Hacker News Reader

Comment by derekjdanserl | Hacker News Reader

They sold a few lines of digital cameras for a while there that were beasts with large sensors like their analog ancestors, but it just didn’t make much practical sense aside from the fact that the old lenses could be used on the new cameras, and of course that only has limited value since old lenses lack modern focusing mechanisms.

View on HN

I inherited a Hasselblad, shot it for a few years before succumbing to the inertia of digital. Still makes me a little sad that such a beautiful camera is just languishing on a shelf in my basement.

Hit me up. I’d love to talk about buying it from you. I shoot film, primarily 120 and large format. I’d give your Hasselblad a good home. Email is in my profile.

Huh? The X1D-II and the XCD lens series is well regarded by pro photographers and shows well in independent technical reviews.

The body is ~$5750 which is not peanuts, but it's not $50K either.

To be clear, they are excellent cameras! But with a very small market. They were built like workhorse cameras but they did’t have nearly enough of a competitive ecosystem to actually be workhorse cameras. It’s not surprising that they met their fate.

The color off the sensor is amazing. I rented one for my son’s birth because I needed an autofocus for non-manual friends and family to shoot with and I almost bought it after.

The UX is perfect. Simple, direct, if you shot a manual film camera you instantly understand it. Lenses are great, but big and heavy.

Also: they were $50,000.

Yowzers. I guess I’m not surprised. I shot one once just being curious. It felt like driving a Cadillac, but the owner seemed to be struggling to find an actual purpose for it that his film Hasselblad wasn’t a better fit for.

they were large format digital cameras and they were hassblad so they were very pricy. They weren't aimed at consumers or even your average pro.

But I think the competing brands were good enough to make it non viable.

Photography itself changed. Not many photographers are shooting for fashion magazines and you could probably get the job done with a Canon 5D which cost a fraction of what a Hasselblad did. Canon and Nikon were still kind of slow adopting new tech like mirrorless cameras and lost matket share to Sony. Leica instead concentrated on selling cameras to dentists and other well off types, making lenses for other camera systems and mobile phones. They're still here today.

Mirrorless isn't always a good thing. 5d can probably take 3x as many pictures on a battery since it doesn't have to power a live view feed for you to compose pictures.

Well, that's what most photographers and videographers want: a big articulated screen, maybe streaming to a phone or tablet instead of peeking into a tiny viewfinder. Power? If I were in Patagonia, I'd care, but otherwise anywhere in the developed world with power outlets, cables and chargers around, no. Most people want a light camera that can could suprpass what a smartphone can do in terms of quality and ergonomics. For most of them it's the GoPro.

I fidn many mirrorless cameras don't have anywhere near as good physical handling characteristics. I am a Canon guy and I'd rather deal with my full size dslr over my tiny canon mirrorless...and it's not like the mirrorless is small once you add a 17-40. Or 24-70 on to it. They're just not as ergonomic and convenient to stabilize - I use a shoulder stabilized style when using a 70-200 and just can't pull it off with a mirrorless camera.

The mirrorless cam tends to just be a travel camera and only sees the 14mm pancake lens on it most of the time.

Canon also has the R5 and R6, these are full sized mirrorless cameras that one could use large lenses on. And there are also acessory grips.

I own a 5D4 and an R5. I haven't really used the R5 more than a few times, but I'm already having a hard time going back to my 5D4, between features and everything. Battery is less of an issue for me because I've typically used the battery grip, on either.

For more compact travel stuff, I bought a Leica Q a few years ago, that has a fixed 28mm.

I know people who shoot weddings. That's all day work from breakfast till the end of the reception. They all use DSLRs with battery grips. They are already hauling in many extra batteries and charger arrays into the venue, an entire pelican case worth. For them to switch to mirrorless would mean 3 pelican cases to haul from where the bride and groom are getting ready, to the chapel, to a photoshoot location, then to the venue. That would mean a second vehicle for them. And lets consider the number of shots too vs the absolute time. A mirrorless camera in terms of shots might be good for 400 exposures at best. Shooting something like a wedding ceremony is a one take thing. You gotta get the shot, there is no asking the priest to back up again and repeat the vows, so your camera is shooting off like a machine gun and you hope one of those moments you have everyone in the frame with their eyes open without a funny look on anyones face. 400 exposures would go by in no time at all when you can take a twelve exposure burst in a few seconds.

There is a reason why when you see any big sporting event or anything with professional photographers these days, you still see a sea of DSLRs despite mirrorless cameras like the A7 having excellent sensors on the market for 10 years now.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com