New! A SONY with a wooden grip at 3x the price: Hasselblad Stellar

[Gavjenks]

Ummm,it's pretty clear that standards have gone down. This is last year's Sony...

This new camera is so pathetic that it spawned an article entitled Wretched Excess, by Michael Reichmann at The Luminous Landscape.

Oh my God. Somebody is selling a camera that is a WHOLE YEAR OLD? And on top of that, a blogger wrote an article about it?

Surely this is indeed the end of an era. If only I had known.



You guys are being kind of ridiculous. Two companies made what is actually a pretty clever partnership to make a lot more money off of otherwise not terribly exciting cameras. That implies that they ARE being clever with their stock and their strategies, not that they are completely out of ideas and languishing. If you have some other, external reason to also believe that, then fine, but this itself is just a classic, time-tested example of selling to what people are willing to pay.

Most successful large companies will have an array of products from more affordable to less affordable, often with the more exclusive ones simply being collector's editions, etc. This is true of everything from children's cartoons to cell phones to dining room tables. It allows you to get the most profit from consumers by making as many people customers as possible, and extracting the maximum amount of money from each of them, even though they all have different amounts of money to spend.



And I still see absolutely no reason why this would imply Hasselblad is unable to make quality original merchandise in the future. They added a quality handgrip to an existing camera. Trivial, perhaps, but in no way an indication of inability to produce decent products. You act as if a handgrip means that they must be out of ideas for cameras and lenses themselves. That's not logical. They are just exploiting a new market: the people who buy these handgrips are not necessarily the same people who would buy top quality new, functional hasselblad merchandise. Thus, the two kinds of products do not necessarily replace or overlap each other.

 

[amolitor]

They do pollute their brand, though. They're now a luxury item manufacturer, like Louis Vuitton or Prada. There is a widely, and correctly, held belief that the owners now simply want to turn the Hasselblad name into cash, without spending any money on that expensive R&D stuff.

They certainly could re-enter the market they were once in. They'd have to re-create the company, and the brand, pretty much from scratch. Probably almost nothing the shell now owns (intellectual property, staff, facilities) is particularly relevant to building high end imaging equipment. However, a reboot can be done, and we might well see it. Would it be interesting? Probably not very, it would be a new company, a new set of products, an entirely new thing, which happens to have purchased the rights to an old name. The new thing might still be superb, but it would not be Hasselblad. See also Bugatti, Maybach.

 

[Gavjenks]

Okay. I don't know much about Hasselblad. Like I said,

If you have some other, external reason to also believe that [they are a sell-out husk of a company], then fine

But the reason to believe that would be due to your knowledge that they no longer own relevant production facilities, a whole market history of products over years, possibly comments from insiders in the media, etc. etc. Not the hand grips thing alone. Which is all news to me as of right now.

 

[Derrel]

Gavjenks, I think you're a great guy, and a wonderful addition to the TPF crew! However, I also think that you OBVIOUSLY never heard of Victor Hasselblad, and what he stood for, and what he built, and you obviously lack any idea of what the brand once meant. If you did, you'd realize that Victor is turning over in his grave, and the decades-long reputation of Hasselblad is being sullied. Michael Recihmann is far from "a blogger"...he is the owner of probably the most-influential landscape website in the world. He is an alpha- and beta-tester for many of the world's largest camera and lensmakers.

To show just how ridiculous the Lunar, and Stellar actually ARE, yesterday I took a Hassleblad press release, and changed just a handful of words and phrases, and took a couple of photos. Since this is my thread, I feel like what the heck, let me illustrate the stupidity and shallowness of Hasselblad's latest money grab, by using their own words against them!

View attachment 51320

http://press.hassle-blad.con/press-releases/2013/2013-07-25_hassle-blad-nebula.aspx

Are you ready to be cold-cocked by Nebula?
The world has never seen a DSLR quite like this before.
Iconic Sweden-based manufacturer Hassle-blad, whose world famous cameras were taken to the moon by US astronauts back in the Sixties, and whose top quality products are prized by many of the world's greatest professional photographers, is all set for another major launch the Nebula. The new Nebula is a unique camera aimed at people who only want the status of a genuine wooden-gripped, older generation Nikon professional camera fitted with a dorky wooden gripping surface and cheesy nameplate.. The Nebula is set to wow amateur enthusiasts and consumers who love to take average photographs.

With its own unique expression of style and dubious image quality - Nebula is set for take-off around the globe at top stores like Harrods in the UK, Lane Crawford's in Hong Kong and China and Willoughby's Camera in Fifth Avenue, New York, later this summer.

So what's so special about this new camera?

Dr. Mock Hansen-Jivein'yall, Hassle-blad's Chairman and CEO explains: "The world has never seen a blatant money-grab like this before. The Hassle-blad brand has always been about highest quality and distinctive style and we've created Nebula as a work of art capture device that you can simply point and shoot to acquire pictures. It is available in six exotic wooden handle options - including walnut, cedar, paddock, balsa, driftwood, and briar root-with every hand-grip meticulously carved from real wood and fashioned by our experts."

He adds: "With Nebula, we have a camera that is heavy, and can double as a weapon in sketchy neighborhoods on any continent!"

Nebula's advanced 2005-era technology, combined with the magnificence of NIKKOR lenses, takes care of any photo situation. Our average sensor enables the user to capture light and reproduce every scene in decent, 12 megapixel detail.

The brand new Nebula camera has a price tag of 6,480 Euros (excluding tax), and offers SLR-like handling with a full range of controls for those photographers who want more technical involvement with their image capture.

