Hasselblad Chrome lenses

[joe_dahlgren]

Does anyone have information about Hasselblad Chrome lenses? I am

wondering as to what order they are rated at as far as performance.

Which ones are the sharpest?

[stan_strembicki]

I think all the chrome lenses are equally sharp. The two issues you need to

be aware of is that the later versions-the ones marked with a T* are multi

coated and have improved contrast and greatly reduced flare. Some

Hasselblad lenses have some issues with flare.

 

The other more recent issue is that Prontor/Compur, the company that makes

the shutters, no longer makes repair parts for these lenses and mainsprings in

particular are getting in short supply. Many independent repair guys still have

an inventory of parts, but I recently read in "Hasselblad Reflections", the

company newsletter, that HUSA will soon not repair these due to a lack of

repair parts. This is not unusal in the industry, Nikon will not even take in F2's

for basic cleaning, and I recently had a T90 returned from Canon as repair

parts are NLA.

[russ_britt1]

ditto! What he said.

[stefan_kahlert2]

A planar 2,8/80mm, Sonnar 4/150mm or 5.6/250mm will ceratinly not disappoint you. The bigger impovements were in the wideangles. Chrome lenses can be had for not much more what a CLA by Hasselblad would cost. Have someone knowledgable check the lense and don't look back or get one with a sluggisch shutter for much less and have it CLA'd buy an independent repairperson asap.

 

I would not worry to much about these lenses becoming unrepairable, there are too many of them in our bags. I am pretty sure some will start a garage-business on this and have the needed parts custom-made. If anyone is willing to part with a nice CT*-Biogon (SWC/M) or S-Planar 5.6/120mm (T or T*), let me know!

 

best

 

Stefan

[tarashnat]

The C series come in two barrel colors with the older ones being popularly refered to

as chrome, sometimes silver, and the later ones are black. In the '70s, the lenses had

multi-coated anti-reflection coating applied (labled T*), starting with the wider lenses

before black barrels were available, and ending with the longer telephotos, where the

coatings had less impact on the image. As such there are chrome multi-coated wide

lenses, and black non T* lenses. For most of the C lenses both chrome and black

barrelled lenses are of identical design (for the same focal length/max aperture). Of

the C lenses, the 100mm Planar is supposed to be the sharpest, with least distortion.

The 150mm and 250mm Sonnars are also well rated, but fewer have used the

250mm. The 120mm S-Planar is great for close focus and macro, but gets softer at

longer distances. The 38 Biogon on the SWC is supposed to be an awesome lens. The

350mm Tele-Tessar is a good performer, though difficult to use handheld. The 80mm

Planar has coma in the corners wide open, but is still a great lens. The wide angles

50mm and 60mm are good performers despite being retrofocus designs (lens to film

distance greater than focal length). The 500mm Tele-Tessar is the poorest of the

bunch. There is a reason this lens is tough to sell on auction sites, or by the used

camera equipment brokers. This is the only focal length where I decided to purchase a

CF lens. Hasselblad and Zeiss have posted the MTF diagrams for the lenses, so one

should be able to tell which perform better in center and edge/corner sharpness.

 

For purposes of discussion of performance I treated the C lenses as identical despite

some of them not having a chrome version. The chrome lenses are generally cheaper

on the used market and the T* coating of the latter models is more desirable in the

shorter focal lengths. There is an older C type 80mm that is of a different design of

the later C type (5 elements to 6 in the newer version).

[edward_burlew]

The chrome lenses ar just fine!!! I have chrome non t* and new CFE's the chromes are great in B&W and excellen, yes, excellent in color. THEY ARE SHARP, the new lenses are the SAME GLASS but with better coatings, if you use a shade you really wob't see much if any difference. Just be sure to check the shutter, You will beable to repair these because independent camera repair shops have the peices. SO get them and use them.

[Rob F.]

What Stefan said. The 150mm Sonnar is especially fine. The 50mm Distagon is less distinguished for its optical performance.

[gary_ferguson1]

I've heard an independent camera repairer say that he's successfully cut down alternative springs for Hassie chrome lenses. With this option and the large number of "scrapped" chrome lenses providing other spares he argues they can be maintained indefinitely and economically, even if not conveniently.

 

In most conditions you'd be hard pushed to see the difference from a well shaded chrome 150mm or 250mm (I struggle to see appreciable differences betwen chrome examples of these two lenses and a modern 180mm, which is supposed to be one of Zeiss's finest, I can post samples if you're interested).

 

The 80mm and 50mm T chrome lenses aren't that rare, the 80mm T's virtually indistinguishable from a current 80mm and the 50mm T's no slouch at longer distances, but closer than about 4 or 5 meters and it can be slightly softer at wider apertures.