Strikes me as slightly surreal to make comparisons betweem 135 format and amost any MF format cameras.
In film days you chose the format to suit the job; today, probably because of the very high costs involved, people might feel obliged to try to force the same out of both formats - it's a bit unreal, and a distorted practical decision.
135 was mainly used as a fast method of working, very often hand-held, whereas MF almost always required a tripod, if only to allow one to hold it steady enough to find focus and get the framing right. SLR MF cameras had heavy mirrors that induced shake and, worse, some also incorporated focal plane shutters that provided yet another layer of despair on top of the mirror problem. I owned both types. A Pentax 67 ll was never a big Nikon. Unfortunately.
Folks drool about the Mamiya 67 rangefinder one; I tried one in a shop and put it down almost at once. The viewfinder was a bad joke. Every bit as much guesswork as the Leica M cameras were. For some people, having a bit more or less of the subject on the frame might not mean too much; for many other pro users accuracy was very important, the one reason I never bought into Leica's R cameras, despite loving their look and their lenses: the finder offered a less-than-comparable coverage when up against Nikon's F, F2, F3 and F4 bodies.
Now, LV may be a very good thing insofar as accurate framing goes, but it's not a viewing method I'd chose for any 135 format work. I've used it with my own Nikon and in reality, found it to be as difficult to come to a decision regarding fine focus as I always face using the viewfinder screen. Digital offers many advantages, but good viewfinders don't seem to come as part of the digital 135 format package. They need to introduce a new idea: let's call it something revolutionary - a split-image screen! In fact, if you are going to be using a 135 format camera with LV switched into play, you would really be better off doing the same thing on MF instead, which you probably would have chosen to do in the first place, had money not been part of the considerable consideration!
Yes, the new 'blad is a very pretty machine, but when it comes down to paying for such an item, I think it requires to be more than that. People hold it up as being great for landscape; well, I'm not a landscape aficionado, but even with the limited work I have done in that province I realise the requirement for camera movements to be important; hell, even on 135 format it helps, if only to get some rise or fall!
I suppose that in the end, it will be just another option designed to fit a particular pocket. For Hassy's sake, let's hope there are enough of them.
As a footnote: yesterday I went into the 'blad website and looked at their other cameras; one had a video showing a guy sitting at a desk in front of a window, an old 500 Series in front of him, which he plays with (I guess he's supposed to be representing a designer making the future)... ironically, that old one was the one I would have back before any of the replacements. I wonder if Hassy saw the irony - or the danger.
