Is the X1D really shipping?????

[tcdeveau]

Someone on Instagram with the handle/username "goecker" just posted a picture of someone receiving an X1D and 45/90mm XCD lenses saying it's the worlds first x1d delivery. I hope everyone with a camera on order receives it soon!

[agencal]

I have got mine yesterday.Happy new year from Istanbul 😊

[hubell]

I have got mine yesterday.Happy new year from Istanbul 😊

Visual confirmation would be much appreciated!

[BernardLanguillier]

Visual confirmation would be much appreciated!

It's nice to trust each others!

Cheers,
Bernard

[jduncan]

I have got mine yesterday.Happy new year from Istanbul 😊

Hi,

Here is the link: https://www.instagram.com/p/BOXRR34BRs0/?taken-by=goecker&hl=en
And here is the photographer's one :  https://www.instagram.com/ulrika_g_/?hl=en

Best regards, 

[Lust4Life]

As a long time shooter of Landscapes with numerous cameras and formats, from Hassie 500 to Cambo to Leaf and then Hassie all the way back to the H1, I am seduced by the PROMISE of a MF that is dramatically lighter than my current H5-50c WiFi with the 28 and 100 mm lenses.  Having crested 70 years old, the weight of the camera bag has become an issue that can be a major component in the choice I make for my camera.  The X1D with the 30 and 90 will reduce my camera bag weight by nearly 5 pounds!!  That is huge  for any of us with age or health issues as part of our agenda that do not want to pass on the 16 bit color depth and all of the other advantages of MF at a substantial reduced weight. 

I for one placed my order as soon as the camera intro was made.  I am not going to depart from my order that is placed BUT I will admit that I am disgusted by their handling of this product delivery to the market.  When you screw up, admit it, as they did just recently (about 4 mouths late) with the carrot of extra warranty term.  But what I was looking for were absolute reasons why the delay!  I don't want to hear excuses and just the "taking of blame", but I want to know REASONS for the failure so I can have confidence in the camera when it finally arrives at my doorstep from FedX!

But folks, what really worries me is WHY have they screwed up so dramatically??

IF this is the new paradigm for Hassie's product introductions, what will the axiom for their product delivered reliability be?
Will this be a classic case of the customer being the frustrated "alpha tester" of a product that they did not expend the funds to put a hundred/s of them in the hands of heavy users to build a "bullet proof" firmware base for the initial product release?

And yes, what the Hell is the President of USA doing to not have one of his manager monitoring this, and other, threads and posting real time input for all of us to digest? 

As a chap that developed software on the SGI platform for 12 years, I had programmers that did noting but TRY to break our code!
Thus, when I released a product or an upgrade, rare was there an issue found by one of my customers!  And as the "Face" to our product line, I delivered on time OR my customers had constant and frequent direct updates from me!

Summary:
Horrible product introduction with nothing given to the buyers in the queue that have put down their deposit or establish the belief that Hassie management has all under control.
Wake up Hassie!

So, wake up Hassie USA and get someone covering your market image!  The truth and open transparency is far better than leaving us with a vacuum to ponder why did I put down a $3K deposit on a camera last fall that I have no real clue about delivery date, or what has been the true reason, or multiple reasons, for what is a multi month failure to produce the promised product.

[Michael Erlewine]

Summary:
Horrible product introduction with nothing given to the buyers in the queue that have put down their deposit or establish the belief that Hassie management has all under control.

Wake up Hassie!

So, wake up Hassie USA and get someone covering your market image!  The truth and open transparency is far better than leaving us with a vacuum to ponder why did I put down a $3K deposit on a camera last fall that I have no real clue about delivery date, or what has been the true reason, or multiple reasons, for what is a multi month failure to produce the promised product.

Hear! Hear!

I am in the same boat, but have kind of resigned myself by now.  A couple of photo trips are now cancelled for this winter. I have gotten past the urgency feeling and am paying less attention to the news, updates, reviews, etc. for the X1D. And one reaction that I felt was that if Nikon came out with a 54 MPx camera with perhaps a tricked-out sensor, I might cancel the X1D and just go for that. After all, I have all the right lenses, without having to pay a cent. Or..... if the Fuji GFX roared out and was much acclaimed, i might just go for that, because the GFX is more a continuation of my camera style, while the X1D was an excursion into new waters, etc. So, I am whiling away the time like all the rest of us who purchased the X1D.

[Stephen Scharf]

But folks, what really worries me is WHY have they screwed up so dramatically??

