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CFV WARRENTY EXTENSION HOT SWAP

If the gear fails during, or even just at the beginning of, a $ 100,000 shoot, a 'hot swap' will not help much: too late, unless your dealer is round the corner.
To avoid this, and the loss of reputation, there simply must be a back up at hand. Rental, if not affordable to own a second machine (not that renting is cheap).

But the "old days" are not quite over yet: bring along a couple of film backs and a bag full of film... ;-)
That's why keeping the possibility to use film on the H-machines is such a good idea.
 
The manufacturer's and dealer's responsibility to deliver goods that work, or else..., remain the same, whether sold to a business or to a person.
 
A 5 year warranty for a properly designed and manufactured electronic device is very reasonable. Lets face it: cars often carry 3 year warranty these days. And they are typically cheaper than a high-end MF digiback..

Wilko
 
To all participating in this thread .

BEWARE OF UNDERCOVER AGENTS .

They are malicious and their only job is to get your money .

The only way to withdraw from them is , to go back to film and be happy .

Jürgen
 
Jürgen,

If it were not for clients who demand digital most of us would be quite happy with film.
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I don't know; digital is good for lots of things too.

The problem with high quality digital is that it is far too expensive.
Too expensive, because the life cycle of machines is much too short, the pressure to upgrade too strong.
Too expensive too, simply because of the quite ridiculous figures written on the price tag.
 
Are you folks kidding?

Despite hiccups here and there, digital is a blessing for commercial work of almost every type.

Why clients like it: Virtually every form of advertising and promotion is now digitally reproduced. Printers and publications get digital files from ad agencies, not photos. If you shoot film, it has to be scanned. Scans cost time and money. A catalog with 200 images shot on film could add $10,000. in expenses. Except for the occasional creative reason to use film, no one will pay that "premium" for something that'll end up digital anyway.

Why photographers like it: You shoot and you know you got it. The client provides instant feed back and approval. Done, no re-shoots. Move on to the next job.

Cost: Prohibitively expensive for personal photography (and why I insist that if you don't need it for paying work just stick with film) ... A billable expense for commercial work. I charge $250. rental fee per day as a line item on every job. 100 days rental, and the H3D is paid for.
This additional fee is a drop in the bucket compared to paying for film, processing and scanning charges. For that reason, not one client has disputed it, including cost consultants for major corporations.
 
Not all non-personal, i.e. professional, photography is high volume, high pay commercial (or fashion) work.
And you mustn't equate the fact that you can pass costs on with costs not being too high, the thingies not being too expensive.

Anyway, the fact that MF digital is still losing ground to Canon c.s. can indeed be relied upon as indicator for MF-digital's whereabouts in the market, and the reason(s) for why it is where it is.
 
Marc,

Of course you are right.
Speed and cost control are major reasons for digital.
It also means that you need a certain volume to justify the investment.
Advertising and promotion are best suited for digital.
They are also the only fields where digital will be fully paid for.
Luckily there is more photography than advertising and promotion.

Paul
 
Yes Paul, I agree. I try to do a majority of my personal work on film ( thus the fridge filled with 120 and 220 galore : -) In fact, I'm printing a whole series of scanned film shots for an "Art" client as I write this. The client is a died-in-the-wool digital photographer BTW : -)

Qnu, I disagree , at least a little bit. Yes, the the gear is certainly out of this world expensive. However, capture fees coupled with depreciation can, and do, recover those costs. Digital capture fees go to the studio/photographer, where film and lab fees did not. It doesn't matter if the job is one photo or 100, my capture fee is $250. 100 capture days isn't difficult to accomplish over the life cycle of a digital camera. Thus the Hasselblad's focus on B2B IMO.

The degree of work volume simply determines how long it takes. If my volume was such that it took 2 or 3 years to recoup, then good business practice tells me to skip upgrades until I have the base cost covered, less the resale value, of the current gear. That is how I decided to do it. I used a Contax 645 and Kodak Proback 645C for a number of years before evolving to the H system.

