Caveat:
I'm not a Hasselblad shooter.
Thoughts:
And this wouldn't make me one.
This is targeted at keeping existing customers happy. I would imagine that for anyone already shooting Hasselblad, it is a nice evolutionary step. I have only recently moved into the world of MF, but the press release kind of reads to me how I'd expect the press release coming from Phase would have read when the DF came out. I dunno, maybe that's not a great comparison (because the DF brought leaf-shutter lenses into the mix). Perhaps it's more like the improvement from AFD-II to AFD-III.
The key word here though is "evolutionary". It's a nice incremental upgrade for people already shooting Hasselblad.
There has to be more to come from the company though, surely? Firstly, wasn't the hype originally around a September 18th announcement? I can't imagine that this was it, and that they've brought it forward.
“In 2002 at photokina Hasselblad launched the revolutionary H System that changed and shaped the medium format market of the new millennium. Embraced by professional and amateur photographers around the world, it is still the unsurpassed standard for craftsmanship and ultimate image quality. In 2012, 10 years later, our commitment to innovation, evolution and expanding to new horizons is as uncompromising as it has always been in the century long history of Hasselblad.”
Is this feature list innovative? I wouldn't say so (True Focus was of course innovative. A new iteration of it isn't.)
Is it evolutionary? Clearly
Does it expand to new horizons? Absolutely not.
From a purely objective view, I can't see any way that this would increase Hasselblad's market share.
Kind regards,
Gerald.