Must confess I like the look of the new Hasselblad HV, a full-frame Sony A99 converted by the Swedes into a stylish, grayish and blackish “DSLR with style, spirit and soul,” as Hasselblad praises its pepped up A99 on luxurious steroids. The camera will be available in an ultra robust, special TTX01 (?!) resin case together with the Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T* 24-70mm F2,8 ZA. This lens alone costs $2k. And you get an extra battery.
To become a member of this exclusive club will certainly cost you slightly more than an arm and a leg — the package is said to set you back $11,500 or €8,500. Finally a camera maker with a fair conversion rate… No doubt the Sony A99 is an amazing camera. Hasselblad makes it even more amazing.
A word about the materials used, certainly the HV’s highlight:
Even though the trend in the camera industry is to manufacture camera bodies in cast magnesium for lightness, the fact is, “old school” aluminium has far more qualities. It is resistant to corrosion, more durable and much tougher than magnesium — especially when machined from a solid block of top quality alloy.
And then PVD — “the best coating available today”:
We certainly don’t intend to bore you with the details of high temperature vacuum evaporation and plasma sputter bombardment processes, but suffice it to say that PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition) is serious cutting edge coating technology. It was originally developed as a specialist hardening treatment for high speed cutting tools but has evolved into an outstanding finishing process solution. Its hardness is second only to that of diamond.
For all the specs and details (about the mostly external amendments) tune in to Hasselblad’s dedicated Hasselblad HV microsite. An 18-page HV brochure can be downloaded here.
Just remember, in essence it’s a Sony.