The future of Hasselbladinfo.com

[fotografz]

Heck, I was wrong ... those cowboy shots weren't the H3D-II/31 camera, it was the previous H3D/31 model ... which can be had for even less $ ... often with a low shot count.

Here's another "cowboy" shot with that old dog H3D/31 ... sometimes I wonder if anything was gained by upgrading ... LOL!

Well, actually the H4D/40 improved on the high ISO ability ... the two church candids below were shot available light with a H4D/40 at ISO 800 ... the H4D/40 is just a smidgen better at ISO 400 and at least a stop better at 800 and 1600.

The outdoor Bridal portrait shot shown was with a H2D/39 using on-camera flash for fill. I could have shot this one without flash, but when in shade surrounded by green foliage, flash helps keep the skin from going bluish, or reflecting too much of the surrounding greenery in the shadows ... which can look downright ghastly. This shot would have been even better if the flash was off camera and I had used a larger modifier. BTW, the H camera has the best on-camera flash control of any camera I have ever used ... and I've used just about everything made.

The Bride reclining is an example of using flash for pictorial control. The couch was in the middle of a room and the background in this case was some ugly windows and a bunch of people milling around. I stopped down to make the background go dark, and used an Elenchrom Quadra strobe with a small shoot through umbrella camera right aimed at the Bride, and a Metz 54 in the H4D/40 hot shoe set to TTL for fill. In this case little to no ambient played a role ... all the light on her was strobe/flash.

Point is that these are fantastic image making tools that do a LOT more than most detractors give them credit for. I'd rather shoot with a H3D/31 than a Nikon D800 any day. We need to celebrate these tools on forums like this more often ... not just deal with problems.

Oh, and to those who believe action shots can't be done with MF, here's a family running in the leaves I just shot ... Leica S2 with a 70mm ... but I've done the same with the H camera many times. Learn your tools and they will give you more than you may have ever expected.

-Marc

 

[dirk]

Hi Marc,

as always you take wonderful images. And you are mean, because this makes me want one of the H's too...

... it was the previous H3D/31 model ... which can be had for even less $ ... often with a low shot count....

What is your experience what a H3D/31 is going for second hand with 80mm lens?

I checked for old "new" prices and found out, that HB made in Germany promotions for the H3D Kit with digital back and 80mm lens etc. for below 10.000 Euro. Same promotion 2 years later for the H4D.

So if someone bought his kit years ago for that price, it might be significantly lower now second hand.

And would you go for a H1, H2 or H3 or H4 for the price/perfomance relation if it should be cheap? This true focus feature sounds really interesting...

I even should not ask those questions. Get's me in trouble, if I awake my desire. Just got the second child in February and should think rather about diapers than about about MF equipment...

 

[cristif]

Since the topic arrived here, what would be the choice for a reliable German photo store where to purchase such a SH H series kit?

 

[dirk]

Since the topic arrived here, what would be the choice for a reliable German photo store where to purchase such a SH H series kit?

GM Foto in Frankfurt

http://www.gmfoto.de/

They offer the H4D/31 with 80mm for 9.995.- plus taxes

 

[fotografz]

Thanks for the kind words Dirk.

My guess is that with good timing and a dealer willing to do a deal ... a H4D/31 or H4D/40 may even be less. The H5 is soon here and Hasselblad usually wants to clear stock ... and may also have demos. Cosy up to a Hasselblad dealer and see what they can do. Depending on what type of photography you do, the True Focus APL feature is quite amazing ... you can focus on the very edge of the frame and recompose and it is in sharp focus.

Here is a shot that even amazed me ... not for creativity, but that the shot came out at all!

I was on vacation, and only had my H4D/40 and HCD 35-90 with me as we walked about the Nemacolin resort in Pennsylvania. We happened upon this world class restaurant there, and my wife wanted a snap shot. I set the H4D/40 to ISO 1600 and set the 35-90 zoom to 35mm @ the max f/4 which required an incredibly low 1/25th shutter speed hand-held! What is nice about the H4D/40 @ ISO 1600 is that not only is the noise manageable, the colors do not get all wonky like some other cameras I've used.

This is possible for two reasons: it is another advantage of leaf-shutter cameras ... and the H camera allows you to set a mirror delay to mitigate mirror vibrations ... especially valuable when shooting hand held. I cannot hand hold my S2 anywhere near as low shutter speeds as the H camera. Plus, the H has the fastest quick set manual white balance of any camera ever. Assign it to a user button, and when you press it, the camera shoots the WB shot and sets it. No menue, no nothing. Just press the button once. Done.

