kevin_waterson Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 So, today the Hasselblad World Tour came to Sydney Australia.>From midday to 6.30pm the doors were opened to industry folk to see, hearabout and try out the newest offering from Hasselblad. It was a rathercasual, yet well attended affair with industry heavy-weights Adobe and HPdemonstrating their wares also and how they integrate with the new H2. Upon entering we were greeted and given a goody bag to stuff the advertisingmaterial in. Light refreshments were available and of course, a generous amount of H2 bodies to use. A temporary studio with flash and of course someattractive models on hand to help get the feel of the camera. A second 'studio'was next to this with a make-shift product table and a H2 tethered to a computerso that it could be operated remotely and the files saved directly to the hard disk.This is a very snappy way to operate a camera and improve digital workflow. There was imho three groups, the tyre kickers who wanted to see what the bigboys use, the middle wieghts who were bordering on taking a finacial leap (myself)and the folks from the big end of town where money seemed not to be an object and theyjust HAD to have the latest and greatest. Presumably this last group could affordthese not cheaply priced tools. Also mingling were print shop folks, photo magazine types (Better Photography puttingin an appearance), and graphic designers. So what is all this fuss about? The H2 and H2D are the successors to the Hasselblad H1 digital system. The H2/D boastsan Imacon digital back of 39 Megapixels. So what you say, more megapixels are just amatter of time and money and prices will fall as technology overtakes todays standards. This seemed to be the crux of the marketing, those few who will buy today and updateagain when the next leap in technology happens. Talking to one of the reps I was informedthe chip could only stretch to 45 Megapixels. Having previously trialled the H1 system, I was a little familiar with the use of the H2.It is basically the same camera with some bug fixes, and of course a 39Megapixel back.Unfortunately the 39 Megapixel Imacon backs were not available as they are yet to bereleased, coming in March, so we had to make do with the 22 Megapixel offering. The H2Dof course is a fully integrated unit and both bodies are fully compatible with HasselbladsH series of lenses. In the firmware department punters are treated to the latest in "IAA" (Image Approval Architecture)making a very nice interface to classify and sort images. The amazingly bright OLED viewing panel allowingeasy access to all features. The menu system I thought was not too intuitive. When I tried to insertmy own CF card to format it I had hit a bump, then a wall. I could not easily find my way to the formatfunction, although I am sure with practice this would become easier. Then when I inserted my own cardan error was displayed because my CF card was not SanDisk brand card. Only SanDisk CF cards can beused currently by this system. As mentioned Adobe were on hand to provide some excellent working solutions and it would seem they haveworked well with Hasselblad which now saves images in Adobes DNG (Digital NeGative) format. This allowsimages to be imported directly into Adobe Photoshop CS. Bundled with the H2 is Hasselblads "FlexColor"software which is really quite a nifty tool for improving digital workflow. This I thought was a greattime saving tool which could really catch on. So, lets get to the crunch, how did it perform? Keeping in mind this is the leading edge in Medium FormatDigital technology, I was a little disappointed. The excellent auto-focus is sharp and fast, but I foundthe skin tones abysmal. Our studio model wearing a red top produced redish skin tones that needed to fixed by software. When shooting on the table top a green pair of shoes was used. I then had the modelplace her hand on the shoe and the resulting image gave a greenish hue to the skin tones. So what? Thisis common in digital photography. This is true, but at $AUD 60,000.00 I was hoping for a little more thanwhat everybody else is offering at 20% of this amount. Where I found the skin tones best was when I tooka model out into the midday sun and snapped of a few images under quite harsh lighting. These tones renderedquite nicely and what was even more surprising was the latitude of the digital chip. I was expecting theusual 2-2.5 stop before blow-outs occured. The H2 handled the 4 stop diffences between light and shadowmagnificently. Once again, this is the leading edge in Medium Format technology. Others players will need to rally tomeet this standard. But technology moves quickly and todays leading edge is tomorrows eBay bargains.Any company thinking of joining the Medium Format digital race need not match or better the benchmarksset by Hasselblad with the H2, I believe that price is what will be the deciding factor for manywho are waiting to join the Medium Format digital era. Kind regardsKevin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mark liddell Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 Most MF digital back have serious issues with the workflow right now reading stuff from the guys that use them. You'd think hassy would have spent teh time to sort this out at a demo day though! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dglickstein Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 I've been working with an H2 for 2-3 months now and, overall, I'm impressed. However, I only shoot film and I haven't thought 2 seconds about digital. The H1/H2 is excellent for someone moving out of 35mm and into MF. There has been a lot of negativity about the lenses/body parts being made by Fuji. But the H1/H2 is a fantastic camera that is worlds apart from anything else I've tried. There is nothing negative about Fuji being a partner with Hasselblad. I considered writing some form of review here but I'm not sure how good it could be since I'm new to MF. My angle would be as a former Canon EOS uaer. And I'd have nothing to contribute about digital. I hope more here use the H1/H2. dG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jn02 Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 Kevin, great review and one of the few that really gets down into what the H2 is about. Derek Rader Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theokeijzers Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 Kevin, it's always nice to dream about this stuff. No way I can ever buy this, but it would be nice to see some results from this. I'm curious what comes out of a machine worth a nice sportscar. So please, show us some pictures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dglickstein Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 What's wrong with debt? dG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
simonpg Posted February 13, 2006 Share Posted February 13, 2006 Thanks Kevin for taking the time to post your extensive comments on the event and what was shown. I'm hoping it will happen here in Melbourne. But I will fall into the tyre kicker group! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now