An old post...just for the record (dated: 2004) [will adjust the date later]
Just when you thought that Canon was leading with a 17 megapixel digitial SLR, it turns out that Hasselblad is way ahead with its 22 megapixel camera. (It was reported that a normal film camera has a resoultion comaprable to a 30 megapixel digital camera --- so the digital world is catching up quickly with the film world). The size of each image is about 130 MB and hence, the camera has a build-in hard-disk of about 60 GB.
The price is, of course, truly Hasselbladistic with the H1D costing USD 22,000. That makes it USD 1, 000 per megapixel.
Details are here and here.
For those who are "out-of-touch" or "no touch at all" with the subject, Hasselblad's cameras were the first ones to visit the space. Most Apollo-mission photographs, including the ones of the earth from space and the landing on the moon, used Hasselblad's early cameras. Hasselblad is a Swedish company with a very unique camera design. Their cameras are usually "modular" in design and one can change just about any module (without buying a totally new camera). For example, those who owned film cameras simply need to buy a digital back and fit onto the same camera to get a digital camera.
A "normal" SLR film Hasselblad camera is supposed to cost around Rs. 600,000 (something which I could not verify). Among the very few Mumbaikars that own Hasselblad cameras are Lata Mangeshkar (owner of a gold-plated Hasselblad) and Raj Thackeray.
If you take a look at the Gallery section on the Hasselblad website or Tim Flach's photography, you know that we are not talking about people who want to photograph their aunts, uncles, pets and anything else that they can fit in the frame, but for people who photograph for a living.
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