The other shots are from a typical portrait assignment ... unlike when I was a happy photo enthusiasts, when shooting for money, you have to make magic every time : -( This was a fellow local photographer who's husband wanted a portrait of his wife and one of their little girl.

For fun I did one shot of the wife holding my Leica S2, which being a photographer she got a kick out of doing ... so the H4D/60 was used with the amazing HC-210/4. Hensel and Profoto strobes were employed with low ISO and a shutter speed of 1/160th @ f/4. Their little girl was done available light using the HC-100/2.2 wide open. What cannot be seen on the web is what fantastic prints these cameras make. The tonal gradations, detail, and color is simply beautiful and easy to achieve compared to most all of the 35mm I have used.

My objective in future is to eliminate 35mm DSLRs from my gear closet ... Leica M, Leica S, and Hasselblad H is my goal. I have no diapers, mini-vans or college funds to sweat ... that is all behind me ... LOL!

-Marc

 

[fotografz]

A few comments on this website itself.

When I come here the first place that opens is the landing page ... which is terribly outdated with very old announcements. I have reloaded it and cleared it from my Bookmarks, thinking it was just remembering the old page, but it is still the old landing page when I reload it fresh.

Perhaps this doesn't help in attracting new users?

If the "news" cannot be maintained, I respectfully suggest doing something else on the landing page.

I also wonder if there shouldn't be a different spin on this site regarding photography. There are so many sites dedicated to "Gear Talk" with so many active users that one cannot stay involved with all of them ... especially if they are redundant.

Places like GetDpi have lots of activity in their "Fun With Medium Format" thread which is all about pictures, not just gear talk. GetDpi is somewhat slanted towards Phase One and landscape work, but not to the exclusion of other brands or other types of photography.

Places like www.hasselbladdigitalforum.com is strictly dedicated to Hasselblad digital gear, and has a lot of very knowledgable Pros and advanced enthusiasts there to assist with technical issues specific to Hasselblad digital capture ... and being a closed site, members can talk freely without detractors chiming in.

While I visit the Photo.net Medium Format site from time to time, I find it very film centric with little to learn or teach regarding MFD photography. I am more active on their "Wedding" and "Lighting" sites.

I think the notion that there are less and less Hasselblad users world-wide is not the case. Hasselblad may not sell as many units as in their glory days, but if you go to the Hasselblad website, there sure are a lot of very accomplished users being featured there.

I wonder if this site was more dedicated to pictures and how they were made ... if that would increase activity?

For something like Hasselblad Medium Format, who cares if it was done with a 203FE and film, a 503CW and digital back, or a H4D/40? Show me the images and tell me the story behind it, and how you technically made it.

I'd simplify it to 3 categories ... General header, picture centric header, and tech centric header with two subdivisions for the V and H. For example:

Hasselblad Photography ... Adventures in Hasselblad photography ... Hasselblad tech talk > V system > H system.

BTW, While I like the 1600 pixel on the long side picture uploads, I do wish it could be raised to 900Kb size ... at least for medium format images.

Dirk, what do you and the members think of something like this?

-Marc

 

[dirk]

Hi Marc,

my opinion is not that important for this. As I said earlier, I am only an observer who tries to help to make this a more vivid place. So the members need to speak up what they are missing and what they do think will increase the traffic and fun in this place.

I only can say that with all other forums I am running, it was always the showing and discussing of images, which separated the more active forums from the less active ones. But this is not as easy as it sounds. It is easier to talk about technical data then to shoot attractive images.

Therefore I think it has to be made clear, that if a user wants to upload an image, this image does not need to be top notch. Not everybody is able to shoot so good images like many others here. No problem. Hasselbladinfo is not Magnum

I see this as a great opportunity. By showing and discussing more the images, the learningcurve to become better in shooting is steep. Especially with such experienced photographers here in the forum. This is like a free workshop you normally have to pay a lot for. This is really fun.

Regarding the technical part, layout, kb etc.

We will allow with the new software to insert links from external webhosters. No matter how big the images are in Kb or pixel. The new software will be able to fit it in the right browserframe, so this is not destroying the readabilty of a thread. The current software is really bad with this, by the way.

