The B is full of Hasselblad gears and lenses. However I noticed that second hand CFE lenses is rather much more expensive than second hand CF lenses.
I cann imagine that new 500cm body should be hard to sell because of the number of second hand ones on sale.
So I can imagine that to improve lenses and bodies with little electronic (witch never cost a lot nowaday) will help to justify a new investisment in new gears for custumers.
A marketing plan should be to convert all new lenses to CFE, build a 500DE body (E because it use the electronic outpout of the lens to help light mesuring and D beacause it transmit these electronic value to the digital Back) then all old V serie seams obsolet even if it can be used with the new body and digital back.
Of course if Hasselblad Sweden just watch how Rollei-Leaf will kill him and then Fujifilm-Imacon (Hasselblad-Japan) watch when canon-NIkon-Sony will enter to MF to kill them too...
While a very nice camera, the projected annual sales of Hy6 cameras is miniscule. Hardly killing anyone. Contrary to common belief, Hy6 bodies will NOT accept most previous digital backs ... for example even the current Leaf Aptus 75s cannot be used on a Leaf AFi, and cannot be modified to do so. So, you get to buy everything all new ... a Leaf AFi 7 with a basic 3 AFD lens kit is in excess of $50,000. ... which may explain the low sales expectation in today's economy : -)
A Nikon MF entry is vaporware ... and the H4D is just around the corner.
A 500DE body would be pretty much a total redsign since 500s never had a meter in them to feed the exif info to a digital back. A resurrection/altered version of the 200 series cameras would be a more likely candidate for a totally digital Legacy Hasselblad.
I currently use all the CF, CFi and CFE lenses on a H3D-II/39 camera via the CF Adapter made for this purpose. CFEs are automatically read by the camera, and non-CPU CF/CFi lenses are selected in the grip menu when attaching them, and then act the same as CFEs.
There has been some interest among professionals for Hasselblad to offer a Focal Plane Shutter version of the H camera ... which shouldn't be to hard of a task.
This would allow use of FE lenses as well as C lenses at much higher shutter speed, and the versatility of using the C lenses as leaf shutter solutions when needed.
Also contrary to popular belief, Hasselblad H is not a totally closed system. The H2F camera accepts CF digital backs, and those backs can be used on any MF camera using Hasselblad iAdapters. Other makes of backs can be used on the H2F, if those back makers decide to offer adapters for it ... which is unlikely since that would compete with themselves.
