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From your advice below, it seems that is possible to use the mechanical shutter of the 500cm with the cvf50ii, when live view mode is turned off.
I am not familiar with Phocus, but if it’s worth the extra cost of acquiring a 503 instead of a 500cm, i may go that route.
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Thanks for your advice. Also, did you have to change your focus screen to match the crop factor of the cfv50ii instead of the fov of the a12 back?
The CFV 50c back is quite different from the CFVII 50c back with respect to its operation, I think. I never had one of the earlier backs.
The default behavior of the CFVII 50c back when fitted to the 500CM is to just work like a film back does: you set the back for what sensitivity you want, and whatever other parameters you want. Otherwise, you use the camera as you always would with film and the back records the photo. That's it ... so yes, you're using the mechanical shutter in the lens. You have to set the back to a different mode, and the body to open the lens and body shutters, for Live View to operate. Completely different operation.
Again, I have no direct experience with the 503 model. I'd have to research what is different between it and the 500CM with respect to what the body supports. I've had three 500CMs, however, and they do everything I want.
Phocus is Hasselblad's image processing and camera control software. There's also
Phocus Mobile for use with portable devices. Phocus comes with the 907x/CFVII 50c and is downloadable from their website. It's only useful in controlling the 503cw if you also have the motor drive, which is only compatible with the 503cw. It's always useful for processing the photos that you've captured with the back, if you choose that route of image processing. (I've used Lightroom Classic so far for my image processing.)
The CFVII 50c comes with a mask to place on the focusing screen of your Hasselblad SLR to give you an accurate framing tool. I haven't found it necessary: I can just visualize the difference pretty easily in my head. You can make one too. Here's a graphic of the format difference:
The Blue is the film format, the Black is the digital format. Easy.
If I were you, I'd buy a camera and a film back, play with that a while and see whether it appeals to you. Then consider whether to spend the extra money to buy the digital back.
G