The new forum software will look a lot more modern, is easier to use and you can easily also use it with your iphone, ipad or other tablet/smartphone. We will then offer also tapatalk to improve this experience even more.

In the German forums, there are users who are uploading images from their smartphone while they are in an airplane flying over dubai. This is really cool!

Regarding the structure: Other users mentioned that also, that it needs to be streamlined more. Less detailed subforums etc.

Regarding the entry site/landing page, we will have to think about something new. But I am not a coder, so what we would need then is funding money to be able to make an attractive landing page before you enter the forum itself. I would love to have that, but it needs to be done by someone who knows more about webdesign or is webdesigner as a profession and would be willing to do that either for free or for money, if we get it funded somehow.

But as you said, the users shall speak up here to say what they want to have and what their opinion is about the different proposals.

Best wishes

 

[dirk]

???

Does nobody has an opinion here? Nobody who wants to post his ideas regarding a possible structure of this forum after the softwareswitch?

 

[cristif]

I've been following this thread and you're right, perhaps all of us should share our ideas.

I don't browse the forum using the folder structure but that the suggestions of Marc with 3 root folders does sound very interesting. I find extremely useful the "New posts" tab and I always use that as landing page.

Another useful improvement could be the increase of the picture size.

 

[bladdered]

It may not be apathy, but people just considering a response after the points have been made by the more prodigious posters.

As background, my current Hasselblad activity is about shooting film in a 203FE and scanning with an Imacon 848. I have two Leica M9s and two Leica MPs, a Rolleiflex and a Canon 1v. I did have a Canon 1D MkII N and a 1D MkIV, but they have gone. Maybe a mistake, because i needed their AF system.

Whilst it would be nice for this Forum to remain all Hasselblad, it appears that the Forum needs to expand it's audience.

There are lots of Hasselblad users around, but I think they fall into two separate camps: the seriously upmarket professional buying and using the best gear available and the serious amateur/small time professional. Advertising maybe considered to fall into the first and wedding photographers the latter and loads of shades of grey in between. From my observations on many forums, the Top End, say, don't participate in Forum discussions. In 10 years, I don't recall ever seeing Michael Kenna make a posting, Joe Cornish few, Roberto Bigano few. Their world is centred on their web sites and Blogs, not open Forums.

On the other hand, there are those that can update and use new equipment from the results of the fine efforts and others who buy their equipment from them, like me, but don't use it for much paid work. For example, I bought a CFV-16 back from Marc Williams 3 years ago, but use 2 Leica M9s for my paid work.

I'd be very surprised if a Forum could appeal to all Hass shooters, but Hass shooters may be more MF shooters, than brand followers. From the film aspect they may be interested in Mamiya 7s and Fuji 690s and Rolleiflex. So, I presume many would be interested in an MF Centre of information and conversation. This film group may also be passionately interested in the art of scanning and scanners, how to get the best from their work at the processing stage and how to print it and show it in exhibitions and books. There is a need and people will Google their questions and find it. It could be here.

Then there's the world of MF digital and Hass and as Marc pointed out, there is a dedicated Hass forum and GetDpi, both doing an excellent job. I for one and I'm sure others would like to cross over into MF digital, but for a low volume shooter there is the chance of getting burned by depreciation and repair bills. Are the results better than good film, well exposed and scanned ? How can someone on the film end of that stick know whether it fits ?

Some users, and Marc is one of them, do an excellent favour to us all in sharing his knowledge and opinions. However, what I see from many digital users is the wish for a square sensor and a big square sensor at that. When a user moves from a 22, to 31, to 40, to 50, to 60, to MShot, is it because he's fundamentally disappointed with digital ? Is he really seeking a faster turnaround of the image he got from his film Hasselblad ? If this was a place where that knowledge was shared it might be more attractive.

I've been ready to plunge into MF digital a few times. The first deterrent was the introduction of True Focus. It sounded essential to me, who would like more images to be critically sharp, but it added about £6k to the price of the previous second hand 31/39 version. More recently, I wanted to try my Hass V lenses on a Leica S2 at their discounted price, but the test turned into a disaster when the Focus confirmation was not calibrated with my lenses. I walked away. What I really needed was friendly chums on hand to help me through those experiences, because I can't afford to get burned financially and the safest route is to stay with film. Film is quite satisfying. I produce these kind of shots with some satisfaction:






I'm not even sure that I could get these aesthetics with a digital Hasselblad ? That's where communication helps from a Forum.

