Hasselblad bringing 60-megapixel H3DII-60 in April 2009

Hasselblad's doing a fine job of pimping its mildly fresh 50-megapixel H3DII-50 at Photokina 2008, but being that we're hardly ever satisfied with the here and now, we've latched onto a few juicy tidbits flowing from the lips of CEO Christian Poulsen. Reportedly, the exec made clear at the show that a 60-megapixel version of the camera (H3DII-60) would be made available in April of 2009, and while it would demand a £4,000 ($7,393) premium over the £14,750 ($27,261) H3DII-50, that increase would pay for a sensor that provides 94% full-frame coverage. It's okay, your D40 is still bombastic in its own right.

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 5:58PM]

does it include a hairy chest?

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:10PM]

ouch, that's a low blow, LR. c'mon dude, she's just trying to stir another engadget fanboy war. can't she just flame in piece?

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:11PM]

engadget's reply system can Derelict my balls

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:12PM]

Dude, its a cold day in hell when one of us misses the Reply button. What the hell is happening to you man? !

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:15PM]

someone spiked my coffee today dude. call the president, there are aliens amongst us. i just met one named "Javier"

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:21PM]

I agree. These illegal aliens are multiplying faster than our comments on this article.

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:23PM]

speaking of which, doesn't "Eugenia Loli-Queru" sound like Borat's wife's name?

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 7:49PM]

fine, you other lame asses make a better Hasslehoff joke, oh wait, you don't have senses of humor in the first place

[Eugenia Loli-Queru @ Sep 24th 2008 6:03PM]

And this is the reason why the new RED will kick its ass. Price. My husband (engineer, prosumer photographer) believes that RED's "dslr" will not be a consumer/prosumer one, but that is going against the Hasselblads instead (they could aim for a 45-47mm size rather than the traditional 35mm ones, possibly a non-reflex camera, could employ some clever mosaic technology, and shoot 60 megapixels or more.). At a price around $10,000. A price that can kill Leica, Hasselblad, and the Canon 1Ds on the other side of the price point. That's just an opinion of course, but time will tell.

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:06PM]

that's all well and good but what does your ex-boyfriend think, and your secret lover, and your chef and your pedicurist think? we need statistical significance in our hearsay, damnit!

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:07PM]

Please stay on the photographer's side of the camera for us.

[Engadgetier @ Sep 24th 2008 6:20PM]

@Lowest Ranked

You just won comment of the day. Now we need your picture, so please stay on the opposite side of the camera as the photographer......

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:36PM]

ouch, i seem to have angered the pro-hearsay fanboys

[Temple @ Sep 24th 2008 10:27PM]

Seriously, what does the RED have to do with the Hasselblad doing 60MPs?????; they are entirely different cameras for entirely different subjects. This 60MP Blad will do no more then 1fps and produce pictures ready for billboards from a huge medium-format sensor. The RED will do video really well.

As someone who owns a H3D, even Hasselblad sells very few cameras (in the thousands), very much like the RED. The Canon 1Ds (which I also own) sells in the tens of thousands. They are very different cameras, and RED is now in the process of redesigning the Scarlet which they have been developing for years due to cheap dSLRs like the D90 and 5DII. They have a ton of promises but only one product to show for it (the Red One; with a rolling shutter problems).

Beyond that, Nikon is rumored to produce a medium-format sensor at WPPI next February which is a real CMOS and can do low-light unlike these Kodak/Dalsa sensors that can't do over ISO400 without boost.

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:10PM]

Wake me up when this things are shooting in gigapixel quality.

http://www.tawbaware.com/maxlyons/gigapixel.htm

[sonicwind @ Sep 24th 2008 6:39PM]

Yawn. Let me know when gigapixel is available. Damn, I should have read the comments before posting this.

[Reader @ Sep 24th 2008 10:15PM]

Was there any reason you made a second profile Lowest, or is this not you?

