Hasselblad at Photokina

[pss]

was it so bad when we had only fuji and kodak film to pick from?  let the free market decide.
 


 
I witnessed last month a well known fashion shooter get a very large fee job.. and he shot it all with a canon..this was a US national campaign, outdoor, instore, consumer ads..I was surprised but did the client say to him..oh, aren't you shooting this with a mfdb?? NOPE!  
and here a lot of us are busting our butts trying to buy that next 50 or 60mp.. or even just upgrade to a 33mp.. and struggling to get 1500 bucks for a shoot and no comp for digital capture equip. WHY?
I think the industry needs a good shaking out.
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just re-read what you wrote and look at the contradiction....

let the market decide!

you sound like a republican leader 3 weeks ago....

if you only let the market decide we all end up with expensive crap....
and the jobs we get have to be shot on expensive equipment for no money....
i work in LA and it hurts to see (as a still photographer) how well the movie industry has taken care of their own with the unions.....

WHY should anyone shoot a national campaign with a DMF back? there is no need for it at all! and yes, i can tell the difference between a DMF and a DSLR image (most of the time) but not from a printed page in a mag....i talk to my assistants all the time and they can't beleive how much advertising is shot with 5Ds and cheap zooms....
and just because they (the assistants) have the same equipment does not mean they could or even should get the same jobs....

20 years ago it was very common that students or assistants had the better/newer equipment then the people they worked for...no problem, this was mostly because people start out with one system and stick with it....even for 20 years, maybe add a lens or two at some point....

digital slightly changed that for a while...but the P45 was never a guarantee for getting a job....thank god...

so of course everybody is happy to see prices come down, but this is a very small market and one ripple will make waves everywhere and i am not sure how much rocking the fragile little niche can handle.....

above all i think variety (more stronger brands) will give us better product, better prices AND with that comes better VALUE which is really the most important aspect of all....

i am glad that there are companies like sinar and leica which don't always provide the lowest price, but tend to provide interesting products which in the end often represent a good value....all the bitching about the m8, its re-sale price runs circles around any other digital device i know...

if you want your book to stand out from the crowd, invest in your production value and lights....and feed your team well....

[jimgolden]

Competition is good. H3D price drop is good.
I notice Hasselblad accessories and lens price is increasing.
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yah - now that we have the base setup it's getting more expensive to buy the rest we need...

[jimgolden]

if you want your book to stand out from the crowd, invest in your production value and lights....and feed your team well....
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now theres an idea...

[paulmoorestudio]

if you only let the market decide we all end up with expensive crap....
and the jobs we get have to be shot on expensive equipment for no money....

I don't really follow your logic here.. I don't think we will end up with expensive stuff if hasselblad drops the price of their camera/back, or if sinar tomorrow cuts theirs 42%.. maybe they will cut their line.. maybe if nobody buys the 50mp or the 60 mp they will get it.. and adjust to the marketplace.. or go away.  I agree work on the lighting, work on the sets that is how to set yourself apart from the rest - and bill for the camera on every job!

[Barry Goyette]

I think Hasselblad is simply moving back to the traditional camera manufacturer model, and away from the MF digital --low volume / High margin -- model that came with the early digital offerings from Kodak, Imacon, PhaseOne and Leaf, which were largely independent from a traditional "camera" business.

It seems to me that the traditional model has always been about attracting the photographer to your product with an exciting feature driven body, and then selling them the lenses and accessories to go with it. That investment in lenses keeps the photographer "in your camp" (ie keeps the customer from being seduced by your competitors sexy offerings), and thus ensures a stable market share. When hasselblad "closed" its format it was highly criticized, but this was essentially the first move back towards the traditional model that is has been largely maintained by their counterparts in the 35mm segment with their own proprietary locked systems. Fast forwarding to now, we see that nearly all the other MF digital manufacturers have followed suit.

The "fire sale" is simply nothing more than an attempt to increase market share at the expense of margin on the body/back portion of the product line. There were no discounts on lenses, certainly none on that newfangled HTS 1.5. Hasselblad is redefining the MF digital segment with this move, and it will likely be followed by all the players that have developed their own MF CAMERA systems. It is likely that some will fall to the wayside, but in the end...several....3 or 4 will form the same kind of pantheon once occupied by Hasselblad, Mamiya, Bronica and Rollei. The world won't end, and they'll all be stronger, more stable companies because of it.

