Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2012, highlighting a rare collaboration between two iconic luxury brands to produce a highly exclusive digital camera.
The two iconic brands Hasselblad and Ferrari have collaborated on the creation of the H4D Ferrari edition of Hasselblad’s flagship camera. The Hasselblad H4D-40 Ferrari Limited Edition camera, priced at $29,499, will be produced in a highly exclusive run of only 499 units.
The Ferrari H4D wears the striking Ferrari Red “Rosso Fuoco” colour with a Ferrari horse badge and comes complete with an 80mm f/2.8 lens.
A Legacy of Photography
Hasselblad has been a marquee name in photography since its founding in Sweden in 1841 and has been manufacturing high end cameras since 1948.
A Hasselblad 500EL/70 famously went to the moon with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, taking some of the most famous photographs of all time.
The Hasselblad H4D-40 features a 40 Megapixel medium format sensor that is 33.1mm by 44.2mm. It incorporates Hasselblad True Focus and gives you access to the world’s most advanced lenses, the Hasselblad HC/HCD line.
Design and Packaging
The H4D Ferrari has been specially designed to provide the ultimate in both quality and performance, just as the cars that inspired this special camera.
The camera weighs just over 5 lbs with its lens, batteries, and memory card in place. Interchangeable parts, like lenses and sensor units, are available for the H4D-40 in order to customise it for a photographer’s exact purpose.
They come presented in a handmade glass topped case within an exclusively designed and engineered box that has dual layers (one for the camera, and one for the accessories). The glass top prominently displays the Ferrari Racing Shield. This brand new model is dedicated to a new generation of photographers looking for ultimate image quality.
Advanced Imaging Technology
For Ferrari enthusiasts striving to produce images at top speed, the brand new Phocus 2.0 Quick imaging software by Hasselblad, which simply sidesteps any kind of complex post-production, will turn out to be the perfect tool. It features a toolset that matches the industry standards defined by Adobe and Apple.
One of the notable features is True Focus technology with Absolute Position Lock (APL), which allows you to capture close distance shots with a unique yaw sensor to measure angular velocity. The yaw sensor accurately measures and computes correct focus, making it much easier to utilise selective focus to gain a shallow depth of field.
Colour Accuracy and Lens Performance
The low noise colour filter of the H4D-40’s sensor provides for increased clarity and a perceived overall increase in depth of field. Natural Colour Solution (HNCS) achieves consistent colour reproduction using a single colour profile, and Digital Lens Correction (DLC) perfects each image captured through HC/HCD lenses by removing any trace of distortion or chromatic aberrations.
The wide aperture facilitates photography in poor light and provides a bright viewfinder image, making it a lens suited for almost any task in general photography.
Hasselblad has created Instant Approval Architecture (IA), an enhanced set of feedback tools designed to enable the photographer to focus on the shoot rather than the selection process. IA is a Hasselblad trademark, and Hasselblad has a patent pending on the invention.
The HTS tilt/shift adapter for the H4D-40 allows for portable tilt/shift photography with the HC/HCD lens range from 28mm to 100mm. An extra large 3-inch display on the H4D-40 provides a realistic, high quality, and perfect contrast image view, even in bright sunlight. Extended exposure time is up to 4 minutes (256 seconds).
Features such as live video for easier shot set up and workflow, and the ability to control the lens drive for focusing when the camera is in a remote position or when the digital capture unit is mounted on a view camera, bring an entirely new level of flexibility to the way you shoot.
