Well, the rumour that I’ve written about previously is true: Hasselblad are discontinuing the XPan panoramic rangefinder camera.
According to this article in the British Journal of Photography,
The decision follows new EU regulations—known as ROHS approvals—which come into effect on 01 July, designed to cut back on hazardous waste.
The approvals state that new electrical equipment cannot contain lead, cadmium or many other hazardous materials.
This means that lead soldering can no longer be used in the cameras’ circuit boards. The use of non-lead designs are more complex and would necessitate a total redesign of the cameras.
…
He [Hasselblad CEO Christian Poulsen] predicted supplies would run out in the next two months, but promised that support would continue for another 10 years.
While I won’t say that their reason for pulling it is outright bullshit, I will say that it certainly smells like it. I could be wrong, but I fail to see why a solder change would necessitate a redesign at all: simply put lead-free solder in the wave solderer that assembles the circuit boards and that’s that. We’re talking about solder. It carries electricity between points A and B. We’re not talking about the banning of resistors here.
The article does go on to say that Hasselblad are working on a "tilt-shift solution" and that more information will be available at the Photonika trade show this September, so maybe it’s not all crap news after all.
Read article at the British Journal of Photography’s Web site
This is also affecting Pentax. A couple of their 645s now won’t be launched in Europe as a result of this ruling. it is expected it will also put up the price of replacement models significantly due to the redevelopment of the circuits. This is a really strange one. When I first read it in one of the camera mags, I thought it was an April fool’s joke! But sadly, it is true…
Well, that completely sucks, doesn’t it?