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New lens for Hasselblad 6x6


andreas_carl

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Rumours have it that Carl Zeiss is developing a new lens for

Hasselblad cameras. My wish (if Hasselblad is listening???) would be

a portrait lens, let's say, hmmmm 90mm f1.4, optimized for bokeh with

7 (or 9) shutter blades instead of the 5. So, what is your dream

lens, the one missing from the current line of Hasselblad optics....

 

(And while I am dreaming, when is this 55x55 mm sensor-size 36

Megapixel digital back coming to the stores?)

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I would be satisfied by a full 55x55 9MP chip for wedding work. The 36MP would be nice for landscape, but I can wait another year for that one ;-)

<p>

The pentagonal shapes in the out-of-focus areas can be ugly indeed, although non-photographers don't seem to mind to much.

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<img height=425 width=425 src="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl/images/lland20031016-05.jpg">

</center>

<p>

I also hope that the new Zeiss lenses will be available for Rollei too!

<p>

<a href="http://www.fotografiewimvanvelzen.nl">Wim</a>

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<i>"My wish (if Hasselblad is listening???) would be a portrait lens, let's say, hmmmm 90mm f1.4"</i>

<br><br>

90mm would not be a very good portrait lens unless you intended to a lot of environmental portrait work. The 150 is in my eyes a very good portrait focal length and the CFi is a very good performer.

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As a matter of fact, Hasselblad has withdrawn some of the Zeiss shutterless lens from the program, the 2.8/50 and the 2.8/80 and the 4.0/250. Sales of the line seems worse then expected, all lens are available used in good condition. Prices are low. Beside of ultra-expensive high performance lens like the 2.8/300, I do not see any new lens here.

 

The Prontor (Leaf)-Shutter lens may slowly evolve, if sales are constant, but on the long side lens speed is restricted to current values due to limitting shutter. A New Compound Shutter is needed, with aluminium/carbon (hence compound) leafes, max. speed 1/750 or 1/1000, mechanically controlled from 1/60 to, say, 1/1000, electronically controlled from 4 sec. to 1/30. Shutter times and aperture are to be transferred via electronic contacts to the body to allow full metering through the lens. Battery will be in the lens for lens compatibility back to 500C bodies. Shutter release is electronic through the existing shaft. A full contact plug outside (including release) the lens would bring full automatic or metering through wire with a special prism for all 500 C/M form the start of the line.

 

Hasselblads new 504 CWM leaf shutter body including 203FE metering shall be introduced with the New Compund shutter.

 

 

The new lens line would bring a 2.8/60 Distagon, a 2.5/100 Apo-Planar, a 4.8/250 Apo-Tessar (5 lens design) and a 4.0-4.8/55-110 Vario-Sonnar. Next step is a 4.8/50 Tilt-Shift-Distagon with at least 20mm travel. A new 4.0/100 Tessar would be included in the line as a low cost alternative for starters. A 4.0/30 Digit-Distagon (Non-Fisheye) will be added soon, but this is for the coming 42x42mm Hasselblad Digibback only. However, it came out that the new Digit-Distagon will cover almost 54x54 at F22 for film use.

 

Sounds to good..

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Many commercial pros are not shooting film at all any more and have already dumped their Hassy gear, and Hasselblad can't possibly compete price-wise with the resulting glut of second-hand equipment selling at fire-sale prices. This is especially true in the USA, Hasselblad's major market, where the US distributor marks up gear to obscene prices and therefore competes not only with the domestic second-hand market but with off-shore sellers and on-shore gray-marketers undercutting the USA gear by as much as 50%. Add to that the dismal sales failure of the Fujiblad H1 (did they really think Hasselblad buyers were the same demographic and mentality as Leica buyers and anything with the coveted name would be welcomed with open arms--especially when there's a cheaper Contax 645 that *does* use Zeiss lenses?)and the future does look very, very bleak for the "V series".

 

As for digital backs, I believe that in a couple years there will be dedicated digital MF bodies, but we won't see many if any digital backs per se. Since by then almost nobody will be shooting film, it wouldn't be profitable for the manufaturers to bother with removable backs so a few cranky old geezers can run a couple rolls of 120 they ordered from some fomer Soviet republic.

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  • 6 months later...

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