[Guy Mancuso]

Part of the issue that some are not following here and Micheal hit on it is this. If you keep pushing the margins down on these OEM's at some point it would not be worth continuing with R&D on new product and save that investment in that because your profits are a lot smaller. So at some point they will make a basic camera for cheap because that is all they can make with no new technology or technology left out . The other side of this coin is simply this and it is a fact Hassy is a closed system that only will take Hassy lenses. They can almost give away the body and back because they simply have you by the balls with there glass. So they can charge anything they want to make up the difference. The Leica S2 will be able to do the same thing, sell the S2 at 15k than charge 3k or more for the glass. This is basically why Hassy went to a closed system in the first place. They want you to buy there lenses period. Not sure where the mystery is in that. That is there business module like it or not but that really is the bottom line. Phase owners you can buy other lenses and other bodies to go with there backs so Phase will have to sell there backs at normal prices to make there margins. They do that today and give you a free Mamiya AFD-III as the incentive. Now back to the first issue , if the price wars start than Phase will have to lower there prices and in effect they have to make up that revenue somewhere and the only place they can do that is cheapen the product, they already gave you the body and there is not much else they can do to make you buy there product except stop R&D and stop new product and sell existing technology for the market price. At some point this will kill them but worse make it not as good as it could be for the end user. Obviously a little exaggerated here but get my point at some point in time something has to give, break or bend and that is not really good for us as a industry. I would stop thinking about your personal pocket and think industry for a moment. At the end of the day this could hurt all of us. Lets not even mention the guy or gal that spent 32 k last month on a H339 and today his investment lost 10k in 30 days or more and even less. sorry folks that freaking hurts the resale on that back big time. i had a friend listing his H39 that he had 3 months for 22k and he pulled it off the market. Now he is stuck or takes a huge bath on it. nice to see lower prices i agree but not at the sake of burning your own customers and the industry. Frankly in this market today who the hell is going to bail out these MF companies when they are in trouble. Not my government i can tell you that for sure.

If you are part of the MF world you really have to think what overall is best for our market that we deal in everyday when we go buy a battery, lens or a back it is all related. I love a deal as much as the next guy but when my back is old and tired just think this direction in time what will I get to replace it as time marched on and nothing good is out there because they can't afford to build it for us. One thing to lower prices but worse to rape the industry. I have been in this industry for 35 years like many others and still have 20 years to go at some point i will need a lot more cameras if we keep cheapening the market than i will be buying technology that never got developed into a product because the OEM can't afford to make it. This is absolutely no different than us charging the proper fee's for our work than some idiot undercutting those rates and than what happens we are out there scratching our ...

[Guy Mancuso]

The smartest thing to do is forget the camera and body pricing because now it is skewed with what Hassy did. What you really need to do with pricing is add up all the parts to a system say body and 4 lenses than compare the same with each company and than see what works out to best overall on the bottom line. Forget the oh cool Hassy dropped there prices but there say 150mm is 4 times higher than the other guy. Do the bottom line math and work it that way. BTW i have nothing against Hassy they build a nice product but you have to understand there business module here. Not there pricing

[Photomangreg]

The smartest thing to do is forget the camera and body pricing because now it is skewed with what Hassy did. What you really need to do with pricing is add up all the parts to a system say body and 4 lenses than compare the same with each company and than see what works out to best overall on the bottom line. Forget the oh cool Hassy dropped there prices but there say 150mm is 4 times higher than the other guy. Do the bottom line math and work it that way. BTW i have nothing against Hassy they build a nice product but you have to understand there business module here. Not there pricing
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Yeah, go to Calumet's website and price lenses for the hassy vs the Schneider lenses for the AFi.

