Hasselblad 500cm Digital Back Views

• Electronics

The H-System marked an essential transition for the company. It dropped the traditional Hasselblad square negative format, instead using 6×4.5  cm film and a new series of lenses. It was intended to be used with digital backs and eventually made as an all-digital camera, and it is largely designed and manufactured by Fuji and sold under their name in Asian markets.

The following year, in August 2004, Shriro Sweden, the holding company of Victor Hasselblad AB, and Swedish subsidiary of Shriro Group, announced the acquisition of high-end scanner and digital cameraback manufacturer, Imacon. The intent of the move was to accelerate Hasselblad’s ambitions in the professional digital photographic sector.[6]

This move was a key step in the evolution of the medium format camera market. Up until that point, medium format camera makers made cameras and lenses, and separate companies made digital camera back attachments to enable those film cameras to take digital pictures. Most back companies sold products to be used with several different brands of camera. Imacon was one such back manufacturer; by merging with Hasselblad, it became evident that Hasselblad intended to cut other back manufacturers out of access to their new product line, enabling them to seamlessly transition to fully integrated all-digital cameras while the competition was still producing cameras in which the film-based controls and digital capture were not fully combined, and also to retain the profits on the backs, which sell for tens of thousands of dollars.

The H2F can be used either as a film camera or as a digital camera when mated with a Hasselblad CF31, CF22, CF22 MS, CF39, or CF39 MS back. It is completely identical to the H2, but this camera was created to lock out other digital back providers from the H-series platform. The H2F is compatible with all of the H lenses, including the HC28, and the new HC 35-90mm zoom lens.