Franke & Heidecke became insovent

[paratom]

First of all MF have primitive focus systems, Hasselblad V = non AF. Most others have one AF point that you have to set-and-compose. How precise is that? Second, even the iPhone has a focus solution that is an example of what will come in the future. You have a 3 inch display and use your finger to tell the camera where you want exposure and focus to be. I am not saying that this exact solution will work for fashion MF, but .. it is feasible today.

You don't have to judge accurate focus on a 3 inch. display, let the camera do that. It is called AF. (and it could probably do it better than my naked eyes even on a 6x7 reflex system, but may be not true for young photographers)

Mirrors have moving mechanisms they slap the body of the camera when you need quiet, they slow things, consume battery juice, they get in the way of live views, (one day sensors will be able to work live).

And the worst of all: mirrors push lenses away from sensor plane and force lens designers to throw in more elements just to correct the formula and yet more elements to correct problems caused by the first elements.

That is why rangefinders like Leicas are so small, sharp and fast. The mirror is an accommodating solution that will be rendered obsolete by technology. The only question is when. And by what company.

With a live view MF you can shoot waist level and switch to eye level in a second. You can also program the camera to follow the eyes of the model, just dial the name of the models you want the camera to follow. Can you do that with a Hasselblad 500 c/m ?

All of this technology is here. It is true that it is hard to put everything together with the not so high margins of a company like Sinar/F&H, but they could have started with a simple electronic range finder, 645, or an optical rangefinder. Every photographer that uses a Leica insist that focusing is faster than with anything man made....

I don't know exactly how this should be because I am a photographer, not a CEO of camera maker industry, but what I know is that what F&H proposed was looking to the past instead of to the future...

I really like my M8 and I would like a MF-Rangefinder camera-but please no electronic viewfinder.
Live view does allways mean a delay, maybe nice for still but not that great for anything including movement.
A mirror allows more precise framing and composing, the big bright viewfinder of the Hy6 allows better manual focus than any other camera I have used before.
A digital Mamiya 7D? yes please. A Hy6 without mirror and EVF? no, thanks.

[rainer_v]

Rainer,

If I was to write on this forum (read by many people and therefore influenced by its content) that 'The Sinar White Shading function is crap', you would quite rightly reprimand me and tell me I was quite wrong.  So please prepare yourself for a similar fate.

From a very early release of Phocus there has been the possibility to create a 'White Shading File', Custom White in our case, untethered and with batch corrections over multiple files when you are back at the studio.  You can also save an infinite number of presets for your various lenses / setups in various forms of shift and tilt.

Therefore your comments 'I doubt' and 'as far as I know' should be learnt from when making assumptions about software and hardware you are not necessarily 100% familiar with.

To clarify I also believe we can claim a uniform correction within 2 points on the RGB scale.

If you find my 'claims' tall, I would suggest a visit to one of my German colleagues who can demonstrate aptly the Custom White Function.  I also quite some time ago posted the workflow on this forum.

So I am afraid I still take it personally when misinformation is spread.

Best,



David

david:

ok. well. so may i ask why it took you so many years to involve such fundamental function? my comment here are not so much meant to attack you as singular company as to ask why you (all mf) companies could miss such fundamental functions and not build them in in time. this problem exists since years doesnt it?

btw. i am sitting here in my chicago apartment chatting with doug snower who`as you might know is an architecture shooter from here and who use hasselblad backs. he is just asking about sharpness preview ( so another question : do you build in your actual backs a100% zoom function now, as well for checking shapness? ) and telling me about his long email conversation with your chicago rep about color shifts and focus preview ( sharpness ) . he bought his back exactly 1 year ago and was waiting for months for solutions to handle his extreme colorshifts, centerfolds ( to my surprise too )  using a cambo system.


but i understand this tread, and so i wrote my 1. response here which was dedicated to all the 4 manufactors of mf backs,- as a tread about the sad down- or undergoing of some companies. me and others think that the mf industry has slept looooong time very deep, not seeing and not wanting to see what it needs to make functional and attractive backs, softwares and cameras.
the list of missing features i posted can be continued by a lot, and its not so important if some of this basic faults are corrected now,- years later and maybe too late to create a wide enough user base. much of this work could have been done easily 3, 4 or 5 years ago and i cannot understand why the companies havent done so. i lost my respect from writing programs or codes in the limited time i had the pleasure to see how SH worked and wrote his codes and i am tired of hearing any escapes or excuses why fundamental things could not have been solved in time.
in time is the moment if you sell a back, not years later or at the end of its product cycle.

