really a pity that F&W/Rollei ended up like this. Just to clarify history, or what I remember of it, there was a p1/rolleiflex 6008 partnership, short-lived and few but it happened. Also danish company, Imacon, made backs for hasselblad, rollei, etc., Hasselblad at that time was still stuck in the film era, period. From what I heard it was Hasselblad that was acquired by the Imacon side, keeping the hasselblad badge for the new entity. I think the ceo of imacon became the ceo of the new hasselbad. With imacon not producing backs for the rollei system anymore and phase one siding with mamiya, rollei was left with leaf and sinar who like imacon had been making a multi platform backs.
Sadly the F&W/Sinar/Leaf HY6 project was just too much money and too slow to roll out the gear for the dwindling pocketbooks of the photographers who where transitioning into digital and way too much for assistants wanting to break in.
I choose imacon/rollei when I went digital, I liked the small xact2 for view camera work, I was a long time user of schneider large format lenses, I had always liked the sl66 and 6008 cameras so switching to a modern electronic 6008 with schneider optics from my 500cm was the obvious choice. Imacon should have made the same decision but they went for the big badge not technology. I don't have any rollei equipment now and this news makes me miss it, I still may pick up another sl66 someday and shoot some panF…for me, that camera is the epitome of a 6x6 mechanical camera, the feel, the sound, the rack and tilt focus, clockwork film advance, that is a real manual camera.
I would be surprised if we don't see another big brand leave the market very soon or scaled way back in the shadows like Sinar is under Leica ownership.