If the type of work, or volume of work, is such that getting it back is drawn out to long, then rental is the way to go.

IMO, the Canon alternatives are compromises pure and simple. A product of the "it's good enough" mentality. Nothing new there, just the technology has changed, mediocrity hasn't.
 
Marc,

My compliments for your business analysis of digital.
It makes sense to me.

I remember one of our esteemed contrubuants who announced selling his V system to go digital with Leica M8.
It did not take 6 months for him to buy Hasselblad again.
Not only because of early problems with the M8 but also because the M8 is not the right answer for all jobs.
 
<font color="ff0000">A warrenty extension from 12 to 24 month costs 450 € .
A warrenty extension from 12 to 36 month costs 900 € and can be payed as 2 times 450 € .<font color="ffffff">

THEY MUST BE KIDDING!

I totally agree with QG's view on manufacturers' warranty and the legal common law premiss that fitness for purpose and merchantable quality override whatever warranty manufacturers' provides.

Here we call that "implied" warranty, which is supported by our federal "Consumer Protection" provisions in our Trade Practices legislation (adopted in the 1970s based on the US Anti-Trust Laws).

So if you buy a BMW and the gear box fails outside the manufacturer's 2 year warranty and say the car has done just 20,000Kms, the dealer and the manufacturer are responsible to replace it - the expectation being that a gearbox should be free of failure in such a time-frame especially when the product was a "premium" one.

In our state of Victoria "lemon" legislation is being drafted that will require manufacturers to replace repeatedly defective products with a new product rather than to allow continuing failures be rectified by repeated repairs. I believe the US has similar legislation applied to the auto-industry.

Today, we have companies like Apple selling iPods which have batteries that die soon after the manufacturer's warranty runs out - the batteries are "non-removable" in the iPod, so a new iPod is required according to many dealers. Here they are forced to replace such goods because the law says that there is a reasonable expectation of more that 1.5 or so years of use...... I believe in the USA there is a class action pending against Apple!

I believe there is similar consumer legislation in the UK.

So, when we get familiar with our common law rights as well as specific consumer protection legislation, we can attack the dealer and manufacturer for better treatment when our CFV backs drop dead after 10 minutes use (maybe exaggerated - but to help make a point.

Just as QG pointed out, here the dealer has the same responsibility and cannot just push the complaining customer away.

WHAT ALWAYS STRIKES ME AS HORRIBLE is how manufacturer staff often believe they can treat us so badly when they would hate such treatment themselves if they had paid hard earned money for so-called premium products that do not perform as they should!!
 
Yes Marc, there is no doubt that more than ever digital-MF is a substantial investment (new or used) and thus requires something of a business case approach before committing to such a spend. Your past comments have highlighted the huge benefits to some pros.

God knows that buying a new film Hasselblad kit was always a major financial commitment however one looked at it; but when you add todays relatively huge $s necessary to go digital, one would want a very compelling financial business reason to make that leap.

Who knows if that relatively huge gap between the cost of a digital back and say a bunch of film backs will narrow that much that they could become the domain of serious amateur shooters? I makes me wonder how significant in size the serious amateur market is overall?

For those of us who are not professionals, or regardless, and cannot link the digital cost to real savings or other cost/benefits, we could always just make a "self-serving" personal "sacrifice".
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And like Paul has mentioned, there have been many stories of people who dumped great gear to fund digi-kits only to find they ended up with the "wrong horse for the course"! One such pro enabled me o get into Linhof large format at a ridiculously low cost so that he could put some funds towards a 35mm cropped sensor digi-kit!
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Not surprisingly a year later I was asked if I'd consider selling it back to him - guess what my answer was (and there are no prizes for guessing!)?
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Jurgen,

<font color="ff0000">CFV :
A warrenty extension from 12 to 24 month costs 450 € .
A warrenty extension from 12 to 36 month costs 900 € and can be payed as 2 times 450 € .<font color="ffffff">

If I were an actuary, I think I would be forgiven for thinking that these extended warranty prices reflect a presumption / estimation by Hasselblad that the CFV is unlikely the survive more than about 5 years!