If I were to put my Six Sigma Black Belt hat on, and hazard a guess, its a combination of things from a marketing/production/manufacturing perspective:

• Hasselblad acknowledged their "demand forecasting" was completey inaccurate. This very likely impacted lead time for availablity of parts from their parts vendors: sensor, subassemblies, chassis, metalwork, circuit boards, optics, etc., etc.
• Hasselblad did not have the manufacturing/production process developed and validated to be able to scale to meet demand
• Hasselblad did not have the manufacturing/production process developed and more importantly, validated to support high yield rates for critical components or subassemblies (e.g. the sensor). What we call in manufacturing operations, first-pass success rate. This may in no small part be due to the QC standards for the sensor, for example.
• Their production process is not LEAN. My guess is they are using batch-and-queue manufacturing and hand-assembly. Batch and queue manufacturing is not only (really) slow, but it hides defects in WIP (work in progress) and inventory. Think Ford and GM auto mfg in the 60s/70s.
• The defects hidden in WIP and inventory may mean a poor yield/first pass success rate/first time right rate in final QC; this results in another form of waste (muda): rework and retest, which again, slows down production and impacts delivery, namely, backorder.
  

IF this is the new paradigm for Hassie's product introductions, what will the axiom for their product delivered reliability be?
Will this be a classic case of the customer being the frustrated "alpha tester" of a product that they did not expend the funds to put a hundred/s of them in the hands of heavy users to build a "bullet proof" firmware base for the initial product release?

And yes, what the Hell is the President of USA doing to not have one of his manager monitoring this, and other, threads and posting real time input for all of us to digest? 

As a chap that developed software on the SGI platform for 12 years, I had programmers that did noting but TRY to break our code!
Thus, when I released a product or an upgrade, rare was there an issue found by one of my customers!  And as the "Face" to our product line, I delivered on time OR my customers had constant and frequent direct updates from me!

Summary:
Horrible product introduction with nothing given to the buyers in the queue that have put down their deposit or establish the belief that Hassie management has all under control.
Wake up Hassie!

So, wake up Hassie USA and get someone covering your market image!  The truth and open transparency is far better than leaving us with a vacuum to ponder why did I put down a $3K deposit on a camera last fall that I have no real clue about delivery date, or what has been the true reason, or multiple reasons, for what is a multi month failure to produce the promised product.

Agreed. Exactly my point in my post on the previous page.

[Stephen Scharf]

Thanks for confirming that you are a member of the Fuji fan club. Of course, you left out that you own Fuji cameras and have openly gushed about them here. Somehow I suspect that if Fuji had not also announced a camera that many see as directly competitive with Hasselblad's X1D, you wouldn't be involved here at all. This is the worst part of the internet. Fanboy wars. My interests here are much more pedestrian. I am interested in a great camera, and I care little about who makes it. I care even less about lecturing companies on the internet about their strengths and weaknesses, their successes and their failures, if I don't own and use their products and their actions have not directly affected me. Every person, every company, has a balance sheet of plusses and minuses. We all evaluate and prioritize them differently. Hasselblad and Fuji are two examples. You focused only on Hasselblad's missing a number of deadlines in shipping the X1D to customers. Fuji MAY very well deliver the GFX early in 2017, as promised. Good for Fuji. On the other hand, at the end of the day, there are other, far more important considerations to people who will actually use these cameras. The X1D is an absolutely beautifully designed camera. It is amazingly small and well crafted. Its form factor and user interface are truly ground breaking. By comparison, the Fuji GFX looks like a Model T Ford designed in the middle part of the last century. I give Hasselblad a failing grade for timely delivery of the X1D. I give them an A+ for product design. We will see about Fuji's grade on delivery schedules. On product design and innovation and user interface, I give them a C- or D.
As for Hasselblad failing to communicate with its customers who preordered the X1D, perhaps you missed Kevin Raber's interview with the CEO of Hasselblad here on LuLa last Monday, where the CEP personally apologized about the delays. That's far more than I am used to seeing from other CEOs in the camera industry. By contrast, I saw the interview with two guys from Fuji about the GFX. They were about as forthcoming as two guys at a police station who had just been read their Miranda rights. I learned nothing.

What camera I brand I shoot with with has nothing to do with the validity or accuracy of my comments or the concerns expressed by others here. Nor does it absolve Hasselblad from its responsibility to it's customers.  Moreover, the industrial design features of the Fuji GFX vs X1D have virtually nothing to with the issue being discussed, which is the unacceptable manner that Hasselblad has handled this matter; or more to point, how they've treated their customers. Their lack of communication and transparency is irresponsible and unprofessional for their customers who have placed orders back in July, August, etc, and...are still waiting.

