Hasselblad (Imacon) Flextight Scanners Discontinued

[Stuart Richardson]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I wrote a long letter in February appealing to them to update FlexColor to allow museums and labs and photographers to continue working, or even better, to incorporate the software into Phocus or a plugin that could work with Photoshop or Lightroom. I think I made a long empassioned argument, so long in fact that I will not bother to include it here. The response however, was complete corporate boiler plate, at which point I realized that they had absolutely no intention to do anything...I am also not surprised that they did not announce the discontinuation. I assume they have been sitting on stock for a long time now, just waiting until they absolutely have to discontinue.

 

This was the response:

Dear Stuart Richardson‍,

Thank you for contacting Hasselblad Customer Support.

We appreciate your point of view and we redirect your feedback and suggestions to our soft development team. 

Unfortunately, we are not able to comment about the future improvements and new software release. 

However, we will do our best to achieve our customers needs and expectations.

Please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,

Hasselblad Customer Support

Hasselblad.com

Edited June 6, 2019 by Stuart Richardson

[sarav]

35 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I wrote a long letter in February appealing to them to update FlexColor to allow museums and labs and photographers to continue working, or even better, to incorporate the software into Phocus or a plugin that could work with Photoshop or Lightroom. I think I made a long empassioned argument, so long in fact that I will not bother to include it here. The response however, was complete corporate boiler plate, at which point I realized that they had absolutely no intention to do anything...I am also not surprised that they did not announce the discontinuation. I assume they have been sitting on stock for a long time now, just waiting until they absolutely have to discontinue.

 

This was the response:

Dear Stuart Richardson‍,

Thank you for contacting Hasselblad Customer Support.

We appreciate your point of view and we redirect your feedback and suggestions to our soft development team. 

Unfortunately, we are not able to comment about the future improvements and new software release. 

However, we will do our best to achieve our customers needs and expectations.

Please feel free to contact us.

Best regards,

Hasselblad Customer Support

Hasselblad.com

...and that's all folks!

Just bought an used Imacon 848 with CLA in march '19. No more X1 or X5 in Europe. Probably I'll buy another almost perfect Flextight scanner. 3 of them should put me in safe area.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[sarav]

I hope Andreas Kaufmann will surprise all of us

[A miller]

1 hour ago, philipus said:

I am wondering if it isn't time to go public and try to drum up support from Flexcolor users somehow to show Hasselblad that they're leaving quite a few people in the ditch. Not sure how that could be done, though. Any ideas? I mean, emailing customer support won't go very far, methinks.

Good idea, Philip.  Why not try to stir the pot within the Yahoo Imacon users group?

[chrism]

My replacement shipping box for the X1 is arriving today if UPS tracking is to be believed. Hasselblad charges $310US for the box, and UPS charges $200US to get it here! The irritating thing is that I had the box stored in the basement of my office, but when I got sick and closed the practice I had a contractor clear out the building. I told him I wanted the box, but I guess it went in one ear and out the other. No point trying to get him to pay in a small village where he's the handyman I call for plumbing emergencies! I hope to keep using it for a while yet, but it's nice to have the box as one day either I or my wife will sell it.

I wouldn't hold out a lot of hope that Leica would step in; they seem to be just keeping the MA and MP going in small numbers as long as there is some demand for them. If they wanted to be in the scanning business there would be no need for a scanner that can do more than 35mm. I think the best we can hope for is that Hasselblad will let Ed Hamrick have the necessary information.

Adam, I have been playing Cassandra in that group for a long time with little effect. Most of the members are either using older SCSI models and are already limited to old computer hardware, especially hard-to-find SCSI to Firewire adaptors, or are using Windows. If Windows were to announce the end of compatibility with 32-bit software there would be more reaction.

[Stuart Richardson]

I think the only thing this might do is speed up the implementation of camera based capture. Phase One is already long down this path with the Division of Cultural Heritage, though unfortunately it is exceptionally expensive. My biggest hope is that perhaps Fuji might step in and design a good system for scanning originals with their line of cameras. They are a film company after all (even though they are getting rid of things), and their 100mp GFX is perfect for the task. The biggest challenge with camera based scanning is film transport and lighting, not so much sensor technology itself. If somebody finds a way to easily bolt a modern camera onto a good transport and lighting setup with a dedicated macro lens, then I think scanners will mostly be able to rest in peace. The biggest downside in this approach is that I cannot imagine how they might solve the film flatness issue as effectively as they do in drum scanners and virtual drum scanners. Without single line or PMT technology, you need a flat, static neg.  I have done camera based scanning myself with a copy stand, high end lightbox, versalab parallel and the Leica S with 120 macro, and as good as that is, it is still not as good as the X5 or a good drum scan. Perhaps with 100+mp and a dedicated transport it can be. 

[philipus]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Hi Stuart 

Yes it very well might. In a way this development is like Fuji simply handing on a platter to Kodak the majority of the film market and it truly annoys me. In my view Fuji is most definitely not any longer a film company, even though they include those four letters in the name on its digital cameras. If they were truly committed they would gladly absorb the additional costs for keeping film alive in their larger business practice. I know this is counterproductive from a business perspective but if they were committed, and actually felt that the films that they have developed, perfected and branded over the course of decades were valuable in the greater context of human artistic expression, they would do so. Sometimes one has to stand up for what one believes in.

