The answer always seems to be: spend more money -- and you'll still have to compromise or buy yet another system for a particular purpose.
Anyway, I have been keenly interested in the HTS for jewelry and gems for paying projects.
For personal use, I would love to use it for landscapes, but with the 1.5 factor that pretty much means I'll be stitching.
I would likely never use the shift, and only want the tilt for DOF flexibility.
I'm left a little frustrated that nothing is ever just the way one would want it.
Nikon has three new PC-E lenses that are purportedly quite good. That sounds great for using tilt on landscapes, but I would rather not fuss with stitching unless I need a really large file so when I heard about the HTS I thought "this is great, at a time when so many are moving away from MF, I have a reason to go towards it."
But then the reality is that the HTS adds a 1.5 cropping factor to focal length -- which means your wide lenses won't be wide anymore.
Am I alone in thinking, well, if I'm going to be stitching anyway why not save the $30,000.00 and just do it with my Nikon?
Admittedly, I don't even know if it is possible, but since the HTS is actually a lens rather than just a mechanical device between lens and back, and has something like six elements, why not have the optical geniuses figure out a way to eliminate the cropping factor? Or is that a necessary evil to make the image circle large enough to keep the sensor covered whilst engaging the movements? I'm sure that it, but can't a guy dream?
And I understand that the economies of scale are small for this product and you want to charge $5K a pop to recoup your R&D expenses, but I'm sure you would sell many more if you split the shift and tilt and cut the price in half. Sure, some shooters may need both, but if they need both they can buy both and still be at the same outlay in costs, but for those of us who only need one or the other, you'll likely rope us in instead of relegating this to the rental market. Surely you'll make more money selling them to more than just the rental market and a few high-end commercial shooters? Alas, I'm sure the cost is in the optics so it will never happen. Pity.