janm

<p>Thanks for the info Ray!<br>

Yes, UV and SL-1B are very similar, the skylight filter has a very slight warming effect. LB-B is indeed a cooling filter like the 82-series.<br>

The serial of my lens starts with 121XX.</p>

<p>Does anyone know which variants exist of this lens? There seems to be at least two different filter options. <br>

Mine has UV, SL-1B, LB-A, LB-B. The other one has has yellow and orange filters for B&W photography. Were these manufactured at different times or concurrently for color and B&W? Are there other differences?</p>

For those curious, here's the company manufacturing the metal chassis

of the Hasselblad H1: www.meplako.se.

The site is only in Swedish.

Q.G,

I think it's in the subscribers-only section, sorry!

That's the subject of an article in today's issue of Dagens

Industri, a daily Swedish business paper. The article is an

interview with Göran Bernhoff, Hasslblad's CEO, here's a summary.

1 US$ = 9.4 Swedish Krona.

Th H1 is already a success. In only two weeks Hasselblad has gotten

orders corresponding to 20% of next year's production. Sales volume

of the old system is unchanged. This year Hasselblad expects to make

zero profit/loss, a big improvement compared to last years loss.

Next year Bernhoff expects Hasselblad to make a profit, and sales

volume to increase by at least 30%.

Next year Hasselblad will either be sold, or go public on a stock

exchange. Within 3-4 years the company is expected to have a

turnover of at least 1000 Million Krona, and a profit of at least

100 Million Krona. Already next year Hasselblad will be the largest

maker of medium format cameras, selling more than the Japanese

competitors.

The H1 was developed together with Fuji, and it cost 325 Million

krona.

I have an EOS 3 and I usually leave ECF off, just using the center focus point (focus, then reframe). An exception is when I use flash, since you then automatically get evaluative metering which is connected to the active focus point (makes reframing a bad idea unless you use FEL).

I limit the number of focus points to 11. This makes ECF faster.

I really like the EOS 3, go for it!

Glenn, Canon certainly produce lenses in the Utsunomiya factory:

http://www.canon.com/about/group/list.html

C lenses are also multicoated, as far as I know. The difference between N and C lenses is a new barrel design in the N lenses.

There are exceptions: the 300/5.6 got an optical update as well.

I'd say go with a C.

Richard,

You're mixing up the number. Sales during 2000 were 623 million. They didn't reveal sales for 2001, but they lost money: costs exceeded sales by 16 million during the first half of the year.

Sorry if I was unclear!

Eric, I think they are doing something. The increased R&D spending will hopefully result in new products, and the new factory will supposedly lower production costs (I didn't translate that part).

One interesting thing is that Hasselblad, although in trouble, seems to be doing better than their competitors (at least in the US). If the MF market in total was down 50%, but Hasselblad "only" lost 30%, they have actually increased market share.

Oils used in watchmaking are almost all synthetic today, and

extremely expensive... but you need very little. ;)

The Swedish business paper Dagens Industri (like Financial Times or

Wall Street Journal) has an article about Hasselblad today, based on

an interview with Hasselblad's CEO Göran Bernhoff.

It's pretty long, so I'll just post some interesting points:

- There was a substantial loss during 2001, 16 Million SEK during the

first 6 months. They don't say how much for the entire year, but the

second half of the year was worse than the first. Total sales 623

Million SEK during 2000.

- Construction of the new factory will start this spring. It will

cost 175 Million SEK. It will open in 2003, 350 people will work

there. More outsourcing in the future.

- The MF market in the US was down 50% during 2001. Hasselblad sales

down 30% in the US.

- USA is 20% of Hasselblad's total market.

- Sales in Europe down 10%, and the total MF market in Europe also

down 10%.

- Sales in Asia increased during 2001, in particular in China (up

25%).

- 50 people have been laid off during 2001.

- R&D costs increased by 50% during 2000, to 36 Million SEK.

- Several R&D projects are in progress, in particular digital.

Cooperation with other companies important.

- Hasselblad's management don't think the company can survive on its

own, looking for someone to buy them.

10 SEK = 1 USD, roughly.

Try f/Calc: http://tangentsoft.net/fcalc/

It's a nice little calculator for this sort of thing.