Nebula is Hassle-blad's third and arguably most-desperate, ridiculous foray into the consumer photographic marketplace. Earlier this year the manufacturer of the world's most advanced medium format camera system launched Lunar - an acclaimed revolution in consumer camera design. Stellar was the follow-up camera in an ongoing programme of product launches targeting the lifestyle/luxury sector. Nebula is the logical conclusion of this desperate, money-grabbing, pathetic marketing pipedream.

Adds Dr. Mock Hansen-Jivein'yall: "It has always been my ambition to enable all fans of the iconic Hassle-blad brand to have an opportunity to own one of our cameras. Now discerning enthusiasts of beautiful design, ergonomics and advanced camera technology have real choices.This has a real wooden grip! Wood for God's sake--freakin' WOOD, I tell ya'!"

For more information and a list of dealers/distributors visit: www.hassle-blad.Nebula.con

For cheapskate bastids who can't afford the full cost of a Nebula, Hassle-blad announced the aftermarket Nebula Grip Kit, priced at 1,900 Euro. Inquire at Hassle-blad dealers world-wide.

View attachment 51321

 

[Gavjenks]

Haha I like how you spelled in "Nabula" on the top plate.

And no, I don't know anything about Victor Hasselblad or the company transformation. If it is that obvious and consistent, then I can see how people are quite disappointed.

Then again, though, none of us are Victor Hasselblad. It's not really all that terrible to just be forced to go "aw shucks, well they suck now" and switch to a different brand, yes?

 

[amolitor]

Hasselblad does have a credible product in addition to these bizarro luxury items. It's not clear to me how much of it is actually Hasselblad. The lenses and sensors seem to be someone else, but it's possible they're still doing the engineering and the manufacturing on the body, and possibly the shutters, possibly the software. The H5D lineup is a pretty specialized product, but I think it's probably the cat's meow for a certain very narrow segment of the market. It's not clear to me how many copies of a $30,000 camera system you can actually sell in a year, though.

There's confusion in the marketing, which always makes one wonder if there's confusion in the company.

One realistic-looking way forward is to make the H5D line, and its followons, a halo product which itself loses money but drives sales of much more lucrative luxury products. Hasselblad is not likely to enter the consumer market, they are Ferrari, not VW, so we can expect that anything they sell in future is expensive. Their lords and masters are venture capitalists, who are going to want to see some serious numbers on the bottom line there, and pretty darn quick. These guys are not philanthropists.

 

[Derrel]

Actually it's an 'e' in Nebula, but my Sharpie's point kind of got stuck in the underlying trough of the original nameplate and made my 'e' look a lot like an 'a'. But I figures, what the kcuf, I'm imitating a half-baked slapdash effort, why bother to do it right...good enough is good enough. However, I also thought Nabula might stand for nab U lame a&&es, so, I let it stand. I mean, what the heck...I have no respect for the buyers...

The basic complaint that many of us have is that Hasselblad *used to* stand for very high, hand-built quality, low-production volume cameras made in Sweden, by skilled, long-time employees. Sort of a boutique brand, similar to Leica; a brand that stood for durability, long-term system interoperability across decades of models, and best-practices manufacturing techniques. Years ago, Hassy ran major magazine advertisements, and one detailed the way they polished gears, using such things as barrels full of upholstery tacks, and crushed walnut shells, and rice and rice hulls, and so on...

A Hasselblad was for decades, THE symbol of a well-crafted camera with excellent optics, hand-built in Sweden, and engineered for decades of professional or serious amateur usage. But since the early 2000's, the company has been owned by a tractor manufacturer, the French luxury clothing firm Hermes, and now...a bunch of venture capital investment dilwads...now they are taking a venerable brand, and whoring it out. Targeting mostly Asian nouveau riche customers, as witness their actual press release...they will sell this new overpriced monstrosity to people who know the NAME, as basically nothing more than pure Veblen goods.

 

[Scatterbrained]

To me, this would be the equivalent of Ferrari announcing an "exciting new model". . . ."the all new GT-4"......only to find out at the press intro that it's just a collection of unsold Chevy Aveos with leather interiors and alloy wheels. . . . for $60,000.

 

[Derrel]

To me, this would be the equivalent of Ferrari announcing an "exiting new model". . . ."the all new GT-4"......only to find out at the press intro that it's just a collection of unsold Chevy Aveos with leather interiors and alloy wheels. . . . for $60,000.

See...THIS GUY "gets it".

 

[Scatterbrained]

Cadillac Cimarron anyone?

 

[runnah]

To me, this would be the equivalent of Ferrari announcing an "exciting new model". . . ."the all new GT-4"......only to find out at the press intro that it's just a collection of unsold Chevy Aveos with leather interiors and alloy wheels. . . . for $60,000.

Toyota IQ rebadged as Aston Martin Sold for 3x more.
Aston?s iQ to cost £31k - BBC Top Gear

 

[Scatterbrained]

To me, this would be the equivalent of Ferrari announcing an "exciting new model". . . ."the all new GT-4"......only to find out at the press intro that it's just a collection of unsold Chevy Aveos with leather interiors and alloy wheels. . . . for $60,000.

Toyota IQ rebadged as Aston Martin Sold for 3x more.
Aston?s iQ to cost £31k - BBC Top Gear

That's just downright unholy! :shock:

 

[Ysarex]

It's like watching Placido Domingo and Vanessa Williams sing a Xmas carol duet. You wince through the whole thing and then you don't know who to feel more embarrassed for.

Joe