution anyway since the pages, when lifted are not frozen still yet they still require a large file size.

Moreover there are companies who develop their own "camera" platform with bespoke shutter solutions and use the back as an OEM component. Naturally these people do not visit these forums but you see them at shows like CeBIT and other machine-vision oriented events

The present and future belong to single shot if you look at the sales figures of the 80MP backs. MS will gradually disappear as people move to the simpler, cheaper solutions

IMO

Yair

I think this may be true to some extent ... there are most certainly applications that once required MS, that the bigger 80 and even 60 backs can now handle adequately. Jumping from 39 meg to 60 and 80 meg was a decent leap forward in resolution. I tested my H4D/60 against my old CF/39MS and the 60 did an adequate enough job to make the swap ... but the color from the MS was better right out of the camera. So, it was not as big a leap forward in color fidelity and rendering of minute patterns that can produce moiré because it still uses the same basic method of capture ... just more of it. Tweaked of course, but still basically the same. I'm absolutely sure a 6 shot 50 back will murder anything available in single shot made by anyone.

The notion that MS is complex and fraught with technical difficulties is either marketing speak from companies that do not offer MS, or folks that haven't actually used it day-in and day-out. It is a no-brainer work flow, and once all is refined using single shot, you just click the MS button and it does it's thing ... in mere seconds. The pic comes up and ... WOW! As many experienced MS shooters have mentioned, working on MS shots is MUCH easier than single shot and the retouching time is cut way down per shot. I really found that to be true for a client I did work for last year. I don't do as much of that now that I'm semi-retired so it doesn't matter as much now.

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

I agree on a very much needed rebuild of Phocus and I also agree on much better to operate and innovative backs for the H system.

Refine Phocus ... of course. More functionality? Yes please. Rebuild to the point that I have to learn a new software? No thanks! I love some of the features in Phocus and just the other day showed my dealer a color adjustment trick I came up with that he had never seen before.

What I would absolutely love is a comprehensive and intuitive workflow and tool pallet like Lightroom, but with all the secret sauce of the proprietary software. Currently no one has that, or anything close to it.

Not sure what is meant by better to operate or innovative backs. Mine works just dandy as it is ... frankly, I can't think of anything I'd want that I don't already have and already know how to use ... except, just give me the higher resolution LCD and external battery I already paid for and I'd be good for a while. But I admit that I'm not much for lots of toys on any camera I use, or paying a premium for them ... just give me a camera that works and let me get on with taking photos.

Okay, I also admit that I'm jonesing for a 200MS but that's just a pipe dream ... one should always have a dream or two :ROTFL:

-Marc

 

[arashm]

I have to say I was very excited about the S2 at first and still think it's a great Camera but the price point of the "system" just killed it for me.
Give me a Hasselblad S2 inspired body with True Focus, 30-40MPX for around $10K-$12K and I'll be all over it, I would be more than happy to leave Canon behind for this.
I also like Phocus, it can be faster and the only thing I really want that it's missing is being able to generate variant/virtual copys that can sit along side the first "real" file.
I guess we can hope

 

[yaya]

I think this may be true to some extent ... there are most certainly applications that once required MS, that the bigger 80 and even 60 backs can now handle adequately. Jumping from 39 meg to 60 and 80 meg was a decent leap forward in resolution. I tested my H4D/60 against my old CF/39MS and the 60 did an adequate enough job to make the swap ... but the color from the MS was better right out of the camera. So, it was not as big a leap forward in color fidelity and rendering of minute patterns that can produce moiré because it still uses the same basic method of capture ... just more of it. Tweaked of course, but still basically the same. I'm absolutely sure a 6 shot 50 back will murder anything available in single shot made by anyone.

The notion that MS is complex and fraught with technical difficulties is either marketing speak from companies that do not offer MS, or folks that haven't actually used it day-in and day-out. It is a no-brainer work flow, and once all is refined using single shot, you just click the MS button and it does it's thing ... in mere seconds. The pic comes up and ... WOW! As many experienced MS shooters have mentioned, working on MS shots is MUCH easier than single shot and the retouching time is cut way down per shot. I really found that to be true for a client I did work for last year. I don't do as much of that now that I'm semi-retired so it doesn't matter as much now.

-Marc

Marc (and David), this is not a pissing contest and perhaps we should start a separate MS Vs Single thread

So far I have yet to see a 6 shot file that looks better than a scaled-up 5 shot one or better than a single shot 80MP file in terms of resolution and colour. Let me re-phrase that: I have yet to see a new customer that was presented with the 3 options and chose MS. The large number of MS products we get as trade-in nowadays supports my general view of this market.

Facts are that a multi shot solution will wear your shutters 5-6 or even 8 times faster (you said "and once all is refined using single shot, you just click the MS button")

To put some real numbers down; there are repro houses that do 3,000-3,500 separate documents/ pages each day on each camera. Assuming that your average MF shutter can last 100K clicks, you are going through 1-2 shutters every month or two. You cannot afford any downtime so you have to invest in 2 bodies or 2 lenses per station depending on your setup. It gets a little better if you use Schneider electronic shutters as they last longer but only if 1/60th is fast enough for your applications

On a decent Mac/ PC, from shutter release to 100% render with an MS camera is ALLOT slower than with a single shot camera. If your work requires hundreds or even thousands of frames every day it all adds up to many many man hours that either you don't have or that you are not getting money for...

Then we get to file sizes and storage, and the IT requirements that come with it. A single shot 80MP RAW file is 3 to 13 (!) times smaller than a 50MP MS RAW file. Do the math and see how much longer it takes to transfer 100 MS images to a server or to write them to tape...again this is time and money!

So if you are managing a digitisation project and your government or the organisation that funds the project specifies a budget and a deadline for finishing the project, or if you run a repro house, which way will YOU go?

Regarding colour accuracy. In theory there is only ONE way to capture true colour but this requires a monochrome chip and big colour filters and it is only useable for still (VERY still) objects. We've abandoned this technology (along with the Bayer based MS) years ago because we believed that in the long run single shot will replace it successfully, which it does if you go by sales figures.

Happy independence day BTW:salute:

 

[kdphotography]

....Okay, I also admit that I'm jonesing for a 200MS but that's just a pipe dream ... one should always have a dream or two :ROTFL:

-Marc

Hell, Marc. We're all pulling for you here for a H4D200MS. We know you'll share your experiences and allow us all at GetDPI to live vicariously through you...

:ROTFL:

 

[carstenw]

I guess The Tate, Van Gogh Museum (Tested Leaf Single Shot, went Hasselbald), National Gallery of Australia, National Gallery (London).. National Library in Jerusalem, to name a few, would disagree.

I can easily imagine that such an investment would pay off over and over again, compared to shipping the artwork somewhere else to get it copied. The insurance on a single high-ticket item would likely pay back a significant part of the camera already.

 

[Bob]

Folks, this thread has gone so far off topic that it is probably best to abandon it now and start up new ones on any or all of the topics opened during this wide-ranging discussion.
-bob

 

[yaya]

Agreed Bob, Happy independence day !!!