a couple of things i have discovered, might not be obvious:
a shade is handy if you are trying to see much in the LCD in bright light;
There are a number of items sold for this purpose. One I use is from Hoodman called the Hoodloupe ... a black rubberize loupe you can hang around your neck.
i may add some sort of shaded mask (like the crop screen in PS) in the viewfinder to match the 4x4 format
There should have been a new focusing screen included with the CFV kit to install in your Hasselblad camera that has the crop area clearly etched in. If you have that, and still want the area outside the etched area blocked out, there are a number of plastic versions available to insert in the viewfinder that were/are used for other 16 meg square backs. Ask a dealer
flexcolor can be downloaded for free as long as you give the your back ser. #
when tethered, FC will also load the latest firmware onto your back
don't expect the shots to look their best in the FC viewer, even after exposure, B and C, sat (i don't sharpen in FC). CS3 will finish them off fine
One of the drawbacks of Flexcolor was the low res. large preview. As a registered owner you can now download the new Phocus beta software which is a whole new ball game. Very similar to Lightroom while retaining all the same advantages of Flexcolor. You need to leave Flexcolor on your machine as Phocus draws on it for some things like color profiles
firewire tether to the macbook pro also supplies power to the back, you can leave the battery in your bag
This is true for desktop towers, but not lap tops. For lap tops you can get a Firewire 800 repeater with a separate power source from a place like Granite Digital. To shoot to a laptop in the field you'll need the battery. Hasselblad also makes a Image Bank that works with all of it's FW800 backs including the CFV. It holds 1000+ images and uses the same battery as the CFV does. It powers the back when connected.
sony ilink may work, but it will not supply power, as it is only two wire
FC is slow to process your .rrr file compared to C1 and M8 files, must be the bigger size?
Phocus is much faster, and will be even faster once the full version is optimized and released out of beta testing.
a few questions?
do .rrr files have to be processed in FC, or will C! or CR or LR do it?
Yes, you have to initially open CFV images in Flexcolor or Phocus. At that point you have the option to convert all images to DNGs and save them to a separate folder. This process is very fast.
what is the point of Fc changing .rrr files to .dng?
To be able to edit in other software that supports the DNG file format like Lightroom or PSCS3. I use Flexcolor or Phocus for commercial work and when tethered shooting to the computer screen, but when shooting weddings where I'm using multiple cameras, I convert the Hasselblad files into DNGs and drop them in the same folder with files from all the other cameras then sort by time shot. This organizes all the shots into a story flow as it happened regardless of which camera was used. Another reason is that other people are more comfortable using things like Lightroom.
I have to dig more into FC, but can you batch WB, for example?
Yes (see answer provided below.) Plus, when shooting tethered, you can white balance the first shot using a grey card and all the following shots will automatically be corrected.
is it possible to load a camera profile into FC that automatically sets a few things?
Yes, In the preferences there are options and those options will appear as choices when selecting specifics in Flexcolor
thx
jm