Eric, I just move couple months ago from Nikon to Hasselblad H4D-40. I had the Nikon D3x for a brief time, but I sold it to make the purchase ( I kept a D700 for low light work ).
I also urge you to contact a dealer... Its the best way to clear your doubts. Don't make a purchase unless you do a test with both Phase One and Hasselblad.
I finally bougth a Hasselblad because:
- H4D True focus (It's specially helpful in shallow depth of field situations to correctly focus) it's amazing.
- Flash sync speed up to 1/800 on the entire lens lineup. Before I made my decision I revised my Lightroom catalogs to see if I commonly use speeds above 1/800 (when I don't use strobes)... just the 5% in my case, 15% on photo shoots on the beach... so that's something to analyze.
- ISO 800 is quite usable, specially when you scale down an image (Phase One sensor plus it's awesome too).
- HTS 1.5 tilt and shift adapter for almos the entire lens lineup. I don't have it right now, but I tried it with my dealer, it not only special for landscape (to make panos) or table top or macro, I also gives you another way to be creative on portraits ( shifting the focus plane )
- Phocus: it's a great software, the lens corrections, the rendering of the color it's no way close to Lighroom + 35mm or Nikon files with Nikon capture.
* I have to tell you that in my experience Phocus its not a software for cataloging, it does the job, but if you are checking focus on your files 1 by 1 it will take you a lot of time.
- H4D AF assistance, it has a diferent light, a light with lines to make contrast, I don't now how to explain that, but for what I notice, I works better than the Nikon AF assistance (In my opinion).
- Hasselblad promotion: $19,995 for the H4D-40 + the 35-90mm... so you get the H4D-40 for $17,995 and a $7,000 lens for $2,000....
- The ergonomics just felt right in my hands.
- I was going to buy a H3d-31 or a H3d-39... but I wait to have all the $ to get the H4d-40 for the above reasons and because theres no trade-in options for the H3d-31(directly to hasselblad)... the H3d-39 has a really good value, but the H4d-40 will have more value in the future.
Some toughts on MFD:
- You'll need 2-3 stops more of light.
- You can hand-held the camera, but you'll need at least 2 stops more (Mirror shake is something you would need to fee, Hasselblad has mirror delay option... and it works great, but it's not the solution) You'll need a monopod or tripod most of the times.
- If you like shallow DOF images, this is the way to go. I have the 100mm f/2.2 and the shallow DOF its really amazing, you could emulate this with the canon 85mm f/1.2, but its not the same, theres something (Lack of AA filter plus size etc etc) about MFD that I love, the part of the image that is in focus is amazingly sharp (even if it is a 1 inch of DOF) and the out of focus transition is really pleasing to the eye. In 35mm if you shot with the 85mm f/1.2 the part that is in focus would be kind of soft. In MFD this is not the case.
- Computer horsepower: You'll need a good computer, I have brand new iMac 27in, 2.66 GHz intel Core i5 with 12 GB of ram, 512 MB video... and it barely does the job. I'm planing to buy a Mac Pro.
- Dynamic Range, IN MY OPINION out of the camera the images have about 1-2 stops more dynamic range than a 35mm... BUT if you heavily tweek the files it will give you a lot more than a 35mm file (specially in the shadows)... I would say another 1-2 stops more... and thats a LOT. If you tend to expose to the highlights MFD is way superior to 35mm when recovering shadows.
- Bigger field of view an less distorsion: If you use a 50mm in MFD (if you have a full frame sensor) it would be something like 31mm in 35mm terms BUT you will have the 50mm "optical view" with less distorsion than the 31mm that you will need in 35mm to get the same field of view. So this is special when you don't have space... so distorted heads or lines are less problematic with MFD when you don't have the space.
- Software: this is a huge plus for MFD... both Phase one and hasselblad have an amazing tools specially designed to get every last drop o quality out of the files, it really makes a diference. I think both need to expand the software to have cataloging options (for fast previewing, sorting, organizing etc etc). I guess thats why Phase One recently acquired iView.
Looking at your portfolio I would say that MFD will suit you very well. Speed it's not an issue, you have controlled enviroments and models, you don't do fast action shoots, I guess you don't need high ISO... So it's a matter to look at the options....
Good luck!!!