[uaiomex]

THE ULTIMATE SHOOTING MACHINE

I'd sell my soul for a digital Mamiya 6 with a rangefinder and a LV LCD display. I 'd use the camera's rangefinder for expression & decisive moment.  LV for acurate framing and focusing or when going ultrawide or super long.

Please allow me to go in depth some more.

A camera with a square sensor any size from 44 to 56mm. LCD showing a vertical or horizontal crop at will. THe RF showing these croppings by intersecting lines. Camera would be held always the same way. Final cropping could be done in postprocessing. Hey, you can keep it square if you decide to keep all those precious pixels!

Best
Eduardo

I really like my M8 and I would like a MF-Rangefinder camera-but please no electronic viewfinder.
Live view does allways mean a delay, maybe nice for still but not that great for anything including movement.
A mirror allows more precise framing and composing, the big bright viewfinder of the Hy6 allows better manual focus than any other camera I have used before.
A digital Mamiya 7D? yes please. A Hy6 without mirror and EVF? no, thanks.

[Graham Mitchell]

Leonardo, we all know that the SLR is a compromised system, but as I already mentioned, there are no better alternatives yet. There are no medium format sized sensors which could support the iPhone type AF in a rangefinder, and frankly it's not that hard to autofocus a 3MP camera with massive DOF! It wouldn't work for shooting people with a really narrow DOF on a MFDB anyway, not if you want the eyeball in focus, rather than the tips of the eyelashes or cheeks or forehead, or whatever else the AF system might target...

Current AF doesn't work well, or at least I have never used an AF camera that could focus where I wanted using a shallow DOF. If your eyes are gone, then that's another issue. One thing I will say for AF is that it is faster then MF at getting close to perfect focus, and probably great if you are stopping down a lot (so the AF errors are less likely to matter).

First of all MF have primitive focus systems, Hasselblad V = non AF. Most others have one AF point that you have to set-and-compose. How precise is that? Second, even the iPhone has a focus solution that is an example of what will come in the future. You have a 3 inch display and use your finger to tell the camera where you want exposure and focus to be. I am not saying that this exact solution will work for fashion MF, but .. it is feasible today.

You don't have to judge accurate focus on a 3 inch. display, let the camera do that. It is called AF. (and it could probably do it better than my naked eyes even on a 6x7 reflex system, but may be not true for young photographers)

Mirrors have moving mechanisms they slap the body of the camera when you need quiet, they slow things, consume battery juice, they get in the way of live views, (one day sensors will be able to work live).

And the worst of all: mirrors push lenses away from sensor plane and force lens designers to throw in more elements just to correct the formula and yet more elements to correct problems caused by the first elements.

That is why rangefinders like Leicas are so small, sharp and fast. The mirror is an accommodating solution that will be rendered obsolete by technology. The only question is when. And by what company.

With a live view MF you can shoot waist level and switch to eye level in a second. You can also program the camera to follow the eyes of the model, just dial the name of the models you want the camera to follow. Can you do that with a Hasselblad 500 c/m ?

All of this technology is here. It is true that it is hard to put everything together with the not so high margins of a company like Sinar/F&H, but they could have started with a simple electronic range finder, 645, or an optical rangefinder. Every photographer that uses a Leica insist that focusing is faster than with anything man made....

I don't know exactly how this should be because I am a photographer, not a CEO of camera maker industry, but what I know is that what F&H proposed was looking to the past instead of to the future...

