Back in 2011 Hasselblad founded the Hasselblad Design Center in Treviso. The goal was to create unique camera designs. In the years after they launched the [shoplink 22672 ebay]Hasselblad Lunar (here on eBay)[/shoplink], [shoplink 22673 ebay]Stellar (here one Bay)[/shoplink] and the Hasselblad HV (here at BHphoto). And as you likely know these camera were objects of quite some large amount of “irony” on the world wide web.
But today Photoscala reports that Hasselblad has closed the Design Center in Treviso. It is not yet official but this could mean the end of those super “luxurified” Sony A and E-mount camera versions. Maybe Hasselblad wants to focus on a Sony-Hasselblad-Zeiss partnership for a new mirrorless medium format system instead?
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Oh, no!!
Ha- Ha- Ha
Well that came as a total surprise… 😉
I don’t find that surprising. The new CEO made it very clear that the holders were not happy with the direction the company’s portfolio was taking.
It’s only proof that people still think and don’t want overpriced stuff.
Normal people anyway…
I actually quite like the look of the HV… But not the price!
Sad to hear, I was amused about the pimped Nex cameras…..
Damn, and just as I was saving up for my $6000 version of the DSC-WX80.
I was kind of hoping they’d do a Hasselblad Action Cam for $9000.
May be they are planning to make a Hasselblad Web Cam for $9000 😛
I’m thinking a Hasselblad cellphone based on the XPeria for $12,000.
I’m confused, does this mean a and e mount are both dead?!
no, only A-mount is dead. Sony will focus on E-mount and RX line.
Time to comsider changing your name to A7000 then.
😀
damn… i really wanted a rebadge A7s with mink casing, elephant tusk buttons, & plutonium materials for $36,000! lol
Those cameras were the finest example that if you let a designer do whatever they want, they can create sh*tty things. Top cameras from Hasselblad look great without fancy things, how come the last CEO approved those designs???
Designers can create sh*tty things, designers can create amazing things. That’s not unique to Hasselblad.
The job of a CEO is not to approve designs. That’s called micromanagement. Also, the CEO (likely) has no design qualifications – why would he/she have anything to do with design?
Thus making these pieces that much more rare, collectible, and desirab–
–I’m sorry, I can’t keep a straight face.
Well, based on the cameras I’m assuming the design center was a pre-school. Where else would they have come up with that mess of crayola garbage.
surprise?
That is heartbreaking. Any news on the early 2015 camera?
i want my Hassey QX1 !!!
And me a Hassy KW1.. well it already has the bling and Swarowski crystals! Damn! Sony drove Hassy out of this business!
Careful with what you wish, guys. There’s always a loose ‘genius’ in the marketing dept. out there that wants to hire a ‘designer’ to make a ‘limited edition’ of something… :p
that’s true. now these idiots being fired/let-go and they will end up in other companies….
DO WANT~!!!
The ravages of function following form!
collect-a-BULL
At last an intelligent decision from H-blad! Great to see that that are not enough rich idiots out there even to keep that small design center going! There may be a future for this planet after all…
Learn from Leica: Just put your logo on the camera, then double the price.
Thanks god,
that poor brand really didnt need more insults to injury..
Maybe if they started making really great cameras again? 🙂
If you had ever held an H4 or H5 camera you would not ask that question. They are good cameras. They are way better than the V system ever was.
Good to see that Hasselblad is back on track.
Actually, we don’t see it yet.
Only that they have obviously left the “untrack” 🙂
To be honest, I doubt, they will be really on trac ever again…
Tyvärr Bengt
We will see. They were never big. They catered to a small, specialty, fashion and studio market. They still can. Det är ju gudskelov inte du som avgör.
Men Hasselblad är ju numera bara ett namn, uppköpt av riskkapitalister som vill göra snabba vinster. Inget finns kvar av den ingenjörskompetens som gjorde dem stora på 50/60-talet. For non-Swedes: But Hasselblad nowadays is nothing more than a name, bought by venture capitalists for making short time profit. There is nothing left of the engineering expertise which made them big back in the 50s/60s.
Hasselblad is in a tough and fast changing market. It could go either way. Time will tell. I, for one, wish them well.
thank god! who would think they need a “design centre” to marginally tweak the existing Sony cameras lol
minipixels.net | Automotive Photography
No…we need Hassleblad to destroy exotic trees for the $11,000 dollar Sony Camera that cost 1000 dollars. Yep…Hassleblad…the laughing jerk offs of the camera world. GET REAL…U would have to be a 100% fool not to know…these cameras were 99% Sony..with a piece of wood stuck on them. Idiots!
Why is this a surprise?
I think this “surprise” was ironic
Europe is dying. They are losing ability to make photo cameras — their children are learning how to properly celebrate sodomy and diversity instead of math and physics.
Please, leading us the way. Einstein.
I guess you have to evolve from protozoa into human first.
I guess you have to give up drinking vodka and watching news from Russia Today.