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 29th 2008 1:03PM]

Yeah, I have no idea what happened but I'm unable to post from my old account. Thats why I disappeared for about a month, Engadget wouldn't respond to my e-mails and flat-out could not help with my issue. I just gave in and created a new account, my damn post-count is long gone =[

[Maztec @ Sep 24th 2008 6:30PM]

Does the Hasselblad do full HD video or better? :\

[Plothole @ Sep 24th 2008 7:20PM]

DSLRs don't do video. Though if they did, this thing would make "full HD" (1920x1080=2.07MP) look like a cell phone resolution.

[Tom @ Sep 24th 2008 7:34PM]

My god, you're on Engadget. Try to keep up with the news man!

Read up on the Nikon D90 (720P) and the Canon 5D MkII (1080P).

[Maztec @ Sep 24th 2008 7:37PM]

Could swear I responded, but I could be wrong, or I could end up with a double post (but the comment response just took me back to the main page, which seemed wrong) . . .

@plothole:

The irony here is that the Ad I am looking at beside this response is for the 21.1 megapixel Canon EOS 5D Mark II with "Full-Frame, Full-HD video". I take it the EOS 5D is not a DSLR? I was pretty sure it was, but I could be wrong.

Assuming I am not wrong returns us to my previous question, does it have at least Full HD video? ;) Yes, I know the answer is No (and I agree with the reasoning behind that) . . . but the fact that the prosumer DSLRs now have it makes it an interesting question, in my not so humble opinion.

[Plothole @ Sep 24th 2008 7:51PM]

Hey, nobody can read every single story. And honestly, WTF is the point in having one of these cameras record video?

[Plothole @ Sep 24th 2008 7:59PM]

@Maztec
Sorry, my comment was actually targeted towards Tom. Your post didn't appear until after. (goofy comment system)

[Tom @ Sep 24th 2008 10:20PM]

@Plothole:

I know you can't read every single story, but those are two of the biggest cameras of the year. Besides, there are a multitude of stories on them, not just one. Why do I expect you to know about these cameras? Because you seem to have an opinion on what cameras are and what they can and should/shouldn't do.

And why do DSLRs have video mode? They have big sensors, interchangeable lenses, and just generally tech items are getting combined every day. The iPhone isn't just a phone, and your computer doesn't just do spreadsheets. Hell, I have a watch that tells me the barometric pressure and there are others out there that play video. It's the direction tech is going in, and DSLRs are prime candidates for integrating video in (primarily because of the variety of lenses you have at your disposal - let's see a compact Mini DV cam do what the 5DII can do).

[Tom @ Sep 24th 2008 10:53PM]

@Plothole:

I know you can't read every single story, but those are two of the biggest cameras of the year. Besides, there are a multitude of stories on them, not just one. Why do I expect you to know about these cameras? Because you seem to have an opinion on what cameras are and what they can and should/shouldn't do.

And why do DSLRs have video mode? They have big sensors, interchangeable lenses, and just generally tech items are getting combined every day. The iPhone isn't just a phone, and your computer doesn't just do spreadsheets. Hell, I have a watch that tells me the barometric pressure and there are others out there that play video. It's the direction tech is going in, and DSLRs are prime candidates for integrating video in (primarily because of the variety of lenses you have at your disposal - let's see a compact Mini DV cam do what the 5DII can do).

[Tom @ Sep 24th 2008 10:54PM]

Terribly sorry about the double-post. For some reason the comment system took 30 minutes to refresh... thought I should resubmit at that point.

Boy was I wrong!

[loosely_coupled @ Sep 25th 2008 12:31AM]

The new Nikon and Canon may indeed take HD video, but they both suffer from terrible rolling shutter "jello video"...

[Jason Litka @ Sep 25th 2008 11:22AM]

I sure as hell hope not. Video has no place in a DSLR.

[Maztec @ Sep 25th 2008 5:35PM]

Would tend to agree that it does not belong on a DSLR. Main reason being they take sharp photos, whereas the best video is blurred images - which are easier on the eye during playback.

Then again, I can see that convergence may be possible.

