Phase One Announces Leadership Transition - New CEO and Chairman

[Alkibiades]

anyway the photo part of Phase one cant become worst, so with the new stuff we can hope that Phase One become a lively company again.
Maybe Hasselblad could be a positive example for them, anyway they will need a colaboration with a company from china or korea like hasselblad or leica do.

 

[SrMphoto]

anyway the photo part of Phase one cant become worst, so with the new stuff we can hope that Phase One become a lively company again.
Maybe Hasselblad could be a positive example for them, anyway they will need a colaboration with a company from china or korea like hasselblad or leica do.

Which company from China or Korea does Leica collaborate with?

 

[fmueller]

Can you share the well-documented part? I am not aware of it.
AFAIK, C1/Phase One is still mad at Hasselblad, and that is the main reason why C1 does not support Hasselblad. Hasselblad does not share its HNCS algos with Lightroom, either.
Here is an official C1 document about the topic:
Why Capture One Does Not Currently Support Hasselblad cameras (e.g X2D)

From the C1 explanation
‘…it takes a second to blow up a bridge and a very long time to rebuild it.”

That is a lesson for all of life.

 

[Oren Grad]

Which company from China or Korea does Leica collaborate with?

Panasonic.

 

[SrMphoto]

Panasonic.

Panasonic is a Japanese company, not Chinese or Korean.

 

[Knorp]

Which company from China or Korea does Leica collaborate with?

Xiaomi

 

[hcubell]

Hasselblad was the first to close off its new HX camera bodies around 2010. Phase introduced the XF in2015. Around 2017, Phase introduced the IQ4 series of backs and decided that Hasselblad had a good idea when it closed off the H bodies so it reciprocated by closing off the IQ4 backs to H mount bodies. The intent was to try to force photographers who wanted a body to buy an XF. Tit for tat. (I speak from personal experience that the strategy failed miserably in my case, as I was planning to buy a IQ150 for my H2, but there was no way I was willing to purchase an XF.) Just like Phase’s ongoing refusal to open up Capture One.
The medium format digital market that Phase once dominated has undergone a sea change since the introduction of the X series and GFX integrated digital cameras. The once poor relative Hasselblad that was on life support and owned by PE firms is now earning tens of millions of dolllars and is owned by a strategic owner that has highly sophisticated technology and R&D capabilities in the digital imaging space.

 

[Alkibiades]

Which company from China or Korea does Leica collaborate with?

Leica collaborate afcourse with Panasonic, all electronic parts and chips are Panasonic, Leica made in germany is the body, design and the lenses.
without the panasonic part leica could only produce analoge film cameras.
Leica made all these lenses for panasonic Video Cameras all the years in the past.
As Zeiss made it for Sony.
Then afcourse the next mass product after the video cameras become the cell phone, so here you got the new colaboration also.
I wrote that Phase one would need a collaboration with companies from China or Korea and not Japan becouse of the costs. Most japanese companies have alsready a partner or they have already good reputation so they dont need a partner like the big Canon, Nikon, Fuji....
But in Korea you have for exapmple Samyang that produce cheap lenses and will be probably able to produce better lenses also but would need a known name o known platform. They already collaborate with Schneider. As Phase one do also. So why not Phase one-schneider -Samyang? Production by Samyang, lens design by schneider, camera design- back design by Phase one? Samyang will have for sure production also in china, so the costs can be reduce and all of the tree companies can do what they can do best.
This is a one possibility, there are now a lot of new lensproducer in China, lets take Laowa.
They would profit a lot with such collaboration: schneider could make their optical performance better, phase one could get cheap tilt-shift lenses ....
Anyway I would go these ways if I would work for phase one.
The future is very fragile now, nobody knows what will happen with US market. So hasselblad made it very clever to reduce the price for their new camera. The costomers are unsettled now, they will not risk to spend a lot of money now. It is a big difference to spend 7 k or 50 k for a camera.
The future belong to the 7k cameras now.

 

[TechTalk]

With regard to some apparent confusion about Capture One refusing to support Hasselblad raw files, I will just make this statement which anyone with the desire can easily verify as accurate. Anyone can assert whatever they wish, but I'm not interested in debating these facts or this topic beyond this post.

For most of Capture One's existence, from 2003 until 2018, it was closed to all digital back and medium format camera raw files other than those from Phase One brands. Regardless of the manufacturer — Leaf (prior to their acquisition), Hasselblad, Imacon, Sinar, Pentax 645 digital, Leaf AFi/Rollei/Sinar Hy6 models, Leica S2/S3, etc. — no other digital backs or medium format cameras had support. Capture One was a "closed system" to any cameras viewed as a possible competitor to Phase One for years. Period.

Until 2003, Phase One software only supported their own digital cameras. The same was true of capture software from other camera manufacturers as well. In 2003, Capture One was launched as software to support raw files from other cameras — except, as mentioned, being closed to any viewed as competitors for Phase One. After the IQ4 was introduced, Capture One began to open up support for raw files from integrated medium format DSLR and mirrorless camera systems with smaller sensors — at least systems without interchangeable back models. Support for other brands of medium format cameras didn't begin until: September 2018 with version 11.3 for Fuji GFX models, December 2020 with version 14.0.0 for Leica S2/S3 models, and September 2021 with version 14.4.0 for the Pentax 645Z.