This brings me onto sharing images. I've no interest in showing client pictures, but I do enjoy showing personal work. At the moment, for me, Flickr is the best place by far to upload my work to, because it's picture centric and not gear centric. It allows me to build a portfolio of images in Sets and Collections and to share it with Contacts and Groups. No other Forum that I'm a member of provides that facility. Images get lost in More Fun with a Hasselblad thread, or posting individual images in a Street Shooting section. Nothing is building, whereas Flickr provides a base to point to. People I shoot in the street, or potential clients, I can direct them to my portfolio which with comments stands up better than my website. I have 3 Pro accounts on Flickr; one for personal, one for clients and the other for family. In the client account, I have 60,000 proof images.

Another major advantage of Flickr is the ability to post an image of almost any size, whereas gear Forums might restrict it to 960x960 pixels and 306 kb. Now, that size is hardly going to display a wonderful rendition of an image and to excite people when looking at Hass images, it's hardly going to express the character with the same size image as that which can be provided by an iPhone. I know there's an obvious difference, but you see what I'm saying ? Any gallery here should allow comparatively big images to display the quality. Not talking here of taking Flickr on in a head to head, just expressing what may be worth considering.

Comments are important, not as critiques, but just to say somebody looked and said "that's OK/nice". Much better than saying nothing. Maybe there's some reward system where a regular viewer and commentator could get a Regular Guy Badge, a McDonald's Star, just to promote the leaving of a mark.

Finally, most of us do have second systems and some of those systems have their own brand followers. Perhaps there is a pattern of what Hasselblad users also use. Many here have commented about their Leica M cameras, maybe a Sony Nex 7, whatever. Point is that some combinations might attract users, more than other combinations. So Hasselblad and Rangefinders; or Hasselblad and Mamiya might lever the interest in this Forum.

So Dirk, I may not have produced anything with this essay, but I didn't want you to think you were consulting with people who didn't care. Hope that helps.

 

[dirk]

Hi bladdered,

thank you for your ideas. I do think that are all valid points. I agree that the most challenging will be to offer a solution that will satisfy all Hasselblad users. It will be probabl impossible to please everybody 100%. So where should we make the compromise? Should we make a compromise at all?

The most difficult part is in my opinion, whether we should at all offer sections for different MF and/or 35mm brands. There are good argumenst for all 3 solutions: Stay as it is now only for HB, open it for all MF brands only, open it for all brands incl. 35mm. It is for sure, that in the future bigger images will be allowed. Mostly through external links. And the images show up here without clicking. With huge pixel size and KB size.

If we want to push image discussions, then it will be difficult with MF only. I do think only a few among our HB members have digital backs. So this makes it a lot more complicated and inconvenient to show images online. If there are not enough images, it will fall asleep. See the current image sections as of today in this forum.

On the other hand, many of you have already tons of digital images from your other gear. They just sit and wait to be shown. Leica, Sony with adapters or without adapters etc. This could be an opportunity to have more fun.

But let's see what others are thinking. I hope that more users post their opinion and wishes here.

This is a very important decisions and not participating in it or ignoring it is kind of sad...

 

[bladdered]

Dirk, my proposed compromise on images is that you MUST be a Hasselblad User, but then you can post any image from any of your cameras.

That way, we see and share all that Hasselblad Users are shooting.

Gary.

 

[dirk]

Dirk, my proposed compromise on images is that you MUST be a Hasselblad User, but then you can post any image from any of your cameras.

That way, we see and share all that Hasselblad Users are shooting.

Gary.

mmmhhh...., o.k.,... just thinkig how to verify that with each user.

Actually I do not know whether it is a good idea to control this. (and how to control that anyway? - serial numbers or something like that).

And it might be useful to keep Hasselbaldinfo open for users who are interested in HB and want to buy a HB in the future...

It is a pitty that so few users write their wishes here...

If I look at the answers in the survey at the top, and the few comments in this thread, the future structure could look like this:

1. Domainname: Hasselbladinfo.com
2. Entry/landing page: new one, better designed
3. Forumstructure: Simplifying the subforums, only 2-3. Additionally very basic sections for other brands, no matter whether MF or 35mm
4. Upload possibilities: Bigger files. All images from all brands if the Hassy user owns and use them.

So the focus shall be still Hasselblad and the Hasselblad users, but they are allowed to upload whatever they want to without getting killed from the die-hard Hassy users

Any comments to this?