[Leonardo Barreto]

I will put this thread in a time capsule and check it later.... as we can see in other posters contributions, shooting HD video will --or is-- be big for all formats. Leica is quitting their reflex system with an entire line of lenses. Why? because it is manual focus. If eyes could focus better than cameras why are photographers so demanding of high AF performance in almost any system? but I accept your opinion regarding critical focus on a MF system since I don't shoot fashion --and, yes, I have experienced but more relax eyes probably than yours--.

I remember when I was a photo J. in the 80s and we firmly believe that a camera with a batteries on board was not a real photographers camera. I am not talking about power for the light meter, after all a good photographer could expose by "eyemeter" as we used to say, no, this new cameras had an electric shutter that would not shoot if you ran out of juice. It made you unreliable, you could not be out in a jungle w/out batteries ... that was then ..  mechanical cameras are gone, manual focus is gone, film is gone... the mirror will be also go and you wont even notice it is not there ... or not  

Leonardo, we all know that the SLR is a compromised system, but as I already mentioned, there are no better alternatives yet. There are no medium format sized sensors which could support the iPhone type AF in a rangefinder, and frankly it's not that hard to autofocus a 3MP camera with massive DOF! It wouldn't work for shooting people with a really narrow DOF on a MFDB anyway, not if you want the eyeball in focus, rather than the tips of the eyelashes or cheeks or forehead, or whatever else the AF system might target...

Current AF doesn't work well, or at least I have never used an AF camera that could focus where I wanted using a shallow DOF. If your eyes are gone, then that's another issue. One thing I will say for AF is that it is faster then MF at getting close to perfect focus, and probably great if you are stopping down a lot (so the AF errors are less likely to matter).

[uaiomex]

"OJIMETRO"
I love it! I already forgotten about that.
I do too remember discussions with fellow photographers about battery dependent cameras. It was sacrilege!
Battery dependent exposure meter didnt count (well, at least not in my time) After all you could use your Ojimetro.
Besides HCB was mainly an eyemeter photographer, or so we heard.
Eduardo

I will put this thread in a time capsule and check it later.... as we can see in other posters contributions, shooting HD video will --or is-- be big for all formats. Leica is quitting their reflex system with an entire line of lenses. Why? because it is manual focus. If eyes could focus better than cameras why are photographers so demanding of high AF performance in almost any system? but I accept your opinion regarding critical focus on a MF system since I don't shoot fashion --and, yes, I have experienced but more relax eyes probably than yours--.

I remember when I was a photo J. in the 80s and we firmly believe that a camera with a batteries on board was not a real photographers camera. I am not talking about power for the light meter, after all a good photographer could expose by "eyemeter" as we used to say, no, this new cameras had an electric shutter that would not shoot if you ran out of juice. It made you unreliable, you could not be out in a jungle w/out batteries ... that was then ..  mechanical cameras are gone, manual focus is gone, film is gone... the mirror will be also go and you wont even notice it is not there ... or not  

[Leonardo Barreto]

Yes, yes, that is the actual term, I just translated it to English, don't know how to say it in french ... one time I happened to find myself with bullets coming from the contras in my front and the sandinistas in my back at dusk close to the Honduras Nicaragua border and I instinctively opened my 50mm f 1: 1.4 to all the way and shot away... we where the microprocessor of our cameras then, no? and lucky not to catch a bullet too...



The other thing we had where primes. I worked a lot with a normal and a teleconverter.. on my Canon F-1,



(image redirected from wikipedia for non commercial propose)

"OJIMETRO"
I love it! I already forgotten about that.
I do too remember discussions with fellow photographers about battery dependent cameras. It was sacrilege!
Battery dependent exposure meter didnt count (well, at least not in my time) After all you could use your Ojimetro.
Besides HCB was mainly an eyemeter photographer, or so we heard.
Eduardo

[dsnow]

Hello

Thank you for inviting me for a demonstration of the Sinar system.  It speaks fluently the vocabulary that we use on every shoot.

