Hasselblad 503CW or Bronica SQ-Ai

I love the Hasselblad glass and, of course, they are extremely durable. But, the Bronica is way more user friendly. IMHO.

Go for the bronica, poor mans blad , hassellblad lens has the edge but hardly noticeably, I have used bronicas for the last ten years , my buddy is a blad user , I cant see much differnce , hasselblad , prestige , like you I am a audiophile who will allways be for two channels only

I always liked shooting with my rollei 6008, just as sharp and contrasty but german engineered or you could always go old school with a sl66e and one of their tilt/swing lens. Had the Hassleblad 555eld digital and had nothing but problems with it, lens kept getting stuck in the middle of a shoot whitch required that it be sent back to service. When not shooting for clients, I always loved my twin lens rollei.

I've been a professional photographer for over twenty years now. Been shooting constantly since I was about six (1966). Most of my work currently is in Advertising and Photographic Illustration. If you're interested you can see some samples of my work on my website which is currently getting a facelift. I can tell you without any hesitation whatsoever that it is the person behind the tool, and not the tool itself that makes the pictures better or worse. I've seen absolutely brilliant and gorgeous photographs that were made with pinhole cameras, and absolutely horrible photographs made with the finest, most expensive 8X10 gear.

If your question is strictly about the quality of construction and reliability of the gear in question, in no way shape or form can Bronica gear compete with Hasselblad...at least the stuff I've seen and handled. Also, if you want to rent lenses, backs, digital backs, or if your camera breaks down and you want to rent a spare till it gets fixed, just try to rent Bronica gear all over the world. You ain't gonna find much of it, and for good reason: It will not hold up to the rigors of professional use as well as Blad gear will, and a few other medium format brands. The Zeiss lenses are also second to none. If budget is your primary consideration I would sooner go Mamiya than Bronica as the availability is more widespread on the rental gear, and the samples I've seen and worked with are better made and designed. In all fairness to Bronica, I have not handled the SQ-Ai, but have handled several of their previous encarnations and they'd have to come a long-mile to sell me on an improvement that large. If you are serious about it, spring for the Blad. Also, they're all going to require maintenence at some point and the Blad stuff will be easier to get repaired in most places.

Also, the reasons you quoted for getting into medium format are diverse; Architecture, Landscape, and Family Pictures. There are no hard and fast rules over which format to use for each type of photography, but if I may suggest some generalizations that you can take or leave for whatever they may be worth: In general landscape is often best accomplished with a wide, horizontal format. With architecture one also does find oneself depending largely on the wider angle lenses, though for architectural detail a normal to long lens and square format is quite wonderful. Family photos demand speed and spontanaiety to capture fleeting expressions, gestures, and moments. If you do choose the square format of the blad, you may want to also get one of their wide angles like a 50mm for your hankerings towards Architecture and Landscape. Experience will get you fast enough with it to use for spontaneous work, but it sure does take a bit to really get comfortable. It ain't no point-and-shoot, that's for sure. I can't recall if the 503CW has a metering system integrated into it or not, but even if it does it may be rather slow to follow through and be spontaneous with. I guess I'm playing devil's advocate here, but if someone came to me and told me their needs were those you cited, I'm not sure I'd steer them to a 6X6 (square format) SLR Medium Format camera at all. Have you checked out some of the rangefinder type medium format cameras like the Mamiya 7? Those take a bit of getting used to if you aren't used to rangefinders, but a horizontal format may be a good thing for you, and it seems they're a bit faster to use than a Blad. Lenses are reported to be outstanding. Also, if you don't need to go to medium format at all, the Hasselblad X-Pan is a brilliant camera and very versatile for some of the purposes you are after. Metering is very accurate. Lenses are brilliant! It is very fast to use if you can get used to the rangefinder aspect of it. Just a few things to consider, and I'm just rambling on here. An unusual place to be talking so much about photo gear too, but lucky for you (or not, depending how you look at it) but I don't post or read any of the photo chat sites as there isn't enough time in the day!

Good luck on your quest!

Marco