 

[fotografz]

Dirk,

Perhaps you should have also posted an urgent request link in the more active Hasselblad sections?

I am with Gary that the title of the section should be Hasselblad oriented ... while it is true that there is no way to verify that an image was done with a Hasselblad product, in general that is true for any brand specific forum. For example, I could put a Leica image on a Nikon site and just strip the exif info from the upload ... but I don't think many would do that.

I do not use Flickr for uploads/storage ... just SmugMug ... so I have no real way to insert a nice larger image into threads else-where. So I use the existing paper clip here.

On the RED Dot forum (a full featured Leica retailer site), you upload to a thread by placing images in a personal closed gallery there and then just select them to insert at size into the thread anywhere you wish, not just previews you have to click on.

While I agree that Medium Format digital backs are not financially possible for many, I think most MF shooters have some sort of digital option to enable them to show images.

The issue is that if it is strictly information on Hasselblad, there are so many resources and redundant questions that the information gets repeated over and over ... and the archives must be bursting with most of the answers.

I honestly do believe that if this site became more about making images with Hasselblad, the story behind some image, or at least technical info about the photo ... perhaps more people would be interested and active. I love learning techniques and other ways people go about doing their photographs, and why ... but maybe that's just me.

I also believe that more Hasselblad users are very good photographers than we may think. I do not subscribe to the idea that good photography will intimidate newer users ... but instead it will inspire them.

Most of us are not full fledged professional photo gods like many on the Hasselblad website ... those photographers often have teams of assistants and production people, or budgets to travel to exotic locations for major assignments ... I know this because as an ad man I hired them. What most of us do, and how we do it is quite different ... even though I do work for pay, I sure the heck don't have a team of any kind helping me ... maybe at the most an inexpensive assistant to act as a human light stand for mobile work ... but that's about it.

-Marc

 

[dirk]

Dirk,

Perhaps you should have also posted an urgent request link in the more active Hasselblad sections?

...

Hi Marc,

I sent since the start of this survey 2 emails to each registered user in this forum with a link to this survey to make sure to reach also those users, who do not show up very often.

In addition there is a posting in the announcement section.

I think this combination is the most intense alert I can give...

 

[peterbkk]

Delivery Date?

So, when can we expect to see the new forum?

 

[dirk]

So, when can we expect to see the new forum?

Hi Peter,

this will still take some time. We first change the software for our other 9 camera-forums, which will be merged. This is a very big project and takes it's time.

Since the users posted here that they want to have their focus on Hasselblad-users (although also open for more brands), Hasselbladinfo.com will not be merged with the other forums.

A rough guess would be in 2 weeks. Maybe earlier, maybe later. All depends on the progress with the other 9 forums.

Best wishes

 

[dirk]

FYI

we just finished tonight the big merger of 9 forums into one. There will be still some bugfixing and finetuning needed though.

So we can not start now immediately with the conversion of Hasselbladinfo.com into a new forumsoftware. We also need a break - at least some time for the family...

We will announce it here, as soon as we have a specific day for it. This will be a lot easier, since it is no merger. I stil hope that we can do it in the middle of December, but do not want to promise too much at the moment. More details will come.

If you want to see how the new software looks like and how it "behaves", just click here:

https://www.camera-info.com/index.php

Best wishes


Edit for the records:

We swtched the forum software 2 days later:

https://www.hasselbladinfo.com/inde...o-the-new-forumsoftware-almost-finished.6504/

 

[curmudgeon]

This is why we want to make a kind of survey with you, what you are doing now, what you are currently using and what you are planning to do over the next 5 years equipment wise. You can pick more than one answer at the same time.

Dirk,

I currently use an iPhone for digital photography and a variety of MF cameras for film photography. I would not expect this picture to change in the next 5 years, except for the particular film cameras I use. The three I use most these days are a Hasselblad 500C/M, a Rolleiflex MX and a Fuji GF670. I read the V system section on this forum, and the TLR and 120 RF Folders sections on the Rangefinder Forum. I also read some of the sections on the APUG and photo.net forums. I have no interesting in reading about digital or 35mm film.

--Doug

 

[HasselbLike]

I am too a big fan of the V system , and I use Leica M8.2 digital too. I love the Hasselblad and it's analog results converted in to Digital. it is amazing how they look than the results of the direct digital look.