I am still waiting for a true progressive RAW format that records the impact on the sensor as it occurs, letting you dial the image to a variety of points during the exposure time - and different parts of the image to different points . . . so you can compensate for high contrast situations (window in a room).


PS: I swear the reply box is not working when I do it directly . . . from the comment thread.

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:36PM]

Engadgetier:

Take a trip back to memory lane with this little gem I dug up with our good friend Eugenia.

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:36PM]

Which would be down here, naturally: http://www.engadget.com/2008/06/19/wii-menu-3-3-already-hacked-patch-forthcoming/comments/12744267/

[phanbouy @ Sep 24th 2008 6:37PM]

think you had the same coffee as me, dude

[Lowest Ranked @ Sep 24th 2008 6:40PM]

Welcome to the brand new Engadget Chat Room!!

Check out these ultra-trendy emoticons:

;) =) ={) §8^) 8=====D~ {[]} ( o Y o )


Ok, I'm actually sick of seeing my own name here so I'm walking away.

[Engadgetier @ Sep 24th 2008 6:50PM]

WOW. I didnt know that memory lane looked that horrible........ =/

[Mark @ Sep 24th 2008 6:37PM]

I'm holding out until there is a 1 gigapixel camera on the market.

[scott @ Sep 24th 2008 6:51PM]

so expensive, yet so awesome.

[The Pepto Pimp @ Sep 24th 2008 7:08PM]

Was the D40 ever bombastic? Maybe because of the entry level price point?

Did you mean 40D?

[nathan.wong @ Sep 24th 2008 7:24PM]

I thought 3MP was all anyone really needed since at the time those cameras came out they were "just as good" or "better" than film?

Now we have 60MP cameras and they're still not 100% 645. That means that lenses that were made for the 645 format will still have about a 6% magnification. That's not a big deal for telephotos but for wide angle lenses it definitely is as the 28mm lens is now close to 30mm. When you need all the wide-angleness of a lens that 6% is gonna kill ya.

[Plothole @ Sep 24th 2008 8:24PM]

"I thought 3MP was all anyone really needed since at the time those cameras came out they were "just as good" or "better" than film?"

That really depends on the type of film you're talking about. Compared to high ISO APS film, a 3MP might be compatible. However low-ISO, "high definition" 135 film is, from what I've heard, actually equivalent to something like 20-22MP. And of course with medium format you get a great deal more detail than you would with a small format system.

[Yuriy @ Sep 24th 2008 9:43PM]

I just wondering why Engadget not cover this camera from Photokina that do 160Mpxl in panoramic mode!!!!-? Or they just copying somebody news?
http://www.roundshot.ch/xml_1/internet/de/application/d438/d925/f934.cfm

[Tom @ Sep 24th 2008 7:32PM]

H3D2, cousin to R2D2.

[Plothole @ Sep 24th 2008 7:59PM]

@Maztec
Sorry, my comment was actually targeted towards Tom. Your post didn't appear until after. (goofy comment system)

[Julian @ Sep 24th 2008 8:01PM]

i'd say 60mp is just a good as 645 film ever was. Just because the chip is 6% smaller than the full 645 frame size doesn't mean its worse in any way. And for the record the nikon D40 looks great with pro glass on it.

[NESOHU @ Sep 24th 2008 9:30PM]

When you say 98% it's equivalent to 645's standard, not 35mm standard right?

[kb2zuz @ Sep 25th 2008 12:21AM]

Let me know when they bring Multi-Shot to it. The H3D-II 39MS is still sharper and has more detail than the 60.

Along the same lines of interpolation... This is not an ideal candidate for video. The best quality video comes from 3 chip cameras, sans interpolation. Yes it's great to have the ability to do some video in a sub $3000 camera but it's a bit ridiculous to have it in a $40,000+ camera. We keep our 39MS under lock-and-key and baby the thing. I think a lot of people people who would cringe at the thought of it being handled as a video camera.

@Temple a billboard only needs about 2MP... ever look at one close up?

[randydmonces @ Sep 25th 2008 5:31AM]

You can probabaly see the individual cells of a person photographed by this baby.