Apologies for the tangent, we are now away from the purpose of this thread, methinks. 

I have also tried digitising with pretty decent result. But setting up a rig, ensuring film flatness, dealing with the orange mask for C41, keeping negs dust free and being able to scan larger than 35mm film easily are the main issues why I have until now only kept digitising as a curiosity.

But this is very possibly where the future lies, particularly if companies continue to chicken out like Hasselblad has done. It irks me considerably as a Swede that they - until now one of the staunchest supporters of film, on par with Leica, I would say - simply fold like this and that they do it in such a spineless fashion without even issuing a bloody tweet.

I think it is a disgrace, especially when there are alternatives to keeping the scanners functioning in a 64-bit Mac environment that likely won't cost the company much. It shames a man to turn down a free lunch as they say in Japan, and that is pretty much what Ed Hamrick is offering, if I understand it correctly. 

All this ranting to say that, currently I prefer to use film scanners. As I see it, and this is a very personal opinion, the X1 sits pretty much at the apex of the scanner ecosystem, not only for its extreme quality but for its ease-of-use and the flexibility of its workflow. Of all the various film equipment I have accumulated over the years, buying an X1 is easily the one decision that has had the biggest impact on the quality of my photography, so I would like to be able to continue to use it for as long as I possibly can.

 

16 hours ago, Stuart Richardson said:

I think the only thing this might do is speed up the implementation of camera based capture. Phase One is already long down this path with the Division of Cultural Heritage, though unfortunately it is exceptionally expensive. My biggest hope is that perhaps Fuji might step in and design a good system for scanning originals with their line of cameras. They are a film company after all (even though they are getting rid of things), and their 100mp GFX is perfect for the task. The biggest challenge with camera based scanning is film transport and lighting, not so much sensor technology itself. If somebody finds a way to easily bolt a modern camera onto a good transport and lighting setup with a dedicated macro lens, then I think scanners will mostly be able to rest in peace. The biggest downside in this approach is that I cannot imagine how they might solve the film flatness issue as effectively as they do in drum scanners and virtual drum scanners. Without single line or PMT technology, you need a flat, static neg.  I have done camera based scanning myself with a copy stand, high end lightbox, versalab parallel and the Leica S with 120 macro, and as good as that is, it is still not as good as the X5 or a good drum scan. Perhaps with 100+mp and a dedicated transport it can be. 

[philipus]

Is this a correct description of the situation?

PC: Flexcolor 4.8.9.1 works up until Windows 10. It is expected to be compatible with future Windows versions (or is there a similar warning re future compatibility?)

Mac: Flexcolor 4.8.13, being 32-bit, will work under Mojave, but possibly with restrictions and an error that it is not optimised for Mojave. It will not work from Catalina onwards.

Will Flexcolor for PC run on Windows using Bootcamp or a virtual machine on Macs?

 

[chrism]

I don't know anything about future changes that might come to Windows, but I would assume from my position of ignorance that if Apple had good reasons to drop 32-bit apps, then Microsoft may one day find the same reasons apply to Windows.

You're correct about Macs: any system up to 10.14, but not 10.15 or later.

VM in Macs: yes it runs, but it could not see the scanner back when I tried in Parallels v.11, which does not interact with firewire or Thunderbolt ports, only USB ports. It is possible, maybe even likely that updated VM environments will be able to see devices attached through USB-C, so the scanner might work with the right dongles.

Bootcamp (Windows on a Mac, not a VM): I haven't used it, and don't know how it would cope with peripherals and ports. It probably would work.

[wattsy]

I would imagine that the 64-bit Mac OS problem is simply the tipping point in the decision to discontinue the scanners. They may have been selling from stock that was manufactured (either partly of fully) years ago and the effort to keep the scanners in the catalogue may go well beyond just keeping the software up-to-date.

[A miller]

I am trying to put my finger on why i'm not worried....

[wattsy]

Yes, life is far far too short to be worried about things such as a scanner.

[chrism]

I don't know. It can take your mind off other things. Do you know where the S3 dermatome is? And what shingles is? Put those two together and you need some industrial strength distraction.....

[Ouroboros]

On 6/7/2019 at 8:27 AM, philipus said:

 

.....until now one of the staunchest supporters of film, on par with Leica, I would say - simply fold like this and that they do it in such a spineless fashion without even issuing a bloody tweet....

 

 

They did pretty much the same with the CFV-50c back and the V series before that.  It's disappointing but not entirely surprising that production of scanners has also ceased.  I've been expecting it for a few years.

Kickstarter, anyone......

 

[philipus]

Just an update. I heard back from the marketing manager at Hasselblad who confirms that Hasselblad has "ceased new production and sale of scanners Flextight X1 and Flextight X5 because of reduction in supply of important components necessary to ensure high quality in the products. At present there are no plans to re-start scanner production but Hasselblad will offer after-sales services as normal for the scanners in the market."

