Steve Hendrix
Active member
Hmm... Just a thought.
...and I'm going slightly off topic on my own thread.
Imagine if Sinar (okay, they're owned by Leica now) produced a 56x56 digital back. The only self-contained 6x6 SLR camera would be the Hy6. The remaining manufacturers (Phase One, Pentax, and Hasselblad) are firmly in the 645 camp. Any development on their part to go the 6x6 route would involve a new body and new lenses, at a considerable financial layout (okay, Hasselblad could bring back the V series, but the tooling for those has either gone or is limited). The Hy6, on the other hand...
Anyway, just a thought.
Cheers,
Duff (who, if he had the millions, would invest in the development of such a back for such a camera still in production).
This took too much imagination for me to visualize Sinar developing a 6x6 digital back.
So I decided to look up the real thing, back in 1996:
http://www.epi-centre.com/reports/9604cs.html
It sounds fantastic - until one realized the limitations. Tons of moire, noisy images (despite the super large photosites), and $55,000 (in 1996 dollars!). Let's say they continued their efforts and today a new digital back that was 6x6 was produced with excellent image quality at a price of $70k - $80k. It would only fit the Hy6, perhaps Hasselblad V, maybe Mamiya 6x7, view/tech cameras. A large and passionate user base, but perhaps a tiny market in terms of those actually investing that much to simply fill the frame with a square sensor.
I love the idea! It's a shame it couldn't be a reality. As an investment I think it would have to be a many multi million dollar labor of love.
The great thing about the Hy6 was the promise of shooting 6x6 film and 6x6 digital interchangeably. Too bad that it was not to be.
Steve Hendrix/CI
