A much better film scanner would largely close the gap, but it would also have been in the same price range as the MFDB kit.
And that's the blasted problem that holds so many of us back from still using MF film, which I would have loved to have been able to do.
I'm quite amazed that Hasselblad didn't see the potential market for existing (then) users of its 500 series systems and do something about introducing a good
reasonably priced scanner for its 6x6 format users, particularly when it got itself into bed with scanner makers.
I'm quite sure that it wouldn't have held back its digital camers sales at all - a different mindset and very different applications, particularly with studio and rapid turnround shoots where it competes with 35mm format digi in terms of speed from shoot to client.
If you want something as daft, look at the current Ford Fiesta (Spain) options, where if you want a high-powered coupé one you now have to opt for either the 1.6 petrol or 1.6 diesel Sport models with all the inconvenience of very low profile tyres that, I know from experience, are very very prone to being scrapped from encounters with potholes - or what the French delightfully call nids de poules. I had one of those situations myself, here in Spain. I hit a hole in a city street one day and got a hell of a bump at both right-hand tyres. On getting home, I checked them both out and the rims were pristine and so were the tyres. Two weeks later my wife and I were driving north through France to Scotland and we stopped to stretch our legs at one of the excellent motorway leisure stops. Sitting there on a park bench (UK eat your hearts out), I happened to glance back at our car and wondered what was the matter with the tyres. I got up, walked over and realised that both of them on that side had grown eggs on the outer wall (no idea about the inner, outer was enough!). I had to empty the trunk which was packed with stuff we were taking back for the kids, put on a dumb spare limited to 80kph (50 mph) and then rejoin and face the motorway to the next town and, hopefully, a garage selling rubber. If you have ever driven on 130kph legal max. motorway at 80kph, you will need no telling about the abuse you get... and the state of your underwear.
I suggest that if we hadn't taken that break and that particular bench, those tyres would have blown and our lives gone with them in the next half-hour.
But back to the current Ford choices: you can get a
range of the higher powered options in a 4-door configuration... is that not perverse? A 4-door guy want's something
hot and a coupé one shouldn't have options other than the boy-racer one?
Rob C
