6500 USD for a mere tilt upgrade. C'mon.

[Alan]

Am I reading between the lines correctly to infer that this offer is just a complete swap to another lens/shutter/mount? Because some dimension of the v1 X-Shutter deviates from the Copal 0 standard, which required the lens cell housings to be modified? And the V1 straight mount is also a different dimension than the newer tilt mounts?

Could a person just sell the V1 lens and buy a new tilting one for better than $6500?

 

[Paul Spinnler]

The offer is a TRADE-IN by CI – there is no official offer from Phase One! That's what's surprising. It looks like a factory upgrade, but it isn't they send you a new lens implying a factory upgrade somehow is not possible. In my view this should be a simple baseplate replacement (ie a "2000-3000k job") – but apparently, it isn't.

CI takes your lens and you pay 6500 and P1 ships you a new tiltable version. CI sells your lens on the backend of this deal.

This way you spent aroud 19500 for the lens. 13 initially, 6.5 with the upgrade. From this perspective yes, selling yourself is more logical.

That's why I am annoyed – mainly due to the lack of communication and the feeling that they don't care about the people who initially invested in this system in 2019. After all, this is still very expensive stuff – it is not a 1500 USD Sony lens I am complaining about – 13k lenses are a big investment and it is fair to assume some customary upgradeability (tech cam lenses are highly modular, except if they are adapted to non-standard dimension as for example in the case of a novel first-gen shutter assembly).

Maybe I am also old fashioned - I remember the days when the sales rep came to your home to bring along the new system including having a coffee with you and calibrating the focus of your XF lenses. Now that they are PE owned there's 0 communication and felt investment in the division. In photo it is probably all about cost-cutting while C1 gets all the attention as it drives the exit case for the PE investor. They need to dramatically increase growth in that division as well as customer stickiness via subscriptions to make their targeted returns.

They fired all external sales reps I knew in Germany, for example and a guy I cherised a lot as point of contact with them. Now there's just a support email with no response.

On the hardware issue upgradeability point: I have an Alpagon 70 in X shutter and the 70 XT and I can see from the dimensions and the placement of the x-shutter that they are not the same. On the Linos packaging for the Alpagon it also said "MK II" shutter.

So the conclusion is that P1 has two generations of X shutters – presumably one from the period 2019-2021 - ie when it was not available to third parties and then thereafter as they had to ofc make sure it is copal compliant so existing Cambo / Alpa / Linhof users can upgrade their copal lenses to X shutter.

As a result, first-gen X shutter lenses are most likely not that easy to upgrade.

I've asked P1 to comment on this – no response. I guess they're afraid of the backlash if they confirm that essentially initial XT lenses are different and cannot be upgraded in the same way as the more recent lenses with the second-gen X shutter.

Given the 32 and 50 I own cost a cool 25k I am clearly not THAT happy with the only option being to throw another 13k on these lenses to make them tiltable.

Am not THAT crazy about TILT, I am sorry.

Maybe I am all wrong – I hope – and next week they'll offer a 2.5k upgrade. But I am not certain ...

 

[buildbot]

On the hardware issue upgradeability point: I have an Alpagon 70 in X shutter and the 70 XT and I can see from the dimensions and the placement of the x-shutter that they are not the same. On the Linos packaging for the Alpagon it also said "MK II" shutter.

So the conclusion is that P1 has two generations of X shutters – presumably one from the period 2019-2021 - ie when it was not available to third parties and then thereafter as they had to ofc make sure it is copal compliant so existing Cambo / Alpa / Linhof users can upgrade their copal lenses to X shutter.

Oooo based on some ebay sleuthing, it may be even more than that! Long post incoming...

There is an ebay seller who has several Phase One shutter PCBs for sale - one is an XT Rev2 Shutter, made 2019 week 40 if I had to guess, and implies there is a rev. 1.

There is also a Rev. 3 Shutter, Also 2019, with a different date code format? Way higher serial number too:

Then we get to the MK II, Rev 3 shutter, 2020? 28th Week? Lowest serial so far! Also, Made in Mexico?

Then, we get this weird one, an "ET" Shutter, much newer! 2021? Third week? High serial! Or maybe they started from 1000...


Full size views:
Xt Rev 2 (Really bad quality, sorry...not my picture):

XT Rev 3:

XT Mark II Rev 3:

ET Shutter:

These could be from their aerial cameras, they have a similar interface to a IXU 50 Camera I took apart once.

I've asked P1 to comment on this – no response. I guess they're afraid of the backlash if they confirm that essentially initial XT lenses are different and cannot be upgraded in the same way as the more recent lenses with the second-gen X shutter.

Interesting, they usually get back to me even if its to say no to whatever I am asking haha.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Well I've asked to confirm whether there will be an upgrade path and whether early XT lenses are limited in their upgradeability.