[BernardLanguillier]

If I were to put my Six Sigma Black Belt hat on, and hazard a guess, its a combination of things from a marketing/production/manufacturing perspective:

• Hasselblad acknowledged their "demand forecasting" was completey inaccurate. This very likely impacted lead time for availablity of parts from their parts vendors: sensor, subassemblies, chassis, metalwork, circuit boards, optics, etc., etc.
• Hasselblad did not have the manufacturing/production process developed and validated to be able to scale to meet demand
• Hasselblad did not have the manufacturing/production process developed and more importantly, validated to support high yield rates for critical components or subassemblies (e.g. the sensor). What we call in manufacturing operations, first-pass success rate. This may in no small part be due to the QC standards for the sensor, for example.
• Their production process is not LEAN. My guess is they are using batch-and-queue manufacturing and hand-assembly. Batch and queue manufacturing is not only (really) slow, but it hides defects in WIP (work in progress) and inventory. Think Ford and GM auto mfg in the 60s/70s.
• The defects hidden in WIP and inventory may mean a poor yield/first pass success rate/first time right rate in final QC; this results in another form of waste (muda): rework and retest, which again, slows down production and impacts delivery, namely, backorder.
  

Agreed. Exactly my point in my post on the previous page.

There may be all that, but we have ample evidence that the key bottle neck was firmware readiness.

Cheers,
Bernard

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

I am a bit surprised at the excuses… It would be natural that Hasselblad would sell as many camera as possible. Developing a camera system without the production capability to deliver to market doesn't make any sense.

Nice to hear that you have been working with SGI. We are still using two SGI Origin 350s for our simulators where I work. One of those will be replaced with a non SGI Linux system in a week, the other one will be around for the next year.

Working in software I think that you are familiar with things taking more time than expected. My guess is that real issue Hasselblad has firmware related. Dealer samples often had less than fully functional firmware.

I would also guess that they have issues with power and heat management. So I guess management has taken a overly optimistic view on development schedule.

Another factor may be sensor availability. If access to sensors is limited it may be that they preferred to ship H-systems than X1D-s. But it is quite obvious that firmware was not ready, so they couldn't ship anyway.

Hope you get your X1D really soon now!

Kind regards
Erik

As a long time shooter of Landscapes with numerous cameras and formats, from Hassie 500 to Cambo to Leaf and then Hassie all the way back to the H1, I am seduced by the PROMISE of a MF that is dramatically lighter than my current H5-50c WiFi with the 28 and 100 mm lenses.  Having crested 70 years old, the weight of the camera bag has become an issue that can be a major component in the choice I make for my camera.  The X1D with the 30 and 90 will reduce my camera bag weight by nearly 5 pounds!!  That is huge  for any of us with age or health issues as part of our agenda that do not want to pass on the 16 bit color depth and all of the other advantages of MF at a substantial reduced weight. 

I for one placed my order as soon as the camera intro was made.  I am not going to depart from my order that is placed BUT I will admit that I am disgusted by their handling of this product delivery to the market.  When you screw up, admit it, as they did just recently (about 4 mouths late) with the carrot of extra warranty term.  But what I was looking for were absolute reasons why the delay!  I don't want to hear excuses and just the "taking of blame", but I want to know REASONS for the failure so I can have confidence in the camera when it finally arrives at my doorstep from FedX!

But folks, what really worries me is WHY have they screwed up so dramatically??

IF this is the new paradigm for Hassie's product introductions, what will the axiom for their product delivered reliability be?
Will this be a classic case of the customer being the frustrated "alpha tester" of a product that they did not expend the funds to put a hundred/s of them in the hands of heavy users to build a "bullet proof" firmware base for the initial product release?

And yes, what the Hell is the President of USA doing to not have one of his manager monitoring this, and other, threads and posting real time input for all of us to digest? 

As a chap that developed software on the SGI platform for 12 years, I had programmers that did noting but TRY to break our code!
Thus, when I released a product or an upgrade, rare was there an issue found by one of my customers!  And as the "Face" to our product line, I delivered on time OR my customers had constant and frequent direct updates from me!

Summary:
Horrible product introduction with nothing given to the buyers in the queue that have put down their deposit or establish the belief that Hassie management has all under control.
Wake up Hassie!

So, wake up Hassie USA and get someone covering your market image!  The truth and open transparency is far better than leaving us with a vacuum to ponder why did I put down a $3K deposit on a camera last fall that I have no real clue about delivery date, or what has been the true reason, or multiple reasons, for what is a multi month failure to produce the promised product.

