Medium format cameras were once the staple of the wedding industry, but have fallen by the wayside, to be replaced by DSLRs.
And as the quality and MP count has gone up for DSLRs, even hardcore Medium Format shooters are liking the files produced by cameras like the Nikon D3 and the Canon 1D M IV.
But don’t think that medium format is dead. Hasselblad had just announced the H4D-40, a new 35 mm-like, 40 MP camera for the low low price of $20,000. That’s only $500 per MP. If you keep track of those sorts of things.
(Not that value is measured in price per MP. If it was, we’d all be shooting Digital Rebels or something. No offense to Digital Rebel shooters.)
This is Hasselblad’s new “entry level” medium format camera, and while it will produce files that would make Ken Rockwell weep for joy, wedding shooters will probably still avoid the H4D-40, as the “expanded ISO range” means that it will now shoot up to 1600 ISO.
Still, it is an interesting response by Hasselblad to the top of the line 35 mm DSLRs, and might entice some wedding shooters to add it to their arsenal for controlled portrait situations.
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4 Comments at "New Hasselblad DSLR: 40 MP for only $20,000."
I’m sorry, if I could sell all of my equipment and get enough to purchase this beast, I’d do it yesterday! It was not that long ago that we were jumping up and down for joy that we could even use images shot at 1600 and now your saying that will keep wedding shooters away from it. Slap a flash or a PW on it to trigger OCF and I’m all set.
Hey, I still have a couple 20Ds; I wish I could shoot at 1600….
But most wedding photogs are spoiled what with their One Billion ISO D3s and 5D M IIs….Once you’ve shot in pitch black, you can’t go back….
Dear Santa …….
I was the owner of a Hasselblad H3D-31 for a bit and the files were absolutely stunning. I used the camera for my fine art landscape work but I gave it a go at some portrait and wedding photography jobs… Why not right?
So yeah the files were killer! What I noticed more was the fact that the Hassy kept a better gradiation between the highlights and shadows than my Nikons or other DSLRs… Also colors accuracy was much more robust… Great right???
Well, now take a typical wedding job and throw in some huge files into your workflow… Hassy’s Phocus software yields the best results for the camera but takes forever to work with… So all in all, more trouble than it’s worth for a wedding in my opinion, especially when a bride and grooms wedding album is maybe 12×12″ in size and a lot of the images are about the size of wallets…
So I sold it and now have a brand new car…
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