Lol… you wanted to insult me? You’re dumb. RT is for non-Russians, BTW I don’t watch TV at all.
Nowhere I said Russia is better. It’s retarded so it’s dying as just slower rate.
Huh?! Einstein left Europe precisely due to intolerance to diversity.
Agreed !
Spoken like a true virgin.
What do you suppose would change this?
I see no way. But it seems that Japanese will keep making cameras.
Hasselblad please make one last camera using white rhino skin before they go extinct. Thx.
Now, THAT’S a niche that PentaCoh really should go and swoop in 😉
Guess they’re already in there 😉
Sad day for humanity…
is there anything about this camera that warrents a price anywhere close to this? could someone state a real world price based on specs and performance..7-800? no idea..honest question.
They were charging for the finishes, like rubies in the shutter and movie record button. Functionally the cameras are identical to the sony counterparts.
Hasselblad has lost it’s reputation with this idiocy. It will take forever for photography world to forget this shtty scam.
I’d never have guessed that thinking your customers were idiots and trying to fleece them with products 5x more just because they had some shiny plastics and wood could have gone badly… I mean surely there are enough dumb rich people around for this to work???
I think Putin and David Beckham are Lunar/Stellar users…
I bet they really paid for them too….
You never know…
Lol… Putin is a billionaire, he could buy whole Hasselblad and Sony Imaging if he wanted to.
The former is not interested in cameras, he seems to like little boys
I wasted my money on a Zeiss Otus when I could have one of them fancy NEX7s.
Worst Linked In profile entry ever – “Led the Hasselblad Design Center in Treviso 2011-2014”
I don’t know man. I think “Led the design team behind the Hasselblad Lunar, Stellar, and HV” is worse.
“The job of a CEO is not to approve designs”
*cough* Steve Jobs
Just because Steve Jobs may have done that (I don’t know if he did), does not make it the job of a CEO.
The main duty of a CEO is to set strategy and vision. That’s where Steve Jobs really excelled.
In the case of these blinged-up Hasselblad-branded Sony cameras, it is in the area of strategy and vision where the Hasselblad CEO has failed, but the designs per se are not his fault.
So, they finally got the message. Rich AND Stupid is a very narrow niche market. How many Lunars, Stellars and HVs can any one of that small a group want to own … especially with the rest of the camera world snickering and giggling at you.
Did the Hasselblings wobble, too?
This sensor envy knows no limits.
Go take some design cues from Apple!
Agree
With their existing relationships with Fuji/Sony/Zeiss they could have created something desirable and worth the luxury tag in the same space. Unfortunately they didn’t know what they had and went for a high risk/high return option.
Silly looks at a crazy price
Took a long time for a bunch of highly-paid execs to figure out/admit this was a stupid idea. But, i bet they’re still trying to figurer out how Leica’s doing it. Hint: Leica’s premium/brand markup on Panasonic goods isn’t nearly so steep. ‘More’ is not necessarily better.
Launch a Digital XPAN and use that mount for new oversized mirrorless cameras!
No! No! No! No!!!. How are we going to get our laughs now?
Their designs just didnt look good or different enough. Couldnt they at least get some specs tweaked?
IMO, they needed to secure a “Lead Time” IE, if the A7s came out as a Hasselblad for 6 months before the A7s came out, that would help Sony and Hasselblad. People would drool over the Hasselblad A7s, then the A7s would have looked cheap by comparison.
Shame, was just going to order 4 of those just because my A7s doesn’t look impressive enough, you know to appeal to a higher client level.
Exactly expected. Not surprising at all.
Logically thinking, there is no smart way that a guy would buy a two thousand dollars camera for a frikkin ten thousand dollars.
I agree in general. I guess this premium strategy just doesn’t gain enough customers for them to gain any profit, instead i assume it had only cost a lot of money. The reason is what you already wrote: premium buyers want something more unique, not the same technical product where only the casing is seldom.
It doesn’t matter if they fancy their cameras with some rich a$$ leather and a shitty design resembling some “portable machine” from Star Trek, Hasselblad cameras are just as ugly as those that Kai from DigitalRev ruins with rhinestones and lousy pink paintjobs. And IMHO, having one of those ain’t nothing about photography, it’s all about showing off how rich and shallow some people are with these (as shown in their H5D brochure…)
WTF? Is this a real Hasselblad ad? My eyes!!
Kai did it only once, as a joke. There’s no plural “those.”
And who are you? The holy monitor of internet? Get lost troll.
Admin: the cameras were objects of (and subject to) sarcasm and mockery and belittling derision, but not irony.
“Kai did it only once, as a joke. There’s no plural “those.””
There’s no plural in “those” right mr. smart a$$?
http://youtu.be/pwZ_RleZ9Bw
http://youtu.be/7_64sDhrK0I
http://youtu.be/wUJc83wV6iA
http://youtu.be/qik-N21nYN8
You damn troll, make the universe a favor and just die now.