Medium Format Forum

Register a free account now!

If you are registered, you get access to the members only section, can participate in the buy & sell second hand forum and last but not least you can reserve your preferred username before someone else takes it.

Any CFE lenses left?

macmx

Member
Hasselblad isn't very good at keeping their website up to date, so a lot of lenses that aren't produced anymore are still there. And I just saw that the last CWD's we're shipped with 80mm CFi and not CFE as before, but their site still states the lens (seperate) as CFE.

Does anyone know which V lenses are still in production?
Have they all lost the databus?
 
The 80 mm CFE is the first that will be victim of the trend to discontinue CFE lenses.
As far as my information goes these are the lenses that are still available:
40 CFE, 50 CFi, 60 CFi, 80CFi, 100CFi, 120CFE, 150CFi.

Owners with 200 series cameras only have the new 40CFE and 120CFE as lenses that can be ordered new.
Chances are after existing stock is exhausted the 120 CFE lens will again be offered as a 120 CFi.
That sort of makes it full circle: The Makro-Planar started life as a 120 CF that became a 120CFi to be changed later into a 120 CFE with possibly a new 120 CFi in the future.

I still have a new 80 CFE boxed with all doc and full warranty for sale.
No sensible offer refused.

Paul
 
How about the 250 SA and the 350SA? Discontinued!

It is all a matter of economics:
Turnover is slow, Hasselblad cannot just order 20 lenses but needs to order larger quantities.
If it takes years to sell those they simply do not invest their money in slow moving stock and those lenses are dropped from the catalogue.

FE lenses were sold to large dealers in bulk at a fraction of the price simply because there was no demand for those lenses.

In the end we all are responsible to keep the V system alive by buying new parts for the system whenever there is an opportunity.
 
In the end we all are responsible to keep the V system alive by buying new parts for the system whenever there is an opportunity.

Ok to buy new inovating products, not old parts from stock sold at a fraction of the prise to dealers...

New products should be CFE or CFD lenses. The same in optical but special data bus to write the exif in files produced by a improved CFV.
So why not a 500D body with electrical wires too.
Then they cann sell "coding upgrade for CF lenses"


Leica had the same problemes with uge second hand lenses in the market. However they continu to produce new lenses and even coded old lenses and it works.
 
I would keep the system alive if they offered the products I wanted. I wish Hasselblad had taken the V system the same direction as Leica has done with the M.

If Hasselblad updated all their lenses to CFE and had continued to develope the 200 series, I wouldn't use anything else. They only need that damn databus, some spot metering, and perhaps a smaller prism viewfinder and winder for 200! It would be the best and most coveted digital system in the world. I wouldn't buy anything else and would buy from new as well.

Just seems like they have given up completely. Does anyone know why they discontinued the 200 series? If they had developed it more, just imagine the 200 bodies we would have today....
 
The 202FA was dropped in 2000.

The 203FE and the 205FCC were discontinued at the beginning of 2004.
Both cameras were slow movers not entirely strange at 6000 and 8000 euro for a body.
With a couple of filmbacks your bankbalance dropped 8000 and 10.000 euro 4 years ago.
In todays money thus would mean 12000 and 15000 USD.
The 203 FE is now a sought after camera. Clean used ones fetch 2000 euro and late ones even more.
Lenses in good condition with databus are getting better prices after dramatic low bids a few years back.

It is the same story: turnover for the 200 series drops; Hasselblad sells the last bodies and does not
bother to remanufacture new stock.
There was no way to use a digital back with the 200 series cameras in those days.
That may have killed any new developments and meant the end of the 200 series.
 
There was no way to use a digital back with the 200 series cameras in those days.
That may have killed any new developments and meant the end of the 200 series.
It's possible now to update the 202,203 and 205 for CFV use.

The 200 killed the 2000 series.
And perhaps there is a place for a new ...20 serie.

Funy to read that almost 20 years old bodies are considered by some users as the best MF body ever built.
 
Well, if the sensor companies develop a larger square sensor for the Hy6, Hasselblad may damned well be sorry they discontinued the 200 cameras : -)

Imagine a 54X54 CFV type back with 9X9 micron pixels.

Maybe there's a 200 series replacement on the drawing boards as we speak (he said wistfully). The Hasselbald 300 series camera, with optional Zeiss FE AFD optics.

Yummy!
 
I'll keep dreaming along side you. I would not mind not having AF - never use it anyway. Faster leaf shutters would be nice though. Just an extra stop.
 
A 80mm 2.0 with leaf shutter existed but not for Hasselblad.

Nowaday it should be possible to fitt a shutter in the 110mmm 2.0 or to built a new Apo-60mm 1.8 lens.
 
A 80mm 2.0 with leaf shutter existed but not for Hasselblad.

Nowaday it should be possible to fitt a shutter in the 110mmm 2.0 or to built a new Apo-60mm 1.8 lens.

Fit a shutter in a 110, you mean the Planar 110 I guess? How do you propose fitting a leaf shutter in that one?

Wilko
 
Zeiss succed to fit a shutter in a 180mm 4.0 10 years ago. With improved technology it must be possible to put a shutter in a 110mm 2.0
 
You assume Zeiss is interested in going to work on a dead product line.
Extremely doubtful, politely speaking.

Wilko
 
I do not assume what Zeiss or Hasselblad may think. In fact I do not understand them politely speaking.

I can't understand what is the classical ZV lenses goal and why Hasselblad succed that "old" CFE lenses give informations for exif of H digital back files. Why Hasselblad sell CWD kit without battery and why the 40 flash has no A mode.
 
Carl Zeiss designed the classic line many years ago and offered it to Hasselblad.
Hasselblad management declined to take these lenses as alternative for the then current CFE/CFi line.
CFE/CFi lenses had enough competition from older C lenses that seem to live forever.

What is the problem selling a camera without a battery that you can buy anywhere?
Buying a Canon camera will not get you a battery from Canon either.

The fabulous D40 was designed with cameras from the 03 series in mind.
Like no other flash unit it has no controls but for the on/off switch.
It can be used with older Hasselblad cameras but only at full power meaning g.n. 40.

Before you ask yes there was also a good business reason for Carl Zeiss not to supply lenses for the H series from Hasselblad.

Maybe Zeiss/Hasselblad should ask customers in Switzerland first before they make any marketing decisions ?
 
Back
Top