Perfect for the Investment Banker Who Has Everything

From last Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.

Duly noted.

Mike
(Thanks to Jeffrey Goggin)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Paddy C: "Try as I might to ignore these every time I see them, so as not to get riled up, I always fail. I cannot help but feel that these cameras represent the worst aspects of our consumer society (and by extension our nature). That can be said of other products certainly, but these take it to new heights. I should add that I haven't a clue what the 'Swedish Tradition' of these cameras is. Italian design, Japanese engineering maybe. But Swedish? Tradition? Sigh."

B. R. George: "I remain a little confused about why the kit lens for the Lunar isn't the Zeiss-branded 24mm. It wouldn't cut into the margin that much, proportionally speaking, and it seems like it would be much more consistent with the premium image they're trying to cultivate. Of course it doesn't matter from a photographic perspective, since I can't imagine anything to do with photography is a major factor in the purchasing decision for this kind of thing, but it seems like it would be preferable just from the perspective of producing the Vebleniest possible Veblen good."

Comments

[Andy K]

They also have the same ad in last month's Aperture magazine. What they hope to accomplish with that I cannot fathom.

[Terence Morrissey]

Thats pretty bad!

[Manuel]

Don't get us started, Mike...

[Ting-Li Lin]

This makes much more sense than the one in the current issue (Winter 2013) of Aperture magazine.

[rnewman]

Afraid that purchase, as good as it is, will have to wait until after tomorrow, when I hit the Megaball for half a billion dollars...

[hugh crawford]

The camera world version of the Aston Martin Cygnet AKA Toyota Scion iQ

Willoughby's is a pale imitation of it's former self as well...

[BH]

*sigh*

[Gingerbaker]

...This fixation you, and a lot of others, have on the Hasselblad stuff is not about form vs function--it is class envy....

[Comment heavily edited... --Ed.]

[Dennis]

Nice touch putting the prices in the ad. That way, it effectively reads:

Italian Design, Swedish Tradition
bunch of technical stuff you don't understand
Priced high enough that the common folk can't buy it.

- Dennis

[g. carvajal]

must be from the same designer of the new flickr pages.

[B. R. George]

Paddy,

The ‘tradition’ is the traditional Swedish high-value trademark brand name.

[Cyrus]

If this is what it takes to get those same investment bankers out of the Leica market, and to bring the prices of the digital M's down from the stratosphere, by all means, buy away!

[Mike]

I think I'll buy a set to go with the JonyIvesLeica, in the display case. Or maybe not!

As Paddy said, these products represent the worst of our self-aggrandising consumer culture - something I find abhorrent. Perhaps their only use is to make my Leica seem sensible.

Mike

[Roger Botting]

Having worked for a bank, as a nobody, this is the season for year end bonuses.
Those on the upper floors get BIG bonuses, often equivalent to a years pay. Or more!
While these Scrooges nickel and dime their staff and customers all year long, this is when they go out and spend like drunken sailors.
And since the sharp pencil gang usually knows little of the other 99%ers world, why would they know a rebadged pedestrian camera from a prestige brand of camera.

[icexe]

So sad to see a once great camera maker reduced to basically bolting overpriced wooden handles on another manufacturer's last-generation cameras.

And I don't care how much disposable income you have, if you spend it on something this gaudy and pretentious, you deserve to be mercilessly laughed at.

[Bruce Appelbaum]

Jeez, I didn't know Willoughby's was still open.

[Michael Bearman]

Forget the technical stuff - the price doesn't stop them all being butt ugly.

[Tim Fitzwater]

At least Leica's are Leica's. My god.

[Jeff Grant]

It's so sad to see Hasselblad led down this path. I'm struggling with what is 'Swedish Tradition' in an Italian pimped, Japanese camera. This sort of nonsense is part of the reason why I don't own a Hasselblad any more.

[Jnny]

For that price they can't give you a constant aperture zoom?

[Pete Atkinson]

It's really just a recruitment advert for the Marxist revolution.

[Mike]

Yuck

[Svein-Frode]

Talk about tyring to ruin one of the greatest brands in photographic history. Who let a Trojan horse inside Hasselblad?

[blackmagic]

Moral questions aside, those Lunar must be among the ugliest cameras ever made. ¿didn't you have a contest a while ago?. Perhaps it's time to run it again! :-)

[John Robison]

What! No "fine Corinthian leather"?

[Mike Plews]

uffda!

[James]

I'm really curious about what their actual sales numbers look like. We all know how ridiculous it is. The real question is, is it working?

[Jim Howlett]

How sad to use the Sony Nex 7 for this project.

[Scotto]

As a counter point to the many comments above, I think view this positively.

The target customer is one that is largely uneducated (as it relates to photographic equipment, is status conscious, and has a large amount of discretionary income. If you were to step back in time 40 years, I would expect that a material portion of their V series sales were to this same group. Tastes change. This demographic is not going to purchase the newest evolution of that format, a phase 1 MF camera, I would presume mostly due to its form factor. This camera allows those customers the same satisfaction value of owning Hasselblad in form factor that fits in the console of their yacht.

So why be happy? This product likely subsidizes other Hasselblad products. From an economic point of view, this is a mechanism for a natural redistribution of wealth in a direction which most benefits society as a whole. More disgusting to me is the needless/often disposable items targeted at uneducated consumers which do not have disposable income.

Would I purchase one? No. Then again, I don't quite fit into the demographic above (and I'm not taking about my photographic aptitude). If I want a wooden handle for my Sony, I'm sure there's something comparable available on ebay.

[A. Costa]

It is in the same bad-taste league as the gold-plated H&K 9mm PDW submachineguns somebody gave to S. Hussein as a present...