Rather than the price of incremental extensions of time falling, it seems like a flat pricing structure! Gee, even low-cost Korean LCD wide-screen TV's have more favourable extended warranty price structures than that!

There has been severe criticism of reported practices by Apple dealers telling disgruntled customers they should have taken out extended warranties when the bought their defective iPods!

Yes, some customers reported that when they complained to dealers that their device failed after 13 to 18 months (thus being outside the standard manufacturer's warranty of 12 months), they were told "bad luck, you should have paid extra for the extended warranty!"
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Well the legal system has some news for them!
 
Good analysis of the current situation Simon.

I personally think Hasselblad should have provided a more secure warranty period with the CFV because of who it was aimed at ... users of their legacy products, as likely to be advanced amateurs or semi pro ( like weekend wedding shooters ), for whom this is indeed a personal expense with little to no chance to recoup the expense.

IMO, for Hasselblad to demand that much money for "insurance" from loyal V series users is an insult to that loyalty.
 
It's worse than an insult to loyal users.

I'll say it again: they have an obligation, by law, to correct their mistakes free of charge, for a period longer than is suggested by this "buy comfort of mind" thingy.
Free of charge, and obliged, yet they want us to pay ludicrous amounts for the 'privilege'.

Ii's not that "Hasselblad should have provided a more secure warranty period". They have no choice, and as a result do offer a longer period than they now suggest.
Selling extended warrenties does not make them exempt from the legal obligation they have to provide a warranty for at least two years (after which the 'reasonably expected life span' thingy still is in force).

And it really, really does not matter whether amateur or professional.
Manufacturers aren't allowed to do these things to professionals either.
And professionals, i'm sure, want to be taken for a ride as little as non-professionals. That some of them can recoup the expense is nice. But they do not have to!
(But yes, some may be rich enough that they don't mind getting their pockets picked on a regular basis.
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)

And though (again) this marketing thing suggests that you have to turn to the factory when your product is broken, generally (unless it is the factory you bought it from) you don't.
When buying something, you enter into a contract between you and the person you are buying it from, i.e. the dealer.
The dealer's part of the agreement is to supply an item to you fit for its purpose.
If it isn't, it's the dealer who has to answer for it. Not the manufacturer (though of course the same thing applies to the contract between dealer and his supplier, usually the manufacturer. The buck eventually stops in Sweden/Denmark. But i said it before: unless you bought your product directly from the manufacturer in Sweden/Denmark, that quite literally is none of your business.)

So it would make more sense if the the dealer would offer extended warranties. Because he is the one you should complain to.
And the dealer is the one who should buy extended warranties from the manufacurer. Becuase he is the one who bought something from the manufacturer.
But he/she has to do neither: he/she nor we need the extra 'protection'. We already are protected. By law.

So we do not (!) need to give money to the factory.
 
> Manufacturers always have a choice, they can simply decide to leave > the customer in a "deep hole"....and considering that that there > are a limited number of alternatives to pick from...and that at > today's prices it is not like a recent customer is going to be > coming back real soon for another $10-20-30K purchase, they may > feel that they can get away with whatever benefits them the > most....I liked Hasselblad better before the buy-out
 
Q.G.

I will contact a consumer advice center next week and see what they say .
HASSELBLAD germany told me , if I would like to get a warrenty extension , I must send them a captured image (3FR file) where HASSELBLAD could gain all information they need , to offer me a warrenty extension . (In other words , if these data would not match their expectations , they would not even offer me a warrenty extension) . That is , minimizing their risk . And my replaced CFV BACK is just 1/2 year old . Somehow I feel a bit messed around .

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Regards Jürgen
 
Jurgen, my sympathies - I fear that the current Hasselblad is just a get-rich-quick organization, and not what it used to be.
 
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