suggest a 5x4 camera with Hasselblad lens

[frank_menesdorfer]

<p>I agree with you, I begin with a very simple 4x5 linhof kardan standard which I brought for $70 and got it for many years brought one lens that was a little bit more expencive and I still have that one left. And I dont think I have a better equipment today either as I got this Linhof color s and an old Technica III. and I'm still happy with both. It does the job for me.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>The Hasselblad "adapter" is a joke. It looks like an old-style, 10mm Hasselblad extension tube screwed to a lens board. You could do that yourself for half the price (about $100 for an used extension tube).</p>

<p>The shutter in an Hasselblad lens is cocked and released from the rear (notice the "screwdriver" shaft). Without an elaborate mechanism, you'd have to remove the lens board to do either. There are Hasselblad lenses which have no shutter, which would work if you have a Speed Graphic and use the focal plane shutter. I suppose you could use a shuttered lens that way too, by cocking it with a coin, leaving the shutter open, and using the DOF preview to manually control the diaphram.</p>

<p>Even so, an Hasselblad lens covers an area only slightly larger than the intended 6x6 cm film size - a mere hole in the middle of a 4x5. Finally, the flange-to-film distance is fixed at about 60 mm regardless of focal length - too close for any movements, and possibly closer than physically possible on a Speed Graphic.</p>

<p>Then there's the matter of focal length. A "normal" lens on a 4x5 has a focal length of 150 mm to 180 mm. A 90 mm lens is considered very wide and a 75 mm lens (the shortest most people will ever use) is super-wide. An expensive lens for a 4x5 would cost about the same as a used lens for an Hasselblad, and probably (due a simpler design) produce sharper images. Either would cost more than an entire Speed Graphic kit with a 127 mm or 135 mm "standard" lens and a bunch of film holders. Film to lens distance for common LF lenses is roughly equal to the focal length, so even the shortest 4x5 lens allows more space than any Hasselblad lens.</p>

[paulcooklin1]

<p>OK, thank you.</p>

[garethspics]

<p>Paul<br>

Check your E-Mail for the guy's contact details.<br>

For me, the pleasure of LF is in the large negatives and the lovely prints. I have taken the Graphic up onto the ski slopes, there's so much light you can easily shoot hand held with ISO 100 film. It really is a great camera to learn all the in's and out's of LF</p>

 

[paul burd]

<p>I did overstate about leaf shutters being impervious to the weather; they're not sealed like the new camera lenses are sealed, but what I've always appreciated about them is that, like the old Timex commercial "they'll take a licking and keep on ticking." A lot of my career has been spent photographing architecture, and when I get an exterior assignment I always start out before daylight and shoot the light until mid-morning and vice-versa, and I'm nearly always there four hours at time. Interestingly, it seems that a lot of those assignments occur in January/February.<br>

I've literally been standing behind the camera for hours in -20 F with 20mph winds. A typical digital camera (a D-200 in my case) stops working after about 20 minutes--the battery simply gets too cold to work--and even by keeping one battery warm in an inside pocket and swapping it when the other stops working, I'm pretty limited as to how long I can shoot. The view cameras with leaf shutters have never stopped working for me--not when I was shooting in high winds and driving rain from the top of a crain, and not when I was shooting at -30F and my hands were so cold I could barely cock the shutter. I do, however, take the lenses in and have the shutters checked and lubed at regular intervals.<br>

I don't get too many view camera assignments anymore--most everybody wants digital and they don't really care if the perspective is skewed. While my next piece of professional equipment will be a D3x with the 24 mm PCE lens, I still feel that nothing offers the perspective control of a view camera, and in many situations it is still by far the best tool for the job. I've spent plenty of time behind both Crown and Speed Graphics, and they have done their jobs admirably even with the 1940's lenses: they did what they were designed to do and they did it very well. Most of my LF work does involve large swings and tilts, however, so I usually go into the field with the Sinar and Rodenstock lenses which for what I do seem to be the best tools for the job.<br>

If I were starting over today and really wanted to learn about photography, I'd buy a cheap Speed Graphic and upgrade the lenses (I prefer Rodenstocks for most focal lengths), and it would probably do everything I needed it to do (maybe I'd have to use a little ingenuity for those extreme movements).</p>

[ilkka]

<p>I can think of two reasons for this kind of adapter to exist, apart from the possibility to use a Hasselblad lens on a 4x5 for closeups. There are small format view cameras, using 6x6 or 6x7 backs. Linhof makes one meant for digital use. One could also want to use a V system digital back on a view camera with Hasselblad lenses to get some movements. As the sensor is smaller than 6x6 film, one could get a bit more shift than on full frame film, and with back tilt or swing the movement would of course only be limited by the bellows. For this to work, there would need to be some way to use the lens shutter. Hasselblad made a flexbody back that was based on similar concept, enabling movements with Hasselblad lenses. This lens board would be a cheaper way to achieve the same for somebody who already has a view camera. I have a Hasselblad film back adapter for a 4x5 so I can use normal view camera lenses and movements with a 6x6 Hasselblad film back, or a digital back.</p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>With my 35 and 50 megapixel 4x5 scan backs; the active scan is 7x10 cm. With a lens for MF that is used for closeups; at 1:1 than 6x6cm lens will cover about 12x12cm on the film/sensor. Thus a MF lens if decent for closelups is useable in the 1:1 to say 1:4 range; if one just uses a 7x7cm scan at 1:4. None of this is really new; it has been done since LF scan backs came out in 1995. Here I often use a MF or LF enlarging lens with closeup work.</p>