[paulmoorestudio]

If you are part of the MF world you really have to think what overall is best for our market that we deal in everyday when we go buy a battery, lens or a back it is all related. I love a deal as much as the next guy but when my back is old and tired just think this direction in time what will I get to replace it as time marched on and nothing good is out there because they can't afford to build it for us. One thing to lower prices but worse to rape the industry.
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Look, I think 5 years ago we all knew and expected that as tech. moved along stuff was going to get cheaper, I and hundreds of other photographers ponied up and paid the price for R&D, you want to buy a nikon d1 I bought for 3500 back in 2000..I didn't think so.. it was a worthwhile ride in depreciation. I kept on waiting for that to fall into place with mfdbs.. it didn't until they were threatened by canon and others making such inroads into their territory that it can't be put off any longer.. it is just overdue imho.
If there is a demand for the 50-60mp back then someone will make it, and some photographers will pay the price..period. nothing new...there are plenty of people with the means to buy the highend stuff as it rolls out of the factory, thus insuring supply.

I'm not sure Guy I get the "rape of the industry" visual..

[Photomangreg]

"In 1995 the DCS 460 hit the market with a 6-megapixel CCD and a whopping $30,000 price tag."

Who's upset about the new Canon 5D MII at around $2,500?  Bringing the prices down has killed Canon's R&D!!!

NOT!

[Guy Mancuso]

If you are part of the MF world you really have to think what overall is best for our market that we deal in everyday when we go buy a battery, lens or a back it is all related. I love a deal as much as the next guy but when my back is old and tired just think this direction in time what will I get to replace it as time marched on and nothing good is out there because they can't afford to build it for us. One thing to lower prices but worse to rape the industry.
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Look, I think 5 years ago we all knew and expected that as tech. moved along stuff was going to get cheaper, I and hundreds of other photographers ponied up and paid the price for R&D, you want to buy a nikon d1 I bought for 3500 back in 2000..I didn't think so.. it was a worthwhile ride in depreciation. I kept on waiting for that to fall into place with mfdbs.. it didn't until they were threatened by canon and others making such inroads into their territory that it can't be put off any longer.. it is just overdue imho.
If there is a demand for the 50-60mp back then someone will make it, and some photographers will pay the price..period. nothing new...there are plenty of people with the means to buy the highend stuff as it rolls out of the factory, thus insuring supply.

I'm not sure Guy I get the "rape of the industry" visual..
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Paul not really saying what we will buy but what will be around at some point and who will even be a player as a OEM. If there is no money for R&D and to build new technology either they will fold, merge or blowup . What we maybe only able to buy is a product with no money in it and left the new technology out. Forget the Canons and Nikons they have more money to lose than anyone and can suck it up. Ther not the issue for us it is the small companies like Sinar, Leaf, Phase and leica not to mention Hassy that can only handle so much lose of business before something bad happens to them. Do we really want survival of the fittest here with maybe only 1 or 2 places to actually buy something from, than we leave out our options on what we want. This is a fine line and in the end we as users can pay dearly for it if everyone folds. That is raping the industry and the biggest issue is we are the smallest group of buying power is the MF world. 35mm will survive almost no matter what but will MF and those 5 companies still be in business when you take the revenue out of it and they start cutting the support feed bag because they can't afford to have a loaners in house and repair times go to months. (Leica) i have been here and done that.

[hubell]

Yeah, go to Calumet's website and price lenses for the hassy vs the Schneider lenses for the AFi.
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Or, Adorama'a web site to compare the Hasselblad and latest Mamiya D lens prices for a three lens kit---28, 45-90 zoom, and 150---to go with the 80mm "kit" lens. Interesting. $11,290 for the Hasselblad lenses v. $14,182 for the Mamiya lenses. The Mamiya prices are 25% higher.

[Guy Mancuso]

"In 1995 the DCS 460 hit the market with a 6-megapixel CCD and a whopping $30,000 price tag."

Who's upset about the new Canon 5D MII at around $2,500?  Bringing the prices down has killed Canon's R&D!!!

NOT!
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But Canon is selling hundreds of other product to make up for the 5DII as a loss leader. MF companies don't have that power.

For example does anyone know how small Alpa is. Answer last I heard 3 people.

