Wednesday, July 09, 2008

New Hasselblad

Funny, I thought a Hasselblad camera was expensive when I was young. That's nothing compared to the digital generation Hassies: thirty thousand dollars. Without even one of the also very expensive lenses... [Update: I stand corrected, it's nothing so cheap, it's forty thousand dollars for the new top model...]

Since I'm not a pro and don't so far make very large exhibition prints, I'm not likely to get a Hasselblad any time soon. But I'm still a little interested when they introduce a record-breaking 50-megapixels camera, for the reason that there's always a trickle-down effect. If 16 megapixels was still the highest you could get, it would still be costing twenty grand like seven years ago. Instead you can now get a Pentax 14-megapixel camera for only a thousand dollars (excellent camera too), and very likely a new 16-megapixel Canon full frame camera pretty soon for little more than two grand. That's a tenth of the price.

5 comments:

Alex said...

See that, the sensor chip is a Kodak. They were looking for ASIC engineers about a year ago, I thought of applying for a job there. Can you imagine working on a Hassleblad, that would have been a cool gig!

Anonymous said...

I was all set to get one. $30, 000 is no big deal for a camera, but $40,000 is just ridiculous.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Exactly! And the included strap is just not good enough.

Anonymous said...

"Since I'm not a pro and don't so far make very large exhibition prints, I'm not likely to get a Hasselblad any time soon."

What a lame excuse. Big prints or not, no one needs a Hasselblad. Just like no one needs a Ferrari or a Steinway or a Neve 88RS. But we all want one! (Or two.)

It's ok if you can't afford it. But to have the means and then not get it on the basis that you're "not a pro" is ... is ... are you gay or something? :-)

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

just guilt-ridden. Maybe I'm catholic and haven't realized it.