For years I watched the evolution of digital gear.  Its chart is plotted with ups, downs, gaps, overlaps, variations, mixed data & on and on...
Looking for digi gear to replace the 4x5 is like going to a freak show of distorted adaptations of film cameras,  such as the cambo X2Pro, the Better Light slide in 4x5 digiback, sliding back adaptors for digi backs, adaptor plates for 4x5's, DSLR's that clip to 4x5's and ultra hi priced MF style digi backs that would clip onto almost anything.  As the metamorphosis continued, some semblance of a viable solution became recognizable in the shape of the MF large sensor backs slapped onto weird looking metal cameras with some shifts and large format lenses that could focus with a ring like an SLR.   After all, the MF digi back was an adapted invention, like the automobile was invented based on roads that were made to fit the width of 2 horses ass.  The MF digi back was made to fit on a MF platform and adapted to the 4x5 format.  Why reinvent the wheel?
 
And why take it personnel, as they say "it's just business".  The camera business is based on sales of products that consumers want and need.  Manufactures do not have an unlimited amount of R&D funding available. By hook or by crook they beg, barrow and steal to keep the competitive edge.  There is not a symbiotic relationship between manufactures and consumers because the bean counters know that if you give the mouse a cookie he will want a glass of milk.  So they try to stay ahead of the curve by getting the piggy to market.  If you build it they will come.  And if you pull the rug out from under em by ringing the bell that Roid is dead, they will flock in like lemmings.  I would not call it personal- technology will always be in development.  One step forward two steps back.  Manufactures will only go so far with research and development and then wait for end users to cry out in agony and demand something new and improved.  It is just business and we consumers can not afford to wait for solutions, I want plug and play.  Why should we have to test everything at our time and expense so that you can build it better.  At least  guinea pigs get food and water.  Photogs know how gear problems effect us and good photogs can tell what problems need to be addresses even without 1st hand experience with the gear.  But maybe it is personal when you have to listen to all the complaints of why this problem and why that problem.  I am sure you are trying hard to build it right.  But lets not disguise inherent digi gear problems with fancy names to buy time and put a fix on it.  If it is broke fix it and do it quickly because your success depends on your reputation- and we all know image is everything!

Rainer,

If I was to write on this forum (read by many people and therefore influenced by its content) that 'The Sinar White Shading function is crap', you would quite rightly reprimand me and tell me I was quite wrong.  So please prepare yourself for a similar fate.

From a very early release of Phocus there has been the possibility to create a 'White Shading File', Custom White in our case, untethered and with batch corrections over multiple files when you are back at the studio.  You can also save an infinite number of presets for your various lenses / setups in various forms of shift and tilt.

Therefore your comments 'I doubt' and 'as far as I know' should be learnt from when making assumptions about software and hardware you are not necessarily 100% familiar with.

To clarify I also believe we can claim a uniform correction within 2 points on the RGB scale.

If you find my 'claims' tall, I would suggest a visit to one of my German colleagues who can demonstrate aptly the Custom White Function.  I also quite some time ago posted the workflow on this forum.

So I am afraid I still take it personally when misinformation is spread.

Best,



David

[ivan muller]

(The other thing we had where primes. I worked a lot with a normal and a teleconverter.. on my Canon F-1)

hi Leonardo,

I know this is off topic, but that photo of the old F1 brings back memories! I do remember the endless debates about batt operated cameras  and the question if Canon was better than Nikon etc etc! I had mine taken away at knife point in downtown JHB one Sunday afternoon many years ago! I loved the feel/sound of the shutter! and that big heavy slow motordrive! The new F1 never impressed me as much. I also had an old Canon EF that was also taken away at knife point in Marabastad Pretoria when I was a student in the early 80's. (the police caught one of the perps that same night and he was jailed for 4years!) and I wasnt even a news photographer!

.....those were the days......