Hasselblad offering the only alternative digital back to those from Phase One, although with a smaller sensor and at a much lower price, is still viewed as a competitor and their files are still not supported. Capture One and Phase One are the two corporate divisions which together make up Phase One Group ApS (aka AX V INV6 Holding ApS) and as such are simply two parts of a single company, unlike a subsidiary which is a separate and distinct business entity within a group. The CEO for many years has now been replaced and new decision makers may make changes which some have wanted for a long time. The future is notoriously hard to predict regardless of the confidence with which any predictions are made.

 

[f8orbust]

The future belong to the 7k cameras now.

Hard to disagree - P1 should get off their high-horse and bring out something to compete in this price bracket.

You'd need to be brave / completely bonkers to pony up $50k+ for whatever P1 come up with next given the trajectory they're on.

 

[drevil]

Which company from China or Korea does Leica collaborate with?

insta360

 

[drevil]

Hard to disagree - P1 should get off their high-horse and bring out something to compete in this price bracket.

You'd need to be brave / completely bonkers to pony up $50k+ for whatever P1 come up with next given the trajectory they're on.

true, we all know the P1 backs are so expensive, only because a small group of people were willing to pay that much. but thx to hasselblad and fuji, that group of people shrank considerably.
the GFX50s and hasselblad x1d were introduced a year earlier, so i was surprised that the IQ4 was still so expensive and while the IQ4 surely sold well, i doubt an IQ5 will do as well.

i never understood why phase one didnt use the leaf brand as an entry-offer for newcomers at a reasonable price point.

and imagine how good a fullframe 40MP sensor with modern technology would be these days, but thats another topic

 

[f8orbust]

They adopted this 'reassuringly expensive' stance years ago, and refused to budge from it no matter what was approaching in the rear-view mirror.

And years ago I said it would eventually bite them in the backside.

 

[drevil]

do we have any guesstimates, how large the number is, of produced backs for each generation?

 

[Steve Hendrix]

Hard to disagree - P1 should get off their high-horse and bring out something to compete in this price bracket.

You'd need to be brave / completely bonkers to pony up $50k+ for whatever P1 come up with next given the trajectory they're on.

Making a move from their market position to the position of the $7,000 cameras would have been a disaster for Phase One IMO. First, they give up their advantage in expertise for high resolution/high image quality, large sensor capture. Second, they are at a competitive disadvantage to the technology that Fujifilm and Hasselblad/DJI already bring to that table setting, with years of experience and skilled personnel at the wheel, with nothing in house to lean on in order to catch up. Third, going from a company creating $40,000 - $60,000 systems to one creating $7,000 systems necessitates a drastic change to the company, the personnel, the infrastructure, a substantial overhaul. That was never in the cards for them, and rightly so.

Instead, they continued to lean into what they specialize in (large sensor, high resolution, high pixel level quality), and sought new markets that were eager for those capabilities, while still keeping a toe dipped into the consumer side of things for crossover developments to those who still are interested (and why not?). They're not depending on those consumer sales for the survival of the company. They'll never dominate the high end consumer space like before, but they can certainly continue to present products for that side of the industry as long as there is some viability there. At this point, those are at best a small, but useful contributing element to their overall business. The heavy lifting though, happens in the industrial sectors, where they can truly leverage their strengths and expertise.

Anyone who thinks Phase One blew it or missed something by not jumping into the same boat as Fujifilm/Hasselblad is missing the real story - IMO.


Steve Hendrix/CI

 

[darr]

I get why Phase One sticks to what they do best. But from my side as a photographer, even 100MP can feel like grocery shopping by the pixel. Hasselblad’s 100MP at $7K? That’s the family-size cornflakes. Phase One’s 150MP at $50K? Truffle-dusted gourmet Cheerios. Me? I’m perfectly happy with toast and jam, plenty to enjoy without overstuffing the hard drive. Glad everyone can get what they want, but I do wish Hasselblad would bring back a 50MP back for shooters like me.

 

[anyone]

It would be nice if P1 would bring the IQ4 150 for V mount.

 

[f8orbust]

Instead, they continued to lean into what they specialize in (large sensor, high resolution, high pixel level quality), and sought new markets that were eager for those capabilities, while still keeping a toe dipped into the consumer side of things ....

Yes, but unfortunately it feels like it's their small toe, and you get a sense that very soon they're going to come to the logical conclusion that - as far as the consumer sector is concerned - the juice just ain't worth the squeeze any more.

 

[Steve Hendrix]

Yes, but unfortunately it feels like it's their small toe, and you get a sense that very soon they're going to come to the logical conclusion that - as far as the consumer sector is concerned - the juice just ain't worth the squeeze any more.

Well, sure, take this realistically. The IQ4 150 came out in September 2018 (rounding up). If they release the IQ5 250 in 2026, then that is 8 years between models (vs the more typical 3 years with other cameras, like Hasselblad, Fujifilm). So, based on that projection, you're looking at an IQ5 250 being the flagship for the consumer side of things until, what, 2034? And what then? What would be next for their increasingly tiny niche of the consumer market that would be worth their time? It's an ironically inverse ratio - as the core capabilities of their products go up, more and more resolution and image quality, the number of those who are true prospects for those capabilities, especially at the price, goes down.

But honestly, who knows what will be happening in the world in 2034? With software and AI acceleration, 9 years from now is a looong time. Maybe the IQ5 is Phase One's last consumer digital back. If it is, I accept and understand that. Do I want it to be - no. But porting over ultr + rez digital backs from the industrial side to the consumer space at those price points will certainly have an expiration at some point, given the continuing of other more focused and fluid technologies dedicated to that market.


Steve Hendrix/CI

 

[SrMphoto]

Xiaomi

Not really. That is about phones and does not seem to have any relation to the photography business.