Hasselblad Lunar camera on sale for $7,000

If you mention the name ‘Hasselblad' to any camera aficionado they are likely to start drooling. Their medium format cameras may be very expensive, but the quality is in a class of its own. They recently announced their new Lunar camera – the ‘ultimate luxury mirrorless interchangeable lens camera'.

The Lunar was first showcased at the Photokina 2012. It is the companies first move into this market. The name ‘Lunar' is surely to remind people that Hassleblads have been used in space, such as the iconic 500EL which was handled by Neil Armstrong to take photographs of the moon's surface.

The Lunar features a 24.3 megapixel APS-C (23.5 x 25.6mm) CMOS sensor and will accept E mount lenses. It is also the first camera produced by the partnership with Sony. It is very closely related to the Sony NEX-7, a big seller over the last year.

It measures 142 mm x 82 mm x 70 mm and weighs 570g. They are shipping a lens with the camera which looks to be a Sony E 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 OSS rebadged.

Both Sony and Haselblad camera have identical ISO ranges of 100-16,000 and a 25 point contrast detection autofocus system. Again, the OLED electronic viewfinder systems are the same 2.3 million dot units and there is a 3 inch screen which is tiltable and has 920k dots. Both cameras use the Sony TriNavi navigation system. The Lunar can also take a Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo, as well as an SD card.

Many people are annoyed that Hasselblad have ventured into this partnership with Sony, as the Lunar is so closely matched to the NEX 7, which is not surprisingly significantly cheaper. Hasselblad say that they have made some changes under the hood however, so both cameras are not the same.

There are five models in the Lunar range, using various materials such as brown Tuscan leather, black leather, carbon fiber and mahogany and olive oil on the grip. All of the Lunar cameras use Titanium buttons and the on and off and movie buttons have red jewels.

The cost? A cool $6,995.

Kitguru says: We didn't expect it to be cheap, but the Sony NEX7 is available for around $1,000.

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