Actually, new Phase backs only go on the OLD Hasselblad models (H1, H2, V) and the OLD Contax models and the current Mamiya and Phase and tech cameras.
This discussion has been done to death. THERE ARE NO MORE OPEN SYSTEMS. Mrs Open died and Mr. Film has been removed to an old people's home.
Many of us had hopes with the Sinar/Leaf that there would be at least one modern and open system available. It didn't happen that way.
Edmund
I agree.
I think photographers need to get use to the fact that we're not in the old camera for a decade business cycle, we're in the electronic business cycle which usually means 18 months to 2 years and everything you own becomes obsolete.
Sometimes I don't get why camera sales became secondary to digital sales. During film, Hasselblad, Mamiya, Contax could care less if they got a piece of the film sales or processing action. they were content selling cameras, lenses and accessories and seemed to thrive.
Then came digital and everyone started scrambling for turf. It's not the camera sales were a downer, it's just camera sales didn't make the money digital back's sold for so everyone moved to selling their camera backs. If you didn't have one, you went away, like Contax and Bronica and to some extend Rollei.
Like everything it revolves around money and each companies business model. I don't think Phase can sell $4,000 digital backs even if they could lower the price and up the sales volume, because their business model isn't set up that way.
I firmly believe that when the day the first Canon 1ds was announced that if digital backs were interchangeable for any medium format body and sold in the $8,000 and under range, Canon wouldn't have dominated the market for still cameras.
But they didn't and here we are today, with one back per per body mount and proprietary systems on processing and workflow. So there is no real open camera anywhere.
Same with Nikon and Canon. They're not open systems, but nobody complains because the costs of those are fractions of the cost of medium format, from bodies, digital film, lenses and accessories.
The only thing that throws this into disarray is the onset of video/motion imagery, which is following the same path as stills.
The last few weeks we've been working non stop, huge hours shooting on a RED One as an a camera, the Sony FS100 as a B cam and this week we have a 4 day breather before we get back into production.
During this period I was offered an Epic for $58,000. All the kids in our studio we're wide eyed and urged me to buy it. I got caught up in the enthusiasm also and said, uh okay, but let me do an evening of research.
We started the ordering process until I realized that the Epic isn't fully ready yet, missing batteries, EFV and Grip. Also it only takes PL mount so grand total to shoot something is close to $100,000.
Then I looked at the Specs. The Epic is only 3 pounds lighter and isn't really a 5k camera, because it shoots a 2 to 1 ration vs. a 16x9 native ratio which means by the time it's cropped down it's a 4 1/2 K camera.
I've been through the early years of digital stills where I was a non paid beta tester and I thought naw, this is crazy paying $100,000 for something not fully baked yet, so I made my decision to add another RED One as a backup and continue on with life.
Also, as a business person I understand that Phase/Leaf/Mamiya and Hasselblad must do what will maximize their profits, but I believe they've worked themselves into a old style business model that is going to be difficult to change, at least on a professional level.
Even Canon and Nikon aren't rushing to the door to offer new professional cameras, because the professional market is very wary of large investments in equipment.
As professional image makers, we are becoming less and less prone to just buy because it's new. Amateurs, which is a much larger market, are the real driver of still photography and the marketing thrust by Phase and Hasselblad reflects this.
I guess my point is, things are what they are and you can't fault any company for doing what they think is best.
As users, we don't set on the board of camera companies, work in R+D or have any say so as to what is made for a certain price.
We only vote with our pocketbook and by the time a company or industry realizes they've made a mistake then it's usually too late to recover.
IMO
BC