If that's the case clearly they want to not mention it too loud as multiple users could start complaining.

Different PCB revisions are on thing, but different physical dimensions are another matter. I think from an outside perspective this is the MKI and MKII moniker – the revisions of the PCBs seem to be updates within these shutter generations.

I think the main difference between MKI and MKII is dimensions – ie Copal 0 conformity.

Not sure though, but my best guess seeing my two 70 HR lenses look different.

 

[buildbot]

Well I've asked to confirm whether there will be an upgrade path and whether early XT lenses are limited in their upgradeability.

If that's the case clearly they want to not mention it too loud as multiple users could start complaining.

Different PCB revisions are on thing, but different physical dimensions are another matter. I think from an outside perspective this is the MKI and MKII moniker – the revisions of the PCBs seem to be updates within these shutter generations.

I think the main difference between MKI and MKII is dimensions – ie Copal 0 conformity.

Not sure though, but my best guess seeing my two 70 HR lenses look different.

It would be a odd and sad decision if they really did change the copal spec for no reason - even the Sinar DB lenses which are weird in every other aspect conform to the copal thickness, unless I am mistaken! Hopefully not, because that's where I've retrieved some really great deals on excellent lenses like the 45mm Magenta Ring and the 80mm Digital, which is odd in being copal 1...but still in spec copal 1 (again, I think!).

 

[Paul Spinnler]

It would be a odd and sad decision if they really did change the copal spec for no reason - even the Sinar DB lenses which are weird in every other aspect conform to the copal thickness, unless I am mistaken! Hopefully not, because that's where I've retrieved some really great deals on excellent lenses like the 45mm Magenta Ring and the 80mm Digital, which is odd in being copal 1...but still in spec copal 1 (again, I think!).

I think in 2019 they just took the x shutters from the industrial side and together with Rodenstock created a custom line of XT lenses which had slight adjustments to the dimensions of the lens housing compared to the “standard Rodenstock package" compatible with copal 0.

That’s because the x shutters were a bit “fatter” and didn’t fit the standard housing. The reason then it took so long for them to get the third party shutters out was that they needed to make a redesign of the shutter to be compatible for existing lenses to enable retrofitting.

The 40 HR then came out and I would think this one is more standard, but who knows.

This is the only reason I can explain to myself that a) there is no XT tilt upgrade for 32 / 50 - they now use the MK2 shutters and Cambo redid the bottom part based on the spec of the MK2 shutters.

This means MK 1 lenses can only be upgraded if P1 would offer a replacement shutter plus calibration at Rodenstock or a new lens altogether which is more lucrative for the sellside, of course.

This is my best conjecture and I hope it is wrong; but in my mind any other explanation does not make sense given I see a dimension difference in my own 70 HR lenses.

To be fair - I only started to put the pieces together again when this new offer came out. I was super looking forward to sending my lenses in, but to see that there is no path other than outright replacing them is quite a bummer.

I still hope they offer a path to early buyers, but given money is tight and PE is looking over the costs I am not sure this is going to happen. Any additional cost from a customer make whole scheme is less money in the pockets of the investors.

 

[TechTalk]

Yes, especially considering they bought it at 15x EBITDA – I can tell you that's difficult to turn a profit on in this environment as rates impacted valuations massively – essentially Silverfleet made bank and Axcel bought it running into the pandemic with all the capital markets turmoil that followed since.

It's nothing more than personal opinion on my part for whatever it's worth, but I think Phase One's losses are more attributable to product than pandemic. I say that only because I've been following Hasselblad, Leica, and Phase One financial performance for several years. Leica and Hasselblad have both done well in recent years.

Hasselblad's strategic move into mirrorless has clearly been beneficial for them as they had a major upturn in revenue and profits in 2020. In June 2019 they announced several new products including the X1D II 50C, 907X + CFV II 50C, XCD 35–75 zoom, and Phocus Mobile 2. Their mirrorless X-System products sold well in 2020 and Hasselblad has continued to do well since. It will be interesting to see the financial results for 2023 with sales of the X2D 100C and new lenses. Their R&D spending for 2021 and 2022 is a major increase over 2019 and 2020.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I agree on the mismanagement part. But there is now this additional layer of a highly levered PE ownership combined with quasi catastrophic evolution of the capital markets from the point of view of such an investor. Trading multiples for software business are now down two turns and with leveraged debt markets effectively dead they will have an uphill battle to make the investment as profitable as they promised their LPs.

This might be a situation where PE killed the photo business except if huge growth can be generated on the software side and or the B2B side - still then not clear what will happen to the photo side.

