Image of the Hasselblad Lunar with new Zeiss prime.
Image via Kumadigital.
At the CP+ show in Japan also Hasselblad is present with the “Lunar” Nex camera. They still didn’t unveil any detail about the final release date and final price (which we all have no doubt will be very high). The picture on top shows it with one of the future new Zeiss primes for NEX, the 12mm f/2.8 Distagon. As you know the 2.8/12, 1.8/32 and 2.8/50 macro will be released in Summer. Below two more pics of the Lunar (via Kumadigital.)
Confess, you can’t wait to spend $6,000 bucks on this!!!! 
anonymous
4 months ago |this is ugly
Dimitri
4 months ago |Extreme aesthetic pollution! Cultural shock! Hassy, are you pervert?
Fire1
4 months ago |Beauty and the beast? O_o
LifeStoryImages.com
4 months ago |I agree – it is a schweeeeet-looking piece of beastly-advanced technology! ;^)
CTPhotographX.com
4 months ago |ah… ah… HaSoNy!
gazuntite!
CTPhotographX.com
4 months ago |OK… Hasselblad is the only current supporter of iISO?
Boy wait till they get the news. Victor’s gonna have a kanipshin fit.
Spuds
4 months ago |Every time I see one of those Hasselblad monstrosities I just think, what if a camera got busy with a tree stump… what would their kids look like…. Yep that’s what they would look like – a damn good reason not to let your camera date a tree stump.
Wayne Summers
4 months ago |LOL….
Nik
4 months ago |I keep worrying that this monstrosity is going to be cancelled; I really really want it to be released so someone can take one apart and uncover the nearly functional, mostly unmodified NEX-7 underneath.
southbymidwest
4 months ago |Admin, I assume you mean $6,000?
At this rate Sony will have released the NEX-11 before Hassy gets this thing out the door…
Mikestern
4 months ago |Both the original nex 7 and nex 6 have a beautiful grip for right hand. How sad to pimp that part up.
Rooru S.
4 months ago |I would throw away that camera, give me the lens
John Maverick
4 months ago |If they could push SONY to do fullframe electronics, and then produce a sleek conservative design in keeping with the Hasselblad name they’d have a winner.
redfern
4 months ago |Yeah, hopefully Sony is being well paid for providing their tech to Hassy, and that will help fund their R&D. But will it provide Hassy with a winner? I don’t know about that. I mean, honestly, which would you rather buy — a Sony with the Hasselblad name on it (and obviously so), or the Sony it’s based on for 20% of the price? In that scenario, all Hassy has done is help make Sony more sales. Unless of course there are plans for Sony to make Hasselblad-exclusive cameras with tech not offered on any of Sony’s line.
At the moment it’s hard to see what Hassy was thinking in this partnership, really. But whatever. Fools and their money are soon parted, and all that.
CTPhotographX.com
4 months ago |I don’t see how it costs them any more than the price of a NEX-7. Even less given the quantity discounts. They may not even need permission to do this, being similar to an underwater housing, or a covering of sorts.
grumps
4 months ago |Better be $60, so I can buy one to throw at a brick wall to show my disgust! It’ll be worth that much.
steve
4 months ago |I want to some Chinese make knock offs of this grip. its most ugly expensive thing out there. At least Leica has more style than this crap and its full frame.
devil
4 months ago |Haha, screw the hasselblad.
Just give us the zeiss lenses.
byazrov.com
4 months ago |this never stops being funny )
yosemite
4 months ago |Absolutely terrifying.
jack
4 months ago |What happened to the firmware announcement at the end of January?
Also, when will we hear more about this square curved graphite borcadoxymium Foveon-like sensor?
KIRIL
4 months ago |There was one couple days ago. To be available for download on 5th
Carl
4 months ago |So they aren’t going to ship their $5000+ camera with the 18-55? This disappoints me, somehow.
CTPhotographX.com
4 months ago |I know right… Even the Lens Rental Looney was delivered sans lens.
pixypig
4 months ago |$6000 not bad, im going to sell my leica m9 for one of these hassies!!
Ive always wanted to Hasselblad, now there one I can afford, awesome cant wait!!!!
Nik
4 months ago |I can’t let you do that, pixypig…
KIRIL
4 months ago |May be Hasselblad wait for nex-7 mk2 – ISO hotshoe,improved wideangle performance, PDAF, app support, camera retains in focus point selection mode between shots and a lot of maybes – better low light performance, dismantled shutter mode to exclude remote control, new EVF, 100/120p video, higher sync speed 1/250?
Is there more we can expect comming?
DiBok
4 months ago |The Rolls Royce is a bulky, ugly car (for my personal taste).
But – its attempt is to differenciate from “normal” people. Once you see a RR, you know that for sure somebody is owning it who has far more money than you have. Rich and/or excentric people love that.
So here comes the Lunar. Golfplayers or 20m boat drivers or others of this kind want to have something compact but not main stream, and the only existing exclusive camera in that size is Leica M (which is no camera for amateurs).
CTPhotographX.com
4 months ago |Yeah, but the Leica isn’t akin to a Sprinkle Donut.
grumps
4 months ago |A Rolls Royce or Bentley is worth every penny if you can afford it. Neither will disguise a mid range sedan in emperors clothing! This isn’t even close.
bart
4 months ago |Made for all the posers in Tokyo…Tokyo camera style!
Poki
4 months ago |Yep, can’t wait to spend 600 on this thing. (:
I hope that’s not the final barrel design of the Zeiss 12mm lens – looks not that good at all.
emopunk
4 months ago |I think the big new will be if they actually sell at least one Lunar. That would be the moment to shoot a pic, and post it on the forums.
