Great to see some responses in the thread already! I had a hunch there must be a few members with past or present experience in this system / mount
I got into A-mount almost by accident...
Ever since I was a kid growing up in the '70s and '80s, I was aware of Hasselblad as the "moon camera" (a silver 500EL was used to photograph the moon's surface and subsequently discarded there, a couple of months after my birth in 1969
). Many years later, as I developed an interest in photography, it was the brand I aspired to own. Plenty of folks have a dream camera - Leica, Rollei, Zeiss etc. Mine was always Hasselblad. As I progressed beyond point-and-shoot compacts into the world of DSLRs, after a brief dalliance with Nikon I bought my first Pentax and have stayed with the brand ever since... but I never stopped dreaming of owning a Hasselblad some day.
In early 2016 I was browsing B&H Photo Video's website and started looking at Hasselblad gear, with no intention to buy - I was merely "fantasy window-shopping" - and came across the Hasselblad HV. B&H were offering it at a massively-reduced price. I'd never heard of this particular model, so did a little research.
I discovered it was the result of a joint venture with Sony... Hasselblad had taken various Sony models - the RX100, NEX-7 and Sony SLT-A99 - and essentially "re-clothed" them in premium body materials to produce a limited number of more-robust, exclusive and, theoretically, desirable cameras that would attract well-heeled, brand-conscious buyers (the footballer David Beckham owned a Hasselblad Lunar, based on the NEX-7 - which I guess betrays the market Hasselblad was aiming at
). The HV was based on Sony's SLT-A99 24MP full-frame "pellicle mirror" camera from 2012, and - paired with the Sony Zeiss 24-70 f/2.8 SSM lens, various accessories, a custom flight case and Lightroom 5 software - it launched in 2014 at an eye-watering price of USD $11,500. Online and print media, as well as savvy photographers, were highly critical of Hasselblad's strategy in selling what were (functionally, at least) re-branded Sony cameras, already several years old, at hugely-inflated prices. The entire exercise was a commercial failure, not to say something of an embarrassment, for Hasselblad.
So, the HV had rather ignominious beginnings. The Sony SLT-A99 was, however, an excellent camera that had received rave reviews and garnered a dedicated following since launch among serious photographers and videographers; so I knew that the HV, despite its critics, would be an equally excellent camera. B&H was offering a very limited number of brand new, complete HV kits at a fraction of the initial launch price, and - after much deliberation - I bought one. I finally had my dream Hasselblad... and, as a bi-product of that, made my entry into Sony A-mount
In the five years since buying it, I've used the camera quite infrequently compared to my APS-C K-mount gear (I'm still a Pentax guy at heart
)... but, when I need full-frame, want to use a specific A-mount lens, or simply want to enjoy a different shooting experience, I pick up the HV. By now, I think I can make some qualified observations that are equally relevant to the Sony SLT-A99 (and, in some respects, other Sony SLT cameras)...
- Although the HV is relatively compact for a full frame model, it's still noticeably larger than a modern APS-C body - and with a fast, full-frame, high-quality zoom lens such as the Sony Zeiss 24-70mm f/2.8 SSM, I find it heavy and cumbersome to carry around for an entire day's shooting. As a result, I prefer to use it for no more than a few hours at a time, over shorter distances on foot.
- Raw image quality from Sony's 24MP sensor is generally excellent in most situations, but the resulting .ARW files suffer from a lossy compression algorithm that results in noise and loss of detail in heavily-recovered shadows, and artefacts in high-contrast edges (online examples show the impact on star-trails, but I've personally seen it in less-specialist situations too - black numerals on a white clock face, for example). On a more positive note, because of this compression, raw files are typically much smaller than those from cameras that don't use lossy compression, so many more images can be stored on each SD card.
- JPEG image quality is excellent, with a nice balance between detail and noise-reduction, wonderfully-rich colours from the camera's built in profiles, and consistent colours through most of the ISO range.
- High ISO performance is good, but doesn't quite match DSLRs of the same era (even those using the same sensor) due to the loss of light from the SLT pellicle mirror.
- Auto-focus is fast (in good light), accurate and precise without any need for AF fine tuning (though that feature is provided), due to the permanently active phase-detect auto-focus. Unlike some folks, I've never been unhappy with Pentax AF - but the HV / A99 is a revelation by comparison.
- The menu system of the HV / A99 is extensive but poorly-designed and less intuitive (in my opinion) than Pentax. Whenever I take a break from shooting the HV, upon my return I find it takes a while to re-familiarise myself with the location of various options and the effects of certain settings. The number of settings, range of options and menu organisation can be frustrating at times.
- There are plenty of physical controls - buttons, wheels, joystick - and several can be customised to perform a wide range of functions (though not all that I would like) normally accessed from the menus. This customisation is extremely useful, but it can be time-consuming and something of a challenge to configure them optimally for a variety of use-cases. Serious thought and a good deal of experimentation is required.
- The electronic viewfinder is excellent for its time and offers numerous advantages over optical viewfinders such as information overlays, focus peaking, magnified view and WYSIWYG rendering (of a sort)... but it suffers from some key disadvantages too. Specifically, it can be laggy depending on lighting conditions, and freezes the frame when the shutter is pressed, which makes it a poor choice when tracking fast-moving subjects.
- The articulating screen works very well and is more versatile than, for example, the Pentax K-1's implementation - but it's flimsy by comparison, and IMHO a potential weak-spot on an otherwise-robust camera (I certainly wouldn't pick the camera up by its articulating screen!). I've also noticed that on many used Sony SLT (and even E-mount) Alpha cameras, the LCD screens show visible wear - discolouration and almost a sort of delamination effect. As such, a good screen protector is recommended (I fitted one to my HV the day I received it, and it has completely prevented any wear or degradation).
- Battery life is quite decent for the era and type of camera, with around 500 shots from a fully-charged OEM battery - however, the batteries appear to have some circuitry in them that draws current even when removed from the camera. As such, a battery sat on the shelf for a number weeks will lose much of its charge.
- Outside of Adobe products, support for the HV's raw files is spotty at best (this does not apply to the Sony A99). Due to the manufacturer and model-specific EXIF tags, the files aren't recognised by a number of raw converters. The solution is to use AdobeDNGConverter utility to convert the .ARW files to .DNG first, then - where possible - apply the Sony A99 profile when opening the DNG files for processing. Surprisingly, Hasselblad's own Phocus software is completely incompatible with the HV's .ARW files. Equally surprising is that Sony's Image Data Converter software - bundled with the A99 and other SLT cameras - handles the HV's .ARW files without complaint (no need to use AdobeDNGConverter here!). Image Data Converter is no longer available from Sony, but can be downloaded from a number of online software archives.
Overall, I'm a big fan of the Hasselblad HV. It's a beautifully-built camera that - like its close cousin, the Sony SLT-A99 - is capable of superb image quality in most, if not all, situations. It's not always the easiest camera to configure and use, but it's enjoyable to shoot and produces mostly great results. It has scratched my Hasselblad itch, whilst fulfilling my occasional desire for a full-frame sensor and the field-of-view / depth-of-field advantages therein.
I think that's probably more than enough for this already-too-lengthy post
In my next one, I'll list the Minolta AF / Sony A-mount lenses I've acquired and my subjective opinions of them...