For profitability I would Bank on the software side, where it will depend on how much more profits they can extract by moving everyone into subscription. The effect with Adobe was substantial, but for my part I will not upgrade for a while as I really don’t like monthly software payments.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

It's nothing more than personal opinion on my part for whatever it's worth, but I think Phase One's losses are more attributable to product than pandemic. I say that only because I've been following Hasselblad, Leica, and Phase One financial performance for several years. Leica and Hasselblad have both done well in recent years.

Hasselblad's strategic move into mirrorless has clearly been beneficial for them as they had a major upturn in revenue and profits in 2020. In June 2019 they announced several new products including the X1D II 50C, 907X + CFV II 50C, XCD 35–75 zoom, and Phocus Mobile 2. Their mirrorless X-System products sold well in 2020 and Hasselblad has continued to do well since. It will be interesting to see the financial results for 2023 with sales of the X2D 100C and new lenses. Their R&D spending for 2021 and 2022 is a major increase over 2019 and 2020.

View attachment 207382

I hear from a larger Hassy dealer that DJI is treating them like ****. I have no stake on the Hassy side, but I've now heard multiple times that DJI had a lot of lenses available for sale in their online store for months while dealers where told that they were out of stock.

Of course, that's because selling all online directly allows you to keep the whole margin - not ideal also. As a result, the dealer I spoke to said he had stopped stocking X lenses (as DJI will start delivering the hot stuff to them once demand has tapered off, so not great). Not difficult if you are data oriented to cash in on early demand and tilt deliveries to your benefit until you've cashed in a big part of the initial "onslaught demand".

No idea how representative this is on a global scale, but seems long are gone the days of a "premium" customer experience. Here's the support mail, order online, lol.

Probably more lucrative to sall Nikon / Canon / Fuji at this stage on a volume and resulting profit basis.

 

[TechTalk]

I hear...

Speaking only for myself, as soon as I hear "I hear"... I'm not interested.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Speaking only for myself, as soon as I hear "I hear"... I'm not interested.

Then keep it to yourself.

DJI is tactically holding back X lens inventory (doesn't mean you can't buy it at a dealer, but supply is slow) at release to sell through initial demand. DJI is selling everything through their online stores – it is a clear conflict of interest from DJIs perspective to both provide inventory at the beginning of a release to its dealer network while at the same time maintaining a D2C webshop.

Weren't the new lenses difficult to get in stores at the beginning?

 

[Ben730]

Paul
Why don't you take your 32XT apart and put it in a Copal 0?
That's the easiest way to find out if it fits together or not.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Paul
Why don't you take your 32XT apart and put it in a Copal 0?
That's the easiest way to find out if it fits together or not.

I won't take it apart - do you own a 32 XT? You can't easily take them apart.

I've had it confirmed (not in writing due to the sensitivity of the matter) that the XT MK I shutter lenses are not upgradeable.

The X shutter has a different dimension and placement and all third-party X shutter mounted lenses come with an MK II label from Rodenstock on the packaging.

I've asked P1 to comment on the upgradeability and different generations of shutters a week ago – no feedback. Support says they've forwarded the mail - to Drew - who doesn't comment. Just radio silence.

I find it extremely unbecoming for P1 to not explain clearly what the status is. Only explanation I have for this is they want to avoid to make whole early gen customers and in private equity style not commenting means no fodder to customers to complain be it on a legal or PR basis.

Like when HR doesn't go back to an applicant in writing to avoid any legal problems.

0-comms strategy is a joke, considering the high-end product it is. Not only relating to XT gen I lenses, but also relating to the product roadmap overall.

Will there ever be an IQ5? When, what price, will backs be upgradeable?

0 comms is not a good strategy IMHO.

 

[Ben730]

I won't take it apart - do you own a 32 XT? You can't easily take them apart.

No, I don't own XT Shutters and I will never own one as long as they have only 5 aperture blades.
Why is it difficult to take to screw threads apart? This is not a job for a watchmaker.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I won't risk any miscalibration - you probably can unscrew the top part, but the bottom section with the helical is one unit. You can't also undo the bottom Alpa mount easily.

Point is the way they constructed it at the beginning it is incompatible with the new tiltable bottom plates from Cambo. Meaning you need your lens replaced.

It is a design flaw – they probably just wanted to launch quickly before re-engineering the X shutter to be cross-platform compatible. Hence a first gen and then second gen X shutter.

 

[algrove]

What a mess.

I sold all my Phase gear and associated lenses after the first X lenses came out and it was not going to be available to Alpa for some time. It was a deliberate attempt at the monopolistic approach.

I had direct talks with Alpa officials and they were very disappointed in the way Phase released and held the X market at that time.

Loved the system disliked the back manufacturer and especially their pricing models. Best system I will have ever owned, but then did I need 150MP images for my usage. No.