He will pass on to the product development team the information I gave regarding Ed Hamrick's willingness (if that remains) to adjust Vuescan to run the scanners. 

Br

Philip

[chrism]

From my source:

Quote

I'm sorry for the major delay and appreciate you being patient.  The software team has confirmed that for the time being, we will not be adding support via VueScan or any other third party application. 

Someone else has asked about making FlexColor open source so that end users can maintain and update it.  But our team has confirmed that this isn't possible due to restrictions on some of the source code and the restructuring required.  In addition to that, the source code is not useful for  a 64 bit system because as you know, all the UI code is strongly tied to a 32 bit only framework.  If anything changes with this, I will let you know.

To which I replied:

Quote

 

Thanks for getting back to me. I can't imagine why the software team would say that. Essentially they are say the scanner is doomed and we won't let anyone rescue it. I wonder if they are familiar with the fable of Æsop about the dog in the manger? Frankly it seems there is something rotten about this whole business. I have seen two monthly Hasselblad newsletters come out that still say nothing about the discontinuation of the Flextight line. It looks like a company trying to sell off remaining stock to unsuspecting customers, who will buy an expensive item with no idea it has been orphaned. It stinks. I suspect Victor Hasselblad would be disgusted. There is NO reason to prevent someone else making these scanners useable in the future. It won't cost Hasselblad a penny. Selling brand new scanners to customers who have not been told they are discontinued and the software is about to become useless will expose the company to lawsuits, and rightly so. This reeks of short-term bean-counters making decisions that may maximise profit for a quarter or two, but cause a huge loss of respect for the brand shortly after that. It makes me want to pick them up and shake them! I'm sorry you have to work for such idiots. By all means pass this e-mail on to everyone in the company so they may know how angry I am with them. At this point I may as well sell my X1 and manage as best I can with an old Nikon 9000 (also discontinued but still supported by VueScan and by Silverfast). It's a disgrace.

 

Now let me add that I am in no way cross with you personally. You have been a great help to me and you deserve to work for a more honest company than Hasselbald seems to be at present. My leukemia is sliding into relapse and there will be some more chemo shortly. Currently laid up with shingles in the worst part of the body imaginable. I can stand up to take some photos, and even to develop the film, but I can't sit down at the scanner to digitise them! If I could, I'd throw the bloody scanner at the software team, and I wish you'd tell them so! I don't know if we'll have occasion to talk again, but if not I wish you all the best for the future. If they change their mind please tell me about it. I've gone out on a limb promising the author of VueScan all sorts of support from users if he gets the necessary engineering details and comes up with working software. It's not just current owners being let down, but all those buying new scanners with no idea that they are buying a discontinued product, and then again, anyone who might develop software to keep them functional. Pretty hard to defend against a lawsuit where the plaintiff's case is that "You sold me a $25,000 scanner without telling me it was about to become useless." Maybe Hasselblad have no lawyers on staff. Oh, well, I hope it works out for those to whom it will matter in the longer term. I shan't have to worry about that - I have bought up five old Macintoshes to keep the scanner going. I daresay I won't outlive the first of them. Not my problem after that!

 

And the reply:

Quote

I'm sorry that it's taken me a while to reply.  I sent your email to my direct manager and few other managers.  I have hope that they will pass it on to the decision makers of the company, but I'm sure you already know not to expect any changes on this subject. 

I want to let you know that I appreciate your response and thoughtfulness.  I have been given a few reasons for the inability to move forward with FlexColor and with a third party, some of which I have shared with you.  They are logical reasons, but I still think that we should still try.  Even though the current 10.14 OS can be used, and an older computer can be dedicated to scanning, I think we should put forth more effort with this.

So it looks like Hasselblad has dumped us. No support from them, and no possibility of letting anyone else support the scanners. And I thought Swedes were reasonable and honest people...

[Stuart Richardson]

While this is very disappointing, I do not find it surprising in the least. They have not so much as looked at FlexColor for at least ten years. But as you say, they are delighted to sell it to unwitting customers. I wrote off Hasselblad in 2009, and nothing they have done since then has given me the slightest reason to change that impression. Their customer relations are the absolute worst of any camera company I have ever done business with.

[tjv]

Oh good God, I’m speechless about this... I have a 949 and an X1, bought new little more five years ago.

Any progress on getting Flexcolor to work on new OS?

If not, this is disgusting ethical practice.

[Doc Henry]

as long as we have people who find that an "approximate color and hypernet edges"  of an image and  back "clogged" or smoothed" are satisfying for them, the manufacturers will drop the production * ... at the time of wastage and overconsumption and of "what is fast" , the search for art in photography is not the concern of these people ! 

* but they are wrong

Best H 

Edited November 29, 2019 by Doc Henry

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[HeyAlby]

I guess im another Hasselblad sucker! I have the Flextight X1 and currently getting nowhere either on windows or Mac. Tech support not being helpful. Desperately need to get this perfectly viable and good quality scanner up and running. Any advice will be most appreciated.... I continue to hope for a solution.