Nikkor 135/2 or Hasselblad 501? How hard can life be...

It is the time of the year (actually not every year) when I have gathered enough

money aside from my job and am about to upgrade my photography equipment.

 

I have been into portraits for a couple of years now with my 50mm lens, and a

135/2 would be a "de facto" for this purpose. Suddenly, I got a great bargain of

a Hasselblad 501CM kit with an A12 back and a 80mm/2.8 T* lens. Both are around

1400$ here.

 

B&W is my thing and I already do a lot of square format from 35mm negatives in

my darkroom. I also have a dedicated light meter, so that wouldn?t be a problem

either. Well, Nikkor would be usable in digital bodies when the film gets

unavailable here in Finland (it is already very hard to find specific films from

here). I could never afford a digital back for the Hasselblad.

 

Damn, what a man should do.

you could get the 105 nikkor and save ots of money. it does not have a soft focus, but it will save youabout 1200$, and them i would buy an RB67 pro s. another $450 (ready to shoot. check with KEH. they will ship international) or so and you will have about $800 left over for more Rb lenses and FILM. thats just me. my RB is a super performer. i am not sure if the hassy is actually worth $1000s more?!?!?

 

keep us posted

eddie

I think it depends on your style. I already had a bronica sq-ai 6x6 kit when I bought the 135 2.0 Nikkor (AF-DC) roughly two years ago. While I loved the smoothness of the medium format portraits the MF stuff isn't ideal for available low-light, especially the longer lenses comparable to the 135 Nikkor (regarding the angle of view). Also I dislike those static portraits and prefer to get some shots of the person during the normal action. I was not able to do that with my MF gear.

 

So if you really want a narrower angle of view for your portraits the Hasselblad kit with the 80mm won't do it, you'll need a longer lens if you want to maintain the same perspective as with the 50mm - and the longer lenses need much more light than the 135/2.0 for the Nikon.

DEFINITELY go for the Blad kit. The lenses are unsurpassed in sharpness. They are unimaginably sharp, even wide open. I use the 80mm as a portrait lens all the time. Wide open, the subject is isolated and sharp, giving a 3 dimensional impression. It is worlds beyond any Nikon gear.

I went through the same thing almost two years ago. Not with the 135/2, but satisfying

an extreme craving for a Hasselblad. A desire for 20 plus years, I finally put it together on

ebay.

Same as you are considering, I got the 80. I think the 80 like the 50 is a perfect lens for

'enviormental' or multiple person portraits. It's just like the 50 in that when you move in

close it can distort in an unflattering way, or, if done properly it can be extrordinary.

 

I used it alot at first, and now as I become deeper imbedded in digital it sits in the bag.

I'm still glad I did it. Holding my own personal Hasselblad was something that needed to

happen, and it will make pictures that just won't happen with 35 or digital.

 

As Oliver pointed out, the shooting experience slows down considerably with the Hassy.

But, you'll never know if you don't do it. I think we can all imagine what the 135 will do

but it's hard to imagine a Hasselblad until you've really owned it and carried it around with

you all day. My infatuation may be over, as a matter of fact I have a portrait this weekend.

I think I'll take the Hasselblad, if I don't use it, I think it may be time for a trade. It's really

hard to say. You are still shooting film so that is very positive for the Hassy. Once you

make

the move to digital, it's going to become harder and harder to get around to taking it out.

That's what happened to me.

 

By the way, the RB will NEVER be a Hasselblad, and the 105, although nice, will never be

the 135/2.

Obviously, life is good. Here are a few snaps of and with my Hassy.<div></div>

oooh, looks like I resz'd that down a little too much. Oh well. The pictures are wonderfully

sharp.

Do a simple experiment to see if the 6 X 6 format is suited to your style. Get a TLR and 10 rolls of film and go out to see if you can "see" as the camera sees with a single lens and from a lower level than you are use to with a true eye-level finder. There are many older perfectly fine TLRs (some very cheap) sitting out there waiting to be used that can tell you a lot about if this format is for you before you jump to a Hasselblad.

 

I have a Rolleiflex 3.5F that has a killer lens. My Hasselblad lust was satisfied whn I developed my first roll of film from the Rollei. Working from a tripod with good technique, the Rollei can produce negatives that I can't do justice to in the darkroom.

 

FWIW, only the negatives are square. I print most everything in a more standard format (5X7, 8X10, etc...). I built a template to lay over my contact sheet to find the rectangular composition.

 

FWIW 2, I still have my Nikon gear (and yes, a manual 135mm f/2.0) for times a nd places that that system would be better suited. It is nice to be able to choose.

Hi, Tapio, finnic i suppose.

Depend how wide are your enlargement: if you don't pass the 18x24 or 30x40 buy the Nikkor 135 mm f/ 2. If you pass those dimensions, buy the Hasselblad 501.

Ciao.

There is no replacement for diplacement! Get the 'blad, particularly since you do your own darkroom work.

