Hasselblad 503CWD: classic styling, 16 megapixels, $14,000

Designed around the classic Hasselblad 503, with Carl Zeiss Planar CFE 2.8/80 mm lens, 2.2-inch OLED display, FireWire 800 output and a 16 megapixel 36.7 x 36.7 mm sensor, the Hasselblad 503CWD may well be the most beautiful digital camera ever made. Of course, at about $14,000, it's not for everyone. Which may explain why Hasselblad is only making 500 of the cameras, to commemorate the 100th birthday of company founder Victor Hasselblad. No, this isn't a camera for carrying around to take candids of the kids. But if you've got the cash and long for a high-end studio digicam with a sense of history, get in line. Those 500 are probably going to go very quickly.

[Spectral Flagellum @ Feb 28th 2006 4:32PM]

Too Much $$$$$?

You could always just get an old used hasselblad off anyone in the struggling advertising design industry, and throw on one of their a digital backs. Saves mucho $$$$$ and still looks great for billboards!

[bob @ Feb 28th 2006 5:08PM]

hopefully, this is just the START of lower-end hassy stuff. I'd really love a $2k digital back for my 500cm... I don't need autofocus or anything and don't want to spend thousands to replace the stuff I've got.

And what's the film advance crank going to do on this camera??

[Ryan @ Feb 28th 2006 5:34PM]

Those digital backs are still mucho dinero, but I've been thinking about nabbing one for the medium format camera my father-in-law gave me. I'm using the Polaroid film right now, and I love the results, but I just learn faster with digital.

[jarrrod Turner @ Feb 28th 2006 5:36PM]

16 megapixels is a little lackluster for a medium format back, but still an awesome design. Definitely cool. Gotta love the 503C design

[Spectral Flagellum @ Feb 28th 2006 6:02PM]

You WILL learn faster with digital, but I usually still see better results with film than when comparing them to digitals; whether or not there have been computer alterations done.
There's really nothing like medium or large format.
The surrealism coming out of medium to large format cameras simply can't be touched by anything else, and the ability to alter the perspective has allowed us to take some of the greatest and hardest to convey pictures ever: the true scale of large objects, ie.skyscrapers, in a view that makes sense to the eye.

[Ric Kaysen @ Feb 28th 2006 6:03PM]

so....why the film winder crank?

[Taylor Finley @ Feb 28th 2006 6:06PM]

I don't get the point of this camera, aside from being a curiosity of sorts. Film has much better dynamic range and resolution than any current digital sensor. A medium format camera with decent glass and a high quality film scanner could be had on ebay for a tenth of the cost of this kit. I imagine you could pay for quite a bit of film and processing with that extra scratch.

The only reason I can see for needing a camera like this is when speed is essential and you don't have half an hour to process your film. But I have a hard time conceiving such a situation.

[cam @ Feb 28th 2006 6:35PM]

#5 -> crank is to cock the flip-up mirror and the shutter in the lens.

[Joel @ Feb 28th 2006 9:54PM]

Taylor Finle and Spectral Flagellum: As a former "purist" who wouldn't touch digital for years, it pains me to say this, but film has becoming vastly overrated. Not so with pros like me. I have two or three art things I do every year with film, (things that need to be rather "messy"-looking and grainy,) but that's it now. Digital is superior to film in so many ways.

The comment about scanned film being better than digital is laughable. If you think you can find a "high quality film scanner [that] could be had on ebay for a tenth of the cost of this kit" that would give you an image that will come even slightly close to the output of this camera, you are delusional.

The only film scanners that will come close to the output of this camera will cost you far more that $14,000. A used Imacon Flextight Precision II (if you can find one) will cost you $10,000 and while it is a very nice scanner, it won't be as good.

So you take your film to a moderately-priced service bureau and they still charge you a ton of money per frame, and you hope and pray that you get someone who actually cares about quality and cleans your film and doesn't scratch it to hell. You'll have plenty of time to pray, too. The less you pay, the slower you'll get your scans.

Uh, no. I'd prefer to sleep at night. Worrying about what some low-paid, hung-over scanner jockey is doing to my originals is not high on my list of things to do.

So, you take the time (and and considerable money) to go to a first-class service bureau and have them make proper, clean drum scans of a few of your images. Of course, you can't afford to get really top-notch scans of ALL the images on your roll, because the costs would kill you, this is another big advantage of digital.

But even the best, most expensive drum scan from a $150,000 machine is still a second-generation copy of your shot, and even at the highest-possible resolution, only an interpretation of your film grain. A shot from a digital camera is first-generation all the way.

As far as the claim that "film has much better dynamic range and resolution than any current digital sensor" goes, well, that's simply false.

Different films have different grain structure, some are finer than others, and most simply get trounced by modern top-line chips. In the 35mm realm, the Canon EOS1 mk2 has more pixel resolution than the vast majority of 35mm films have grain resolution, and in the medium format realm, I defy you to find a same-size scanned film image that matches the output of a Phase One P45. Heck, try it with the H20 or H25, for that matter. You may have more pixels with a super high-res film scan over an H20, but the pixels won't be as sharp or as clean in the scan. In a medium format head-to-head battle, the scan vs. P45 won't even be close.

The dynamic range claim only holds true if you are dealing strictly with lower-speed negative films. Transparency film (slide film) doesn't have much exposure latitude at all, and certainly not the kind of latitude you can get with a high-quality chip.

As far as the comment that "the surrealism coming out of medium to large format cameras simply can't be touched by anything else, and the ability to alter the perspective has allowed us to take some of the greatest and hardest to convey pictures ever: the true scale of large objects, ie.skyscrapers, in a view that makes sense to the eye" goes; this is nonsense. The perspective and focus manipulation that a photographer can obtain through tilts and swings, ect. is a function of optics, and has noting to do with whether there is film in the back or a sensor chip. The same perspective and focus shifts one performs with a large format camera on film can be performed in the same manner with a large format camera with a digital back.

Artists are even making custom pinhole cameras with digital sensors.

Large format still has advantages, but also has so many disadvantages that it has become an even more niche market than it was before. Most still life and other large format shooters I know are shooting with large format cameras with digital backs simply for the workflow advantages of digital.

The workflow advantages are really vast, and I cannot even begin to touch on all the reasons why digital is superior to film in this regard. Digital has so many advantages over film that you aren't considering, and that I don't have time to go into right now.

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As far as this particular camera is concerned, I'm not that impressed.

This, like most Hassys, is more for collectors, doctors and rich businessmen playing photographer than for real working pros.

Smart for Hassy, because they have to appeal to that market, but not interesting to me. Give me a Hassy H2 over this any day. Or better yet, just give me a Phase One H25 back for my Contax 645 system.

[Loomis @ Feb 28th 2006 10:20PM]

The specs look exactly like Phase One's P20 Hasselblad digital back, same Kodak sensor, slightly different UI, $5K more expensive. That film winder must be made of solid gold, coated in plastic and chrome.

And then there's the 39 MPx P45... imagine the file sizes on those images...

[Ladislav Kamarad @ Mar 1st 2006 5:28AM]

Digital back X film ???
I am working with Hasselblad 501CM/203FE/
Flexbody on Fuji Provia 100F slide film.
Scanning by Nikon LS 9000ED scanner - 4000dpi(physically)- price about $2500. My scanner is specially cooled :-)
See for www.wild-landscape.com

I am waiting(perhaps to no purpose :-( for
digital back min. 50x50mm(2x2 inch) 50MP+
After ti I'll begin reason about changing of my classic system.
Main problem of digital backs is problematic function below freezing point.