Regards, Ivan

[David Grover / Capture One]

david:

ok. well. so may i ask why it took you so many years to involve such fundamental function? my comment here are not so much meant to attack you as singular company as to ask why you (all mf) companies could miss such fundamental functions and not build them in in time. this problem exists since years doesnt it?

btw. i am sitting here in my chicago apartment chatting with doug snower who`as you might know is an architecture shooter from here and who use hasselblad backs. he is just asking about sharpness preview ( so another question : do you build in your actual backs a100% zoom function now, as well for checking shapness? ) and telling me about his long email conversation with your chicago rep about color shifts and focus preview ( sharpness ) . he bought his back exactly 1 year ago and was waiting for months for solutions to handle his extreme colorshifts, centerfolds ( to my surprise too )  using a cambo system.


but i understand this tread, and so i wrote my 1. response here which was dedicated to all the 4 manufactors of mf backs,- as a tread about the sad down- or undergoing of some companies. me and others think that the mf industry has slept looooong time very deep, not seeing and not wanting to see what it needs to make functional and attractive backs, softwares and cameras.
the list of missing features i posted can be continued by a lot, and its not so important if some of this basic faults are corrected now,- years later and maybe too late to create a wide enough user base. much of this work could have been done easily 3, 4 or 5 years ago and i cannot understand why the companies havent done so. i lost my respect from writing programs or codes in the limited time i had the pleasure to see how SH worked and wrote his codes and i am tired of hearing any escapes or excuses why fundamental things could not have been solved in time.
in time is the moment if you sell a back, not years later or at the end of its product cycle.

Rainer,

Fundamental to you?  Yes, certainly.  Fundamental to a fashion photographer, most likely not.

Consider the first users of medium format digital equipment (Think Phase H5, Imacon 3020, Sinar ?, Leaf DCB, Volare... etc etc).  As these were tethered systems only, unless you were a sadist you worked mostly in the studio shooting advertising or catalogue work.  This is where I started for example with a DCBII, sausage factory style catalogue work.

The sensors were smaller, sitting in the middle of huge image circles on RZ's, GX680, 4x5 cameras and so on.  Color cast introduced by heavy tilt shifting, wide angle lenses was an incredibly small occurrence.

Architecture photographers (not being offered anything that useable by our companies in early years) were much later adopters so functions such as Custom White came later as the sensors grew and the camera surrounding it shrank.  Ie H system, AFD, Sinar Artec, Alpa, Cambo and so on.

Also the time it takes for an issue to appear and be corrected is not instant in R&D terms.  Custom White functions were not necessarily simple to implement even though we have cracked it now.

The client base of Hasselblad and others is much more extreme now so we have to cater for more 'fundamental' functions which we do as fast as we can.  We don't go out to intentionally alienate any particular user group.

Best,



David

[Frank Doorhof]

Hi,
For what it's worth adding to David.

Since I was shooting studio work I've always shot tethered even with the Canon's, for the simple reason that the displays on the camera are always inaccurate.
Even on location shoots I always carry a laptop with me to shoot tethered.
Don't get me wrong I would LOVE to see a good display on the back because I also use the camera for trips etc. and judging your shots on the displays used now is close to impossible.

But for my WORK I can live with the display.

All other arguments are personal.
I'm used to MF and AF of MF cameras and never really find it slowing me down in work, however when shooting with the DSLR I like the extra speed but also find that in the end I'm shooting in exactly the same pace simply because it's a kind of "groove" you're in with your model.

Both systems are great and are used in the mix by most.
Putting MF down on some points is simply useless because it's not used for those.
It's like comparing a Ferrari to a tractor.
On the land the Tractor rules on the speedway the Ferrari.
If you own both you can do anything

For me the whole issue F&H/Leaf/Sinar is also worrying, I would hate to see two players in the market that's never good.
MF going belly up is not an issue, give me a DSLR that gives me the same quality and the large sensor and we're talking (oh no, then it's called a MF again )
The future for MF will be there but probably with lower prices (yes even lower), better displays (should be easy) and hopefully a few mix hybrids like the Leica and maybe something from Canon/Nikon.

But again every system has plus and minus points, in the end just use both systems and know when to use what and you will deliver top quality.

[ThierryH]

David,

I am absolutely on Rainer's side here: there are many things which are fundamental, and very often these features/functions can be implemented with very little engineering and in very short time, with the right approach.