[James R Russell]

  At the end of the day this could hurt all of us. Lets not even mention the guy or gal that spent 32 k last month on a H339 and today his investment lost 10k in 30 days or more and even less. sorry folks that freaking hurts the resale on that back big time. i had a friend listing his H39 that he had 3 months for 22k and he pulled it off the market. Now he is stuck or takes a huge bath on it. nice to see lower prices i agree but not at the sake of burning your own customers and the industry.
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Everybody is entitled to their opinion, but this is the strangest argument I have heard for keeping camera prices high.

So somebody lost 10k on a camera back.  

My first Aptus 22 after 1 years use only sold for $8,000 so there was much more than a 10k loss.  No big deal because none of these cameras are real investments, other than improving your business so I didn't really expect to see the Aptus appreciate in price.  I used it, made money with it, sold it.

I just don't get it.  People have been complaining about the price (and usability) of medium format for years and finally some maker cuts prices and now people complain about that.  

Regardless, if medium format wants to worry, they shouldn't worry about Hasselblad, they should worry about Nikon or Canon.

Last Sunday I did a processing test where I was trying to get 800 or 1600 iso out of my p30+ for a gig coming up.  (I'll post those results later).

Anyway, while I was doing it I thought I'd shoot the P30+ and the 1ds3 and even the little Nikon D90 at the same time.  Now this is an unscientific test so none of the pixel peepers start screaming about lenses and focus points, etc.

I was just curious at full rez, 200 iso how the Nikon D90 did and while I was at it I threw in a 1ds3 shot.

Now, by all rights and measures the canon and Nikon aren't quite as good as the p30+ but even the little $900 Nikon was damn good and the Canon is 1/2 the price of the P30+, the Nikon 1/15th the price.

Imagine if Nikon comes out with the MX that is 4 times the size and twice the quality of this little camera.

(warning 16mb download).

[a href=\"http://www.ishotit.com/p_30_canon_nikon.jpg]http://www.ishotit.com/p_30_canon_nikon.jpg[/url]

Now does this mean I'm going to shoot my next gig with a N-90 . . . no.  But could I . . . yea probably.

JR

[Guy Mancuso]

James you have to admit losing 10k on paper is not going to make you go out and party about it. Yes they will depreciate no question and we as Pro's will make it pay for itself hopefully a hundred times over but a hobbyist that makes no money from this , it just hurts and you have to admit that.

Now the flip side here if the MF companies really start to dwindle down because of pricing falling below revenue how are they supposed to stay ahead of the Canon and Nikons with no money to invest. I'm not complaining about Hassy lowering there pricing per say and we all want to save money but do we really want to see MORE mergers within the MF community and when we want a MF back there maybe 1 or 2 companies left to do business with. All I am saying is this is a tightrope and if the pricing goes too far it hurts the industry in MF as a whole. Also if prices don't help the end user than they won't get anyone to move in either. It really is a catch 22 . i am all for saving money no question but I just don't want to see the players fold up there tents and say screw it not worth the effort.

[Photomangreg]

Why on earth would you sell a $34,000 camera 3 months after you bought it???

[Guy Mancuso]

People do it all the time. There is a Hassy for sale right now H39 for just under 13k . People change there mind or lose interest but that is a big cut for a hobbyist

[SeanBK]

In past I have bought brand new Porsche & right now I have 2008 X5 & couple of years older BMW 330ci. I am not a pro driver, just love my wheels, but I know if I tried to sell my 2008 X5 with under 10k miles on it, I will take a hit. That's life. When computers came out I bought $10k PC, few years later, I laughed when someone offered me $400. In the end I took it my dumpster. All these products once they are used, they drop in prices, except for my wife's Louis Vuitton %$#& bags!

[Photomangreg]

All these products once they are used, they drop in prices, except for my wife's Louis Vuitton %$#& bags!
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It cost me more to get rid of my used wife than she cost in the first place!!!

[heinrichvoelkel]

Guy, I dont get it. Why on earth should I give them ( Phase for example ) my money, so they can spend it on their R&D and not even address the things I and others are asking them for ( screen, Wifi,...). They use my money and burn it on MPs I don't need. The market should force all of the MFDB companies to produce stuff which makes sense, not only to me, but to a lot of the picture takers out there.