Ken Tanaka
pro member
Michael Reichmann, at his Luminous Landscape site, reports that Franke & Heidecke GmbH has filed bankruptcy. This clearly puts the future of the Hy6 in some doubt.
Well, Ken,Michael Reichmann, at his Luminous Landscape site, reports that Franke & Heidecke GmbH has filed bankruptcy. This clearly puts the future of the Hy6 in some doubt.
I do not know how Germany handles "insolvency" either, but The German Law Journal offers a lengthy treatise on the subject which I've not fully navigated. (Ain't the Internet terrific?)
In the even of liquidation, however, I doubt that Nicolas would be able to keep his gear. If the procedure is similar to the U.S. proceedings a court-appointed liquidator would recall all such assets so that they could be accounted and then sold (auctioned).
There must be a lot of value in the technology. I cannot imagine that the market wont drive interested parties to acquire the assets.Well, Leonardo
the earlier owners had different idea's about how to work with the new majority shareholder, the Hans R. Schmid Beteiligungs GmbH.
Mr. Schmid isn't really someone from the photo-scene; he's been making money with office-products, and has been investing > 10 Mio € in Franke & Heidecke to resolve the "failures of the past"
"failures of the past"
is out of the the recent press release from Franke & Heidecke GmbH
Ken,When the world's economies begin to meaningfully recover, perhaps two years from now, the commercial photography game will be played by many, perhaps mostly, new players. Will they still need mf cameras? Hard to say. But I can say that I'm not at all confident that the smart money would be on any medium-format digital back makers.
Geoffrey,While I am sure much of what Leonardo suggests has some truth, I don't think that F&H were idly sitting by watching their fortunes fade.
On the contrary, one possible reason for the loss is the usual Rollei affliction: too little too late, and fine fine optics that are a bit too meticulous for the market. Seems that extra edge they provided is just not competitive against the more value-driven products.
A noble effort to be sure, and one which I will sorely miss.
Well I'm just happy that I found this museum-quality Rolleiflex last summer. It works (almost) as good as the day it was made (circa 1959-1960).
Ken
It is interesting that you mention this camera, since this is basically what the Hy6 used as model to design their new system. The Rolleiflex is 6x6 format for the simple reason that a square has no horizontal and no vertical positions. If this camera was, say, 6x 4.5 you could not shoot portraits. Later cameras like Hasselblad adopted the square format since it was somehow established and because it also afforded the advantage of working with a simple waist level finder making the system cheaper and lighter. The Mamiya came with a solution to the problem by introducing a 6 x 7 format with a revolving back. This camera began to gain followers of the square format for the reason that printing material often comes in a non-square format and transparencies had to be cropped less on top of having more real state from the start. ( 6x6 as opposed to 6x7 )
So, Hasselblad understood that this square legacy had no meaning in the new world of digital and immediately, and with the help of Fujifilm, moved to the 6 x 4.5 format.
Franke & Heideck went in another direction.... the HYBRID one. They wanted to go in to the future with one foot while having the other one in the past. A camera that would be able to shoot 6x4.5 film 6x6 film, backward compatible with 6x6 lenses and at the same time the best solution for 6 x 4.5 available digital backs plus future 6 x 6 yet to be announced hypothetical ones for which there are not even available sensors.
So, a fighter/interceptor jet that is a bomber and troop carrier ...