Time to get real?

As i’ve detailed in the past, my aim for my medium format gear is to utilise it into my top-end property photography workflow at some point, but as I research techniques, it has become apparent that my plans have a fatal flaw.

I use strobes - electronic flash - as part of my everyday work practice. My cameras and lenses allow me to shoot both natural light and flash frames to subsequently form a final frame which is a combination of the different light qualities.

In the Hasselblad X-series cameras, the shutter mechanism exists in the lens itself, and not in the camera body. It’s called a leaf shutter, and it allows flash to be used at any shutter speed. This is why the lenses are hugely expensive - the 21mm wide-angle I’d need for normal work is well over three thousand quid - way out of my league at this time. Unfortunately, the Chinese Laowa shift lenses that I use don’t have such a mechanism, so the “electronic shutter” function in the camera sensor becomes the default way of capturing an image, and for technical reasons I’ll not go into, it’s not possible to use flash when shooting. The camera just switches off the flash sync ability. I’ve tested it to be sure.

So - this leaves me with a choice to make. I can either continue on my expensive journey and adopt/develop a solely natural-light workflow with third party lenses, save up for the wider option, and use my existing lenses which give a tighter field of view, or I can throw the towel in and admit that the Hasselblad system is now designed entirely for a handful of amateur ponces with unlimited cash - to piss about taking boring landscapes and stuff to display exclusively on self aggrandising social media platforms. There are various forum posts claiming that Hasselblads are now just a plaything for rich hobbyists, and I’m starting to agree. They’re now owned by DJI, and don’t seem interested in catering to working professionals like they used to.

Selling all the kit would result in an approximate 50 percent loss on it’s original purchase price earlier this year, but I could certainly use the cash injection right now, and would consequently focus on using my existing, more-than-capable Nikon equipment which has served me perfectly for 20-odd years to deliver superb results. The Hasselblad project just seems to demand more and more silly expenditure as time goes on.

I’ll have a think about it.