[Lust4Life]

"Nice to hear that you have been working with SGI. We are still using two SGI Origin 350s for our simulators where I work. One of those will be replaced with a non SGI Linux system in a week, the other one will be around for the next year."

Hi Erik,

I worked with SGI back in the days where they and their sister company Cray were the Worlds Super Computers.  What a great time in my life, the most fun I ever had from an intellectual perspective!  But I saw the fall of SGI coming, bitched at management for the last couple of years but always on deaf ears.  I dropped out 22 years ago to enjoy life so I am not current with them. 

I must admit that with all of the tech industries  recent failures in providing a solid product to their customer base, I believe the focus is even more centered today on making a quick buck and not being focused on the long term relationship with your customer base that generates your financial lifeline!  So many examples of this in the last three years alone.  And I am very disappointed with even Apple - Jobs must be rolling in the grave with how many failures they have had in their OS and in my mind lack of really cool innovations in the last 5 years that are not surprised by competitive firms.  To my mind, Apple is floating on a cult customer "faith" and no longer leading in the development side.  (OK folks, I don't want to get a verbal range war started here, just a 70 year old Nerd venting so take it as hot air and leave it as is!  Same premise for my disgust with our younger generations math and science skills level of achievement - 28th in the World last time I looked)  :-)

In short, my point is, our Nations business foundation must get back to the axiom of "the customer if first".  We have become a society of "ME" as the most important element in all equations:  business, personal, etc. 

All of the "institutional/academic" reasons defined a few post back could well be valid BUT NONE were not able to be foreseen by a top quality management team that is focused on performance as a first flight quality source for digital imaging!  This I find inexcusable and the signs of faulty leadership within Hassie.  Yup, I had high hopes when the product was announced based on the fact they saw a serious need and way to "pump up" the use of MF.  At the time of the announcement, I did ponder "now that they have recognized the need, presented a facade to meet the need, will they succeed in providing it?"

Much to my disappointment, they have manifested the perfect definition that text books and business classed of the future can use to define "FAILURE" in meeting the promise!!

Well, there is my Monday morning rant and my concern expressed with the state of the Global Business current philosophical foundation of how to run a business. 

[sgilbert]

"Really shipping" suggests an ongoing process.  One woman getting a camera from one dealer isn't really shipping. 

They don't have cameras for sale, just pre-order. 

[hubell]

What camera I brand I shoot with with has nothing to do with the validity or accuracy of my comments or the concerns expressed by others here. Nor does it absolve Hasselblad from its responsibility to it's customers.  Moreover, the industrial design features of the Fuji GFX vs X1D have virtually nothing to with the issue being discussed, which is the unacceptable manner that Hasselblad has handled this matter; or more to point, how they've treated their customers. Their lack of communication and transparency is irresponsible and unprofessional for their customers who have placed orders back in July, August, etc, and...are still waiting.

It's your self righteous indignation and total lack of proportionality about Hasselblad that I find objectionable, because that IS motivated by your brand loyalty to Fuji (which just coincidentally happens to be introducing a competitor to the X1D). Leica had a delay of about a year in the delivery of the S 007. I don't recall any mea culpa from Leica. Did you jump on the soapbox and excoriate Leica? Perhaps I missed it. Did I excoriate Leica? Of course not. I wasn't a customer, so what the hell did I care?
There are an awful lot of actual customers of Hasselblad out there who preordered an X1D. You aren't one of them. I am one of them. I had a 13 day trip to Iceland planned for Mid September and expected to take the X1D. Obviously, it did not arrive. Same with photo trips around New England in October and December. What was my reaction? Anger? Of course not. I was very disappointed, but I just don't take it personally. I was not in any way "offended." I know Hasselblad cares way more deeply about shipping the X1Ds ASAP than I want/need one. In fact, after schlepping my Hasseblad H2/Phase IQ180 and lenses around Iceland and having them both fail in the elements, my interest in the X1D has only been reinforced, despite the delays. For now, I have other really good cameras to use. The X1D will get here in due course. I just hope it fulfills its promise. Anyone who actually cares about the health of the medium format digital market should also be rooting for Hasselblad, even if they don't plan on buying an X1D.

[Stephen Scharf]

There may be all that, but we have ample evidence that the key bottle neck was firmware readiness.

Cheers,
Bernard

Firmware is essentially the same thing, Bernard. Firmware can be thought  of, from a manufacturing sense, as a component. Which indicates to me either: 1) they couln't create the functionality required for the firmware in the time-frame required (a lead time problem from a LEAN perspective) or 2) quality defects (bugs are software defects), or both. Both resulting in not having a process validated for production or able to scale for production. Any or all of these would impact product manufacturing cycle time, which leads to backorder or delays in shipping.

