Well this is certainly a weird way of trying to make money on cameras: Relounch (website here) offers a subscription service which costs $99 per month. For that you get a camera with one button only(!) and a photo development service:

At Relonch, we understand that you shouldn’t be forced to deal with a bunch of hassles to get the remarkable photos you want. We’ve replaced the traditional Chain of Pain with a single small round button. With Relonch, you get:

1. An image capture device that is perfectly pre-configured with a large sensor and the right lens
2. Pictured Technology – a different approach to photo development that applies the best settings for each object in the photo and takes lighting conditions into account.

Only this technology ensures that you get remarkable photos with just one click.

Luminous Landscape had a chat with Hasselblad CEO. We finally got an answer about why the camera shipment has been delayed multiple times:

Hasselblad had the problem of how to ramp up manufacturing, and how to fix issues in firmware so they wouldn’t deliver a camera that was buggy.  And, to complicate things even worse, there was the Kumamoto earthquake that severely hit many Japanese camera makers as well as the Sony chip plant. 
He (CEO Perry Oosting) certainly wishes to apologize to those that have ordered cameras and wants to reassure everyone that the team at Hasselblad is working very hard to get orders out the door. He knows they should have been more transparent and wanted me to express this to those that read this.  They need to and will do a better job in the future.

But at last the cameras are shipping:

As of today, Hasselblad is now shipping cameras with version 1 firmware.  This shipping firmware has some things added since the early firmware, and many people will enjoy these, like Auto-White Balance and especially the ability to select from 30 AF points. They feel the majority of shipments will begin in January with higher quantities of product. Hasselblad will offer anyone who ordered an X1D in 2016 an extra six months of warranty as a way saying Thank You and We Are Sorry.

And Dpreview started testing the camera and writes:

The samples I shot with it demonstrate that we have some great resolution and dynamic range to look forward to. With such a large sensor, and the ability 50 million pixels gives for magnification, there is little room for focusing error, but the amount of detail that it is possible to record is fantastic.
The dynamic range also allows for plenty exposure latitude and curves adjustments before tones begin to separate and before noise becomes an issue.
I don’t know if Hasselblad has finished tuning the sensor’s color, but I have been very happy with skin tones and the way a wide range of shades have been rendered.

Preorder the camera at BHphoto (Click here).

A quick glimpse into the future:
CAOS-CMOS Camera brings a 1000x Dynamic Range Improvement (Image Sensor World).
Metalens works in the visible spectrum, sees smaller than a wavelength of light (Opli).
Non-Iterative Image Reconstruction for Quanta Image Sensors (Mdpi).

Seomthing else:
New Fujifilm EF-X500 flashgun (Fotograficoweb)
4K video of the the Himalayas show with the Sony 6300 (youtube.com/watch?v=-hQURVc5Lv0)

That’s quite a futuristic approach: Canon patented a sensor that can be bended to become curved. But why does this make sense? Well all current Canon lenses are designed for flat sensors. They wouldn’t work on a curved sensor camera. If you have a sensor capable of being both flat and curved you can solve that issue. If you attach one of the current EF lenses the sensor gets flat. At the same time if Canon would release a new lens designed for curved sensor it would work on the same camera too.

Lenses designed for curved sensors have multiple advantages:
– At same aperture the lenses designed for curved sensors will be much smaller than “normal” lenses
– At same size the lenses designed for curved sensors will be much faster than “normal” lenses
– Lenses designed for curved sensor can bring you 100% corner to corner sharpness.

Will that patent ever make it into a real Canon camera? I doubt it…it sounds way too costly :)

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Patent found via Egami

Adobe added the official support on plenty of new mirrorless cameras:

• Canon EOS M5
• Fujifilm X-A3
• Google Pixel
• Google Pixel XL
• Hasselblad X1D
• Leica TL
• Olympus E-M1 Mark II (*)
• Olympus PEN E-PL8
• Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ2500 (DMC-FZ2000 and DMC-FZH1)
• Samsung Galaxy S7
• Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge
• Sony Alpha a6500 (ILCE­-6500)
• Sony DSC-RX100 Mark V

What a bummer! The Hasselblad X1D will now start to ship out on February 2017 only(!) according to BHphoto (Click here). The camera was originally supposed to start shipping out in late August. That’s a six month delay!!!

UPDATE: Small good news: At GetDPI Hasselblad officially stated this:

“Hi guys,
Our previous communication here is still very valid and we are fully committed to start fulfilling end-user orders this month. Unfortunately, we will not be able to fulfil all the backorders this year, but we are doing all we can to ship out as many X1Ds as possible.
We will communicate more firm dates and volumes shortly. We kindly ask you for your patience.
// The Hasselblad Team”

So it seem the new February date reported by BHphoto is for NEW orders only.

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Note: This news was first posted on Mirrorlessrumors. Please do not copy without proper credit thanks!

We got some news to report about the two High End MFT cameras:

Olympus E-M1II:
Despite US stores like BHphoto, Amazon, GetOlympus and Adorama saying the E-m1II will ship next week Olympus Japan said shipment start is December 22.

Panasonic GH5
The GH5 is rumored to start shipping out in April 2017. And there are somew good news to report:

• GH5 has on sensor stabilization.
• 2 SD slots for the GH5.
• No more limit about the duration of recording. 29 minutes in Europe.
• The audio XLR microphone hotshoe mounted I/O interface will be compatible with the DMC-GH4.
• The main sizes are identical of the GH4. Advantage : You can use ANY same accessory like Cage, Etc. from your previous GH3 or GH4.