 

There are other superb MF systems, too, from Bronica, Mamiya, Pentax, and others. I, personally, don't like square and almost always crop to rectangles. And I don't mind turning a camera to portrait orientation. But that's just my preference.

Since you enjoy the darkroom experience and use the square format for your portraits, go

ahead and get the medium format equipment, but I would not invest $1400 in a non-digital

format at this point in the history of photography. You can get great medium format gear for

less money elsewhere. Enjoy!

In dealing with film vs. digital, my strategy has been to cautiously invest in medium and large format film equipment, and to agressively invest in Nikon DSLR cameras and lenses. Prices on Hasselblad and other MF gear has really come down as people sell the equipment for digital. $1400 is not a steal, IMO, but if it is the newer lens, and the kit is in demo or better condition, then it's not too bad.

 

The other thing is that the 135mm is a little long for portrait photography. You might consider the 85mm or 105mm instead. And, the 80mm is a little wide for portraits where you need to control the depth of field or focus point. It's just a little wide.

This man would go with the Hassalblad.

 

Your first enlargement will confirm that you made the right decision.

Oh if you've your own darkroom and you print black and white, go for the Hasselblad! It's the pinnacle of Medium Format and you'll enjoy it immensley. I loved shooting the square format with my Rolleiflex. You have infinite cropping inside the square and you just shoot first and crop later. I liked to print the full frame square images. Funny how so many subjects lend themselves to the square. You don't know until you try :-)

 

Also someone mentioned that MF isn't good for low light. Ahem, you can use fast film with MF and get away with it. Our standard was Fuji NPH 400 (exposed at 250) but we'd use Fuji 1000 for the ceremony. Prints always looked amazing.

 

I wish I could get back into the darkroom. I did a few years ago, but found that I've had enough of the chemicals on my hands and in my lungs. Back in the old days I can remember getting high after about a 5 hour printing session in the darkroom. Those chemicals do something to you in there.

 

Also I don't see film going away anytime soon, at least here in Seattle.

 

Dave

From your perspective, you probably can imagine the advantages of a 135mm f2 lens fully and clearly. The advantages of medium format are just as real, but they are quite different.

 

In the 6X6 format, an aperture of f4 gives about the same DOF as an aperture of f2 in 35mm. But you get only half as much light, so you have to use film that has twice the ISO speed rating. The increase in grain size is more than offset by the increased size of the negative, so you still get sharper results. But a more important benefit of the 6X6 negative is improved tonality and clarity. Unfortunately, these qualities are better experienced than described, and part of the effect is because emulsions for MF are different than for 35mm.

 

But once you get MF gear out of a studio, you can't avoid the "klunk factor". And this "klunk" inconvenience will become increasingly irritating if the MF results don't live up to your expectations. The extra quality of MF can be wasted on candid shots because of subject movement, poor lighting, poor composition, or poor focus. But conversely, with a larger MF negative, blur from camera motion is reduced. Also, you can crop MF more agressively, and that allows extensive adjustments in compostion during printing that are usually missed in 35mm shots.

 

You didn't say whether you do studio portraits, environmental portraits, or candid photography. If you need to frame a candid subject tightly and also to isolate it with a shallow DOF, it will be very difficult to compete with the Nikon 105mm f2.0 DC or the 135mm f2.0 DC. And if you do candid photograpy, autofocus would be really handy. But by the way, why do you say that 135mm is "de facto" rather than 85mm or 105mm?

 

You can experience the 135mm focal length with an inexpensive 135mm f2.8 AI lens, and you can experience the medium format format with a fairly inexpensive 6X6 TLR. Both may be worth the time and the effort before spending the amout you mentioned. Once you experience the basic photographic effects, you will be in a better position to choose one, both, or neither.

 

Cheers and good luck,

I have to say that the Zeiss 80mm Planar lens has a pop to it that no other lens I've ever used has. Even the 75mm Zeiss on Rolleiflex TLR cameras doesn't have the same pop (that lens has a different optical formula anyway). Printing from that 80mm Zeiss is a real joy, and nothing in 35mm can come close.

 

Cheers,

 

Dave

f/4 let's through 1/4 the light as f/2 not half the light.

 

The 501 is a fantastic camera that you will really ejoy using. I almost second the Mamiya RB recomendation. The RB and RZ67's are really verital cameras and their prices are looking really nice to me right now! They are big but they handel suprisingly well.

You have a Nikon with a 50mm normal. How do you like that normal lens? If you buy the blad, you will have another normal lens. That is fine if you like normal lenses, but if you think you need something longer, and for portraits it would probably be right, you would have to wait another year to get a longer lens for that Nikon or blad. That 80 is good, but if you end up cropping it into Nikon size, I would suggest it is better to get a new Nikon lens instead. But if you do like the normal lens in your Nikon, then the blad is clearly the best way to go.

Get the blad kit and an additional 105/2.5 Nikkor which you can get for less than $100.