ArnikFFM
4 months ago |You are not even funny!
Seems like SONY fans have nothing in mind but bashing.
Or SONY seems to cater to a social environment I cannot adapt to.
Whatever the final design may be, it may appeal to another class of people.
Those cameras are simply not made for you – neither the RRs.
But you should always keep in you limited minds: any OEM business (in case you know what that is) will help SONY to create the funds to develop more cameras and lenses for YOU !
So stop bashing and start enjoying the fact, that someone may like cameras you prefer to dump into the orcus of camera-hell. This may give you future opportunities to get happy, after all.
Carl
4 months ago |Bashing? Nay, we’re laughing along with the joke.
Jason
4 months ago |Hideous.
Slingers
4 months ago |I can’t wait for this camera to come out as they say they have changed the software quite a bit. Be interesting to see the differences between this and the new NEX-7m. However I have a feeling the 7m is a B&W camera.
AK-77
4 months ago |I do like the grip on this thing. I don’t need it in Noah’s Ark wood (hence the price I assume) but I like the size of it. I wish the future NEX got some more substantial grip…
ArnikFFM
4 months ago |It may sound hideaous to you …..
…. but honestly speaking: I follow the comments on SAR since months and I have to confess, that unfortunately those posts are beyond a certain threshold (at least for me)to quite a large extend.
If I look at similar sites of the competition, bashing their own brand seems not as popular as on any SONY forums – it’s a fact.
There is no reason to do so. SONY may be different in their approach to providing solutions, and yes, they are not necessarily following the paths of their major contendors, but why should they?
This is no reason to ban SONY to hell. They have excellent products, both for A and E mount and a host of well designed lenses, which even the competition highly respects.
The A99 is a different animal, but of quite astounding performance parameters, so are all NEXes. The cameras are even well acclaimed by CaNi-professionals and only some fan-boys of their leage put them down because it cannot be what should not be: SONY cameras are quite good, no matter what you say – so are the lenses.
I prefer to see the positive, rather than concentrating on some negative aspects, only. Negativism doesn’t help at all.
And if a well known company like Hasselblad thinks in a similar direction it may turn out well for all of us.
Freddo
4 months ago |Kinda agree with Arnik on this one. If you don’t understand or want a product, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is a bad product in itself. I can clearly say the Lunar is not for me, but I am equally certain that there actually are people who wants them.
As for the design, I can see some similarities with the hysterically expensive, high end large format cameras from Swiss ALPA, that also has some relation to Hasselblad (you can use Hasselblad film and digital backs on them). When you look at an ALPA 12 TC, the Lunar design actually seems a lot less confusing.
http://www.dezeen.com/2010/05/28/alpa-12-tc-camera-by-estragon-for-alpa/
Chenfei
4 months ago |+1
john
4 months ago |Sony should buy this company and release a new MF camera line called
Alpha-Omega
Carl
4 months ago |I’d rather they revived the Koni-Omega.
peterv
4 months ago |I agree with most of what you said. It will be interesting the see what serious photographic tools may emerge from this Sony/Hasselblad co-operation. At Photokina I spoke the a Hassy rep who said this Luna is just a design exercise and that we may expect more serious cameras in the future. Fingers crossed.
Ace Disgrace
4 months ago |That is one ugly make-up design. and its damn expensive?
Seriously look like a mini food processor with those knobs.
boris
4 months ago |That has to be one of the ugliest camera’s ive seen in a while, make that the ugliest camera.
Rene
4 months ago |During the Photokina everybody could have a ‘hands on’ with the Hasselblad Lunar. The handling of the camera is very good. Of course, it is bigger than a normal NEX 7, but it is still smaller than a semi-pro DSLR. My take: in your hand it is better than it looks in the pictures.
And given the fact that Leica sells a lot of camera’s and lenses during the past years, it is clear that Hasselblad needs to do something to enter in the up- and ‘high fashion’ market.
calxn
4 months ago |Or you can buy an RX-1, NEX-7, and one of the new Zeiss. This is one ugly monstrosity. If they really wanted to differentiate themselves, they should have wrapped the NEX-7 in a chrome body with leather wrap and charged $1k more.
AG
4 months ago |What’s with only 1 white glove.
James
4 months ago |That is one fugly camera.
Harry Lew
4 months ago |Where’s my barf bag?
Roni
4 months ago |I guarantee that 3rd party accessories will be around soon to wrap onto NEX7s and turn them into Lunars for probably $200. Ridiculous.
BB
4 months ago |Total production, 16. For wealthy people who don’t have to take pictures for a living but just to look cool. I’m not bitter, really.
Seeky
4 months ago |After reading the comments, I understand the subjective qualifications given by most, but remember there’s a crowd out there waiting to grasp these exquisite pieces of craftsmanship covering honorable Japanese innards…
emilio
4 months ago |i hope this is not the final design of the Zeiss 12, look at the size of the front glass, now look at the size of the plastic barrel… why? why, for the sake of govinda… do we need all that plastic bulk?
and the curved petal shape? why don’t just follow the classic Zeiss design line? maybe this is indeed targeted at teenagers and children.
Gabriel
4 months ago |The camera will be better looking if the plastic parts in the lenses are also replace by wood.
Wayne Summers
4 months ago |This camera is pointless,but if it helps sony then am ok with that..
Maxwell
4 months ago |If you buy one it only says
- you got to much money and very bad taste.
mjp
4 months ago |tackey
simon
4 months ago |why do you even bother to post that here? nobody wants to read about that we just want to forget.