[Stephen Scharf]

It's your self righteous indignation and total lack of proportionality about Hasselblad that I find objectionable, because that IS motivated by your brand loyalty to Fuji (which just coincidentally happens to be introducing a competitor to the X1D).

No, it's not motivated by my loyalty to any brand (FWIW, I also shoot with Canon and Olympus). My comments here were made out of respect for the customer from the perspective of a VOC  and product development professional. Or in this case, the lack of respect from Hasselblad.

Leica had a delay of about a year in the delivery of the S 007. I don't recall any mea culpa from Leica.

Well, there should have been a mea culpa from them, too. I did make a number of comments here when the first Leica digital M8 came out with the color moire problem and Michael Reichmann "covered it up" by observing it, but not discussing it in his initial review, for which he later had to apologize.

There are an awful lot of actual customers of Hasselblad out there who preordered an X1D. You aren't one of them. I am one of them.

Whether I am a customer or not does not infringe my right to post my views here from a professional perspective about how Hasselblad is handling this situation, or treating it's customers, which is very poorly. I didn't have to be a Volkswagen customer to be troubled about how Volkswagen deceived its customers or the Federal Government or the EPA with respect to its emissions scandal.

[hubell]

Whether I am a customer or not does not infringe my right to post my views here from a professional perspective about how Hasselblad is handling this situation, or treating it's customers, which is very poorly. I didn't have to be a Volkswagen customer to be troubled about how Volkswagen deceived its customers or the Federal Government or the EPA with respect to its emissions scandal.

The more you post in your self anointed role as the defender of Hasselblad customers, of which you are not even one, the more ludicrous your feigned indignation becomes. I mean, seriously, comparing delays in the delivery of the X1D with a multi-billion dollar fraud on Volkswagen's customers and the US EPA is just shameful hyperbole. Do us all a favor: let the real Hasselblad customers fend for themselves.

[BernardLanguillier]

Firmware is essentially the same thing, Bernard. Firmware can be thought  of, from a manufacturing sense, as a component. Which indicates to me either: 1) they couln't create the functionality required for the firmware in the time-frame required (a lead time problem from a LEAN perspective) or 2) quality defects (bugs are software defects), or both. Both resulting in not having a process validated for production or able to scale for production. Any or all of these would impact product manufacturing cycle time, which leads to backorder or delays in shipping.

No, it is very different.

The ironing out of software defects is essentially part of software design.

Once this is done there is zero cost to manufacture software nor possible time delays.

Once the firmware is ready there is zero concern about the ability of Hasselblad to produce millions of cameras a day with the same perfectly working firmware.

The same cannot be said of physical bodies.

But I would agree with others, why do you care?

My view is the following. The current issue with Hassy is not fundamentally a reduction of their technical abilities, it is a dramatic increase of their ambition under a new leadership. Perry has decided to use external pressure from customers to put pressure on his team to deliver faster a great product to the market.

He isn't the first CEO to play this card.

Cheers,
Bernard

[BobShaw]

I haven't ordered an X1D but I have been a Hasselblad user for several years now. The colour quality I get from my old Hasselblad H3DII is far above the quality I get from my brand new Canon. That is probably due to the individual attention that each camera gets. These are not production line cameras for the mass market consumer that you just "ramp up". I have heard that it is a software issue but in any case I think most Hasselblad users would rather wait then get something just "pushed out" to meet the demands of keyboard warriors.

Unfortunately the world is such that most manufacturers test their products on the consumers but I would rather they get it right first.

[Stephen Scharf]

No, it is very different.

The ironing out of software defects is essentially part of software design.

Once this is done there is zero cost to manufacture software nor possible time delays.

Once the firmware is ready there is zero concern about the ability of Hasselblad to produce millions of cameras a day with the same perfectly working firmware.

The same cannot be said of physical bodies.

But I would agree with others, why do you care?

My view is the following. The current issue with Hassy is not fundamentally a reduction of their technical abilities, it is a dramatic increase of their ambition under a new leadership. Perry has decided to use external pressure from customers to put pressure on his team to deliver faster a great product to the market.

He isn't the first CEO to play this card.

Cheers,
Bernard

My "concern", Bernard, is a strictly professional one. I care about customers, and teach technology companies how to care about them too (that's my job, literally). I understand that companies can have issues scaling production to meet demand for what appears to be a much-sought-after product. My main point is the Hassy should be communicating with their customers, and they should be here on LuLa as well as elsewhere letting their customers know what is going on.