The example raised by Rainer is typical: how comes that a one-man force can write a perfect workflow solution in a few days (literally), together with a first-hand feedback from a professional who knows what counts? At the same time a team of "x" software guys tell you that it is not possible. Here lies often the problem, first to prioritize and then to decide.

I can assure you that colour casts with sensors are almost as old as the sensors themselves: it was always an issue with view cameras. And my belief is that architecture photographers would have taken the boat much earlier, would such an issue have been addressed.

My years of experience go in the same direction as Rainer: enough of some engineers telling you that it is not possible or "so much" time and manpower consuming.

Best regards,
Thierry

Rainer,

Fundamental to you?  Yes, certainly.  Fundamental to a fashion photographer, most likely not.

Consider the first users of medium format digital equipment (Think Phase H5, Imacon 3020, Sinar ?, Leaf DCB, Volare... etc etc).  As these were tethered systems only, unless you were a sadist you worked mostly in the studio shooting advertising or catalogue work.  This is where I started for example with a DCBII, sausage factory style catalogue work.

The sensors were smaller, sitting in the middle of huge image circles on RZ's, GX680, 4x5 cameras and so on.  Color cast introduced by heavy tilt shifting, wide angle lenses was an incredibly small occurrence.

Architecture photographers (not being offered anything that useable by our companies in early years) were much later adopters so functions such as Custom White came later as the sensors grew and the camera surrounding it shrank.  Ie H system, AFD, Sinar Artec, Alpa, Cambo and so on.

Also the time it takes for an issue to appear and be corrected is not instant in R&D terms.  Custom White functions were not necessarily simple to implement even though we have cracked it now.

The client base of Hasselblad and others is much more extreme now so we have to cater for more 'fundamental' functions which we do as fast as we can.  We don't go out to intentionally alienate any particular user group.

Best,



David

[heinrichvoelkel]

I guess that's it...phase one buying leaf...ending the afi...goodbye f&h, goodbye sinar...will see...

[AlDoori]

Franke & Heidecke schweigt wohl für immer
Alarmierende Nachrichten von Franke & Heidecke haben uns erreicht. Gestern erfuhren wir aus Mitarbeitern des Hauses nahe stehenden Kreisen, dass alle verbliebenen 131 Mitarbeiter die Kündigung zum Ende des Monats erhalten haben. Zum 1. Juli 2009 wird also die Franke & Heidecke GmbH nur noch als insolvente Hülle übrig bleiben. Wie es in den Hallen der Salzdahlumer Straße 196 in Braunschweig heute aussieht, wissen wir nicht. Wir haben auch keine Informationen darüber, ob sich noch eine Möglichkeit zur Ersatzteilversorgung bietet.

Am Dienstag den 23. Juni 2009 gab es allem Anschein nach eine Betriebsversammlung, in deren Rahmen die Kündigung der Komplettbelegschaft bekanntgegeben wurde. Nach einer Phase der „Kurzarbeit 0“ war dieser Termin wohl das letzte Mal, an dem die Mitarbeiter nach 80 jähriger Firmengeschichte an ihren Arbeitsplatz zurückkehren konnten. Ein bitterer Tag in der Geschichte der Fotografie. Gleichzeitig ist es ein bitterer Tag für die Freunde der Rolleiflex, da nun diese genialen Kameras endgültig zur Historie gehört.

http://www.spuer-sinn.net/blog1/?p=1141

[BJNY]

Google translated:

Franke & Heidecke silent probably forever
Alarming news by Franke & Heidecke have reached us. Yesterday we learned from employees of the house near the circles that all 131 employees remaining at the termination end of the month received. At 1 July 2009 will be the Franke & Heidecke GmbH only as insolvent shell remain. As stated in the halls of the Salzdahlumer road 196 in Brunswick today, we do not know. We have no information about whether another possibility for spare parts supply offers.

On Tuesday 23 rd June 2009, there was apparently a business meeting during which the termination of the total workforce was announced. After a phase of "short-0", this date was probably the last time at which the employee after 80 years of company history at their jobs could return. One bitter day in the history of photography. At the same time, it is a bitter day for the Friends of the Rolleiflex, because now these brilliant cameras finally belongs to history.

