I'm sure many here will use the news as an opportunity to attack
Nick-T
Nick,
I don't see any point of looking at "negatives" about Hasselblad. Every photographer wants and needs this brand to do more than survive, but thrive.
I also don't think you can only blame the state of the economy in regars to the medium format market, in fact you have to look no further than these forums.
For most of the photographers that love their medium format cameras, that profess the exceptional quality of the files, that stick with a brand like it's a religion, usually those people have not bought new product, in fact most are 2 generations behind and this isn't only with Hasselblad, you can add in Phase, Sinar, Leaf and the Hy6.
Personally it all escapes me and I know there is much more to building one of these cameras than any of us can dream of, but that doesn't change the fact that no matter how much most of us "traditional" photographers are comfortable with a larger camera, the larger cameras have just not kept pace with the development or usability of the more affordable smaller cameras.
It's not fair that all of medium format gets painted with the same brush, but with the recent changes at Leaf, F+H, Sinar/Jenoptik and now a management change at Hasselblad, it doesn't build confidence when you factor in the price of the buy in of the product.
The strange thing is everyone keeps mentioning Leica as the straw that might break the camel's back but as of today Lecia is selling nothing in the medium format world, so I don't see how that is a factor.
Anyway, there is no happiness in learning that anyone has lost their job.
BC
