Is it just me or is it kinda wierd that theyve used the same sensor since the h3d-39 all the way to todays h5d-50? The cameras must have been sooo outstanding 8 years ago?
Well, actually they were. CCDs from ~2005 are still competitive, which make second hand options interesting if you don't need the improvements in LCDs and focusing and workflow speed.
The thing is that a CCD is a quite "dumb" light collection device, most electronics is around it. To some extent one could say that CCD is some sort of digital film, and one would not expect fast-paced development in film technology either.
A CMOS on the other hand has lots of magic stuff on board so we've seen lots of development in that sector. Back in 2005 CMOS image quality was quite mediocre,
so the gap in image quality between CMOS and CCD was really huge. Today it is not the same. CCDs have not stopped being good, but the best CMOS tech is now exceeding CCDs in many aspects.
Due to the current competition from CMOS I think MF has reached a point where a large part of customers will not really accept that also the next generation after IQ/Credo/H5 etc would use the same sensor again. So it will be interesting to see what the next MF generation will use. I would not be surprised if it will be the same sensors again though, because making a large CMOS to a small market is not an easy thing to do.
CCDs are much more all-around and work over several years (as we see), you can use them in science, astronomy, industrial, medical etc while CMOS tend to be more specialized and due to fast development not as long-lived, which leads up to a very tough economical equation, so I'm not sure any MF business today can pull it off. Maybe if all of them collaborate, or someone goes out of business (somehow Hasselblad comes into mind...) leaving a larger market to the remainder.