For us, this means that we do with our action today for the Rolleiflex must end. A variety of interested parties has improved in recent weeks to us and a significant number of these conversations indicated in the direction of "Stuff". Unfortunately, we must now stop all calls. Of course, with our revenue-generating Franke & Heidecke would certainly not be able to save - that intuition is too small and insignificant. But it would have been a signal, a step in the future. Now is gone, what hope had begun.

Lots of blood in the Rolleiflex flowed action and engagement has been spent. Why ultimately all attempts had failed, it will probably never be clarified. A large camera tradition is now gone forever at - specifically at a time when the analog medium format photography is celebrating its comeback. Perhaps it was a business mistake by Franke & Heidecke, the evolution of the digital Hy6 on floor to move. Especially the last few weeks have shown that no medium format digital format. Medium and large are still analog and topics will remain for the foreseeable future. More even by ways of working arises hybrid analog sector, an additional action, which is further developed by leaps and bounds. Franke & Heidecke will be here do not seem to be more involved. Analog cameras with the Rollei logo will probably no longer exist. Rollei film the other hand, grows very successfully in this new era into it. Serendipity is actively involved in this development. The camera industry is expected to light - in the film sector, several new lights. Especially in the case of creative films, there will be new products coming soon to a new flowering of the creative type. Already in the next week we will inform more information.

[tho_mas]

German: http://www.photoscala.de/Artikel/Bei-Frank...ern-die-Lichter

translation: http://tinyurl.com/kvdmyf

[paratom]

German: http://www.photoscala.de/Artikel/Bei-Frank...ern-die-Lichter

translation: http://tinyurl.com/kvdmyf

at least a little hope for the Hy6

[AlDoori]

in the meantime you can get a new 6oo8 for 1ooo.- here:

Rollei 6008 Integral 2 Gehäuse + Lichtschacht (Neuware) ovp aktl. Listenpreis 2.696.-- €
neu    
998 € Differenzbesteuert

http://rk-fototechnik.de/index.php?mode=an...s=Rollei%206000

[mcfoto]

German: http://www.photoscala.de/Artikel/Bei-Frank...ern-die-Lichter

translation: http://tinyurl.com/kvdmyf

I remember that time in 2006 with the release of the Hy6. At the time there was no way that Phase One was going to be part of this platform. It was a way for Sinar to gain market share & with Leaf on board that was the plan. If the Hy6 was an open platform for all backs including Hasselbad along with Phase One would we have had the same outcome? The other variable was Canon (1DsMKIII, 5DII) Nikon D3 & D3X plus the Sony FF camera.
Denis

[bradleygibson]

It's hard to say, because the causes of F&H's trouble (demise?) are so poorly understood.

I don't think we know how efficient their manufacturing was--what kinds of profit they were making, or the nature/magnitude of this 'hidden debt'.

I do believe that the platform would have been more popular by a long shot, had Phase been a part of the picture from the get-go.  This was the original package I asked for back when I first took the plunge into MF, and (obviously) never was quite able to put it together.

There is a good chance that if I'd been able to do it, I'd probably still be on the platform today.

Regardless, F&H told me that they were at full production capacity as it was (at least for a time).  I wonder what additional demand would have done?

I know I was not alone in voicing my strong opposition to this from the start.  Still it's a shame.  The Hy6 is special, and it's too bad this closed system ideaology reared its ugly head to make things that much more difficult.  It seems neither F&H, nor Leaf, nor Sinar (by extension) benefited from this in the end.  

-Brad

I remember that time in 2006 with the release of the Hy6. At the time there was no way that Phase One was going to be part of this platform. It was a way for Sinar to gain market share & with Leaf on board that was the plan. If the Hy6 was an open platform for all backs including Hasselbad along with Phase One would we have had the same outcome? The other variable was Canon (1DsMKIII, 5DII) Nikon D3 & D3X plus the Sony FF camera.
Denis