My tastes first soured when I got a direct phone call from a Phase Senior VP in the US because I wanted to buy from a dealer who was sweetening the deal on an IQ3100 Achromatic over the dealer that I had previously purchased my P45+ and IQ3100 color from. It was a $45k deal at the time. He suggested I should just suck up and pay the full price from the first dealer. So I said to him if he were buying a BMW would he not "shop" around for the best price? I had him as he could not reply and told him the discussion was over. I will NEVER forget that phone call which clearly indicated to me they did not give a damn about the customer. In fact that convinced me sooner than latter that this was not the manufacturer for me.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Oh wow – why should you pay more in a free market if in the background there's a private equity company pushing to increase profits and cut costs. Insane.

Sometimes investing in a customer relationship by doing a special deal, giving back a bit, etc. will pay dividends long-term.

I hold Alpa dearly because again and again they proved to be super forthcoming and let me not get started on the extra mile Arca will go for the littlest manufacturing asks or Leica who will just fix things without sending an invoice.

I've been buying Leica stuff since 20 years and I expect this trend to continue. I mean what does it matter in such an instance to repair sth for free.

In the case of P1 - with every few years a new owner wanting to make a cut it is of course a totally different, let's say "capitalistic", culture.

 

[Ben730]

I won't risk any miscalibration - you probably can unscrew the top part, but the bottom section with the helical is one unit. You can't also undo the bottom Alpa mount easily.

Point is the way they constructed it at the beginning it is incompatible with the new tiltable bottom plates from Cambo. Meaning you need your lens replaced.

It is a design flaw – they probably just wanted to launch quickly before re-engineering the X shutter to be cross-platform compatible. Hence a first gen and then second gen X shutter.

So it seems the lens is the same as all Rodenstock 32 HR-W. You can mount it in a Copal 0 shutter.
The size of the X-shutter MK1 is the problem, or am I wrong?

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Here are the facts:

1) There are MK I and MKII shutters in existence.
2) MKII are on newly mounted third party X lenses, ie an Alpagon 70 HR
3) I was told I cannot remount 2019 vintage XT lenses to third party – helicoid and mount replacement – without a new shutter and sending in my old lens so P1 sends a new lens to the mounting company, ie Alpa for example – I was quoted around 6k for a transfer from XT to Alpa X many months ago (because I wanted tilt); quite surprised, I left it as it was the same almost than just keeping the XT lens and buying a second one – P1 likes to work with "trade-ins"; ofc it is not a good deal then. I bought the lens a second time.
4) The 32 XT tilt promo is a trade-in, not a factory upgrade
5) When putting the 70 HR and 70 XT upside down on a table, focused to infinity with the respective helicoid, I can clearly see that the XT X shutter is placed at a different height distance from the front lens element – it is pretty obvious, multiple mm (the distance between shutter and front element is not affected by focusing position on the helicoid) – it also implies the shutters internally are built differently;
6) When looking at them side-by-side it seems to the eye, but I would need to take them out to put them side-by-side on a table that the height of shutters is also a tiny bit different – no I cannot undo it from the XT lens as this lens is very well made with everything screwed together in a totally different way than non-XT lenses – remember, XT has an electrical information channel in the housing to transfer info through the mount to the shutter
7) I also reached out to P1 many months ago asking why one cannot transfer lenses and all I got was legalese saying effectively that the lenses work as promised for their intened use (ie for the XT system and were never marketed as being transferrable)

So the technical problem can relate to different measurements of the elements and / or problems arising from the information channel in the mount which makes it somehow incompatible and/ or, finally, slight modifications to the lens housing ex factory at Rodenstock from back in the early days when they commissioned the first set of lenses except the 40 and did some custom stuff to integrate the helicoid, wiring, gen I x shutter.

The existence of MK I and MKII, the lead time between the initial first gen set of lenses 23, 32, 50, 70, 90 and the 40 and the opening of the platform as well as the info that only full replacement would be possible when wanting to remount combined with the current promotio which is another trade-in make it pretty clear to me that there's something impeding upgradability to tilt.

I would appreciate a normal factory upgrade pathway – 2000-3000 for them to fix this so the lenses can be tilted would be fair IMHO.

I've asked for an explanation on what's happening and whether the 2019 lenses will ever be upgredeable – haven't heard back and probably never will because I think it is their strategy to just say 0 to minimize downside risk (backlash, claims for make-whole, etc.)

I hope there will be a scheme, but I am not certain this will happen given there's this 6500 promotion in the room. In a way, even if they now wanted to provide a special path financialy, you'll have the problem of people having now paid 6500 to do it – they'd not be amused.

At least one person in the poll will do it, it seems.

Find it weird that there's no official statement directed towards initial owners.