Kevin,
Did the tether software fall over during the test? A friend of mine
rented the 39MP & H2 for a shoot and had the software repeatedly crash
on him while shooting. It's not terribly stable.
And the PhaseOne back is generally considered superior to the Imacon, in
pretty much all respects except H2 compatibility (PhaseOne doesn't
support H2's).
-Adam
Kevin Waterson wrote:
So, today the Hasselblad World Tour came to Sydney Australia.
From midday to 6.30pm the doors were opened to industry folk to see, hear
about and try out the newest offering from Hasselblad. It was a rather
casual, yet well attended affair with industry heavy-weights Adobe and HP
demonstrating their wares also and how they integrate with the new H2.
Upon entering we were greeted and given a goody bag to stuff the advertising
material in. Light refreshments were available and of course, a generous
amount of H2 bodies to use. A temporary studio with flash and of course some
attractive 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 computer
so 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 big
boys 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 they
just HAD to have the latest and greatest. Presumably this last group could
afford
these not cheaply priced tools.
Also mingling were print shop folks, photo magazine types (Better Photography
putting
in 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
boasts
an Imacon digital back of 39 Megapixels. So what you say, more megapixels are
just a
matter 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
update
again when the next leap in technology happens. Talking to one of the reps I
was informed
the 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 be
released, coming in March, so we had to make do with the 22 Megapixel offering.
The H2D
of course is a fully integrated unit and both bodies are fully compatible with
Hasselblads
H 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 allowing
easy access to all features. The menu system I thought was not too intuitive.
When I tried to insert
my own CF card to format it I had hit a bump, then a wall. I could not easily
find my way to the format
function, although I am sure with practice this would become easier. Then when
I inserted my own card
an error was displayed because my CF card was not SanDisk brand card. Only
SanDisk CF cards can be
used currently by this system.
As mentioned Adobe were on hand to provide some excellent working solutions and
it would seem they have
worked well with Hasselblad which now saves images in Adobes DNG (Digital
NeGative) format. This allows
images 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 great
time 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 Format
Digital technology, I was a little disappointed. The excellent auto-focus is
sharp and fast, but I found
the 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 model
place her hand on the shoe and the resulting image gave a greenish hue to the
skin tones. So what? This
is common in digital photography. This is true, but at $AUD 60,000.00 I was
hoping for a little more than
what everybody else is offering at 20% of this amount. Where I found the skin
tones best was when I took
a model out into the midday sun and snapped of a few images under quite harsh
lighting. These tones rendered
quite nicely and what was even more surprising was the latitude of the digital
chip. I was expecting the
usual 2-2.5 stop before blow-outs occured. The H2 handled the 4 stop diffences
between light and shadow
magnificently.
Once again, this is the leading edge in Medium Format technology. Others
players will need to rally to
meet 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 benchmarks
set by Hasselblad with the H2, I believe that price is what will be the
deciding factor for many
who are waiting to join the Medium Format digital era.
Kind regards
Kevin
