Hasselblad 500cm Dead?

[ted_ylauan]

<Is this camera really a Fuji licensed by Hassleblad as somebody suggests here? Does somebody know?>

 

The newsletter I received directly from Hasselblad says the H1 is "a joint venture with Fuji". However, exactly wht that implies is anybody's guess. The X-Pan Hasselblad/Fuji venture does come to mind.

[larry_lambert1]

What a robust tool is a 500 series Hassy, let's look at the list of things that it has survived: transition from b&w dominance to color, transition from color tranny dominance to color neg dominance, invention of autoexposure, invention of autofocus, invention of digital... see where I'm going? Your prospective 500 c/m has already survived at least one owner, maybe more? If you don't unload it so that you can jump on the bandwagon and "GO DIGITAL" (seen that phrase on Ebay MF auctions more times than I can count) you'll probably give it to your grandkids. The list of survivals will continue, and not just because they're built well. People like me love them, and we will continue to as well, because I can't warm up to the demise of: EOS 1D, EOS D60, EOS D30, EOS D2000, D1x, D1h, D1, E2n (anybody here even remember that blip on the digital radar?), E20, E10, N1, DCS 760...soon EOS 1ds and DCS 14n will join the list. Where's the longevity in digital? I said it on a post before, whatever digital you have now will suck a year from now. All those who sold out their Hassy systems for the latest greatest digital, Kodak Nikon and Canon thank you for the R&D dollars, and they hope you continue to suck up the digital revolution.

[fotografz]

Larry, the trick with going digital is to wait until the technology reaches

the point of serving your needs, knowing full well that the next thing will

will exceed what you need. I waited to go digital until the Nikon D1-X

came along which beautifully fills my need of 8X10 color candids in my

wedding business. I waited until someone came out with a unteathered

digital back for MF (Kodak), to shoot wedding formals that will be

printed to display size. I've ordered the Kodak 14meg Nikon mount to

fill the in-between needs. That completes the circle of body needs while

my huge investment in lenses remains valid through all the changes. They

can invent their asses off from now on but my needs are filled. Anything

more would be expensive overkill. Besides, what a lot of people do not

understand is that huge meg count files are a pain in the ass to process.

They slow down productivity and produce results that will never be

realized in actual application. You just end up resizing them to feed into a

300 dpi printer anyway. My Kodak digitally produced prints are

indistinguishable from those scanned from Hasselblad film.

[larry_lambert1]

Marc, your position is 100% valid. See my post on the E-20 review.

[richard_reddy]

Reports on the death of 500 series cameras are greatly exaggerated! I bought a 500 C/M and love the camera. It is a work of art by itself, with great optical and mechanical refinement. I have a few lenses 80mm Planar CF and 250mm Sonnar. Plan to add a 150mm Sonnar and probably the 60mm Distagon. Also have a Pentax 67II with a full compliment of wide angle lenses, including a fisheye and am quite happy with the images.

 

I recommend used equipment without a lot of wear, and CF series lenses with Prontor Shutter, as opposed C series with Compur shutter. The H1 will accept film backs, but the square format is better. Medium format has an optical price, and what I want in return is a generous increase in film area over 35mm format. 2+1/4 square makes it, but 645 does not. Hasselblad has certainly changed their tune! For many years they condemned 645 format, insisting it was a bad tradeoff, while extolling the virtues of square format.

 

Also stayed away from the 2000 series bodies with focal plane shutters. There were reliability problems, and I don't know

all the details--but Pentax 67II has an excellent shutter, and very fast medium lenses. The cameras are roughly equal.

For a rectangular print, the Pentax wins, because you'd have to crop a Hasselblad negative. For a square print, it would be necessary to crop the 6x7 negative, and the Hasselblad would deliver substantially better results. Obviously, leaf shutter lenses are much better for artificial light.

 

I still don't like 645, but a lot of people do. I think H1 lenses are actually made by Fuji. I have four Fuji view camera lenses and wouldn't complain about that! Superb glass, and remarkably efficient, low-cost production. That's business.

 

You should know that revolution is a poor choice of words for digital. In revolutions, people become free, but in digital

photography they are tethered to computers. That's why you'll find seminars on Photoshop, a very complicated beast, and digital workflow in most US cities. A lot of people would rather give you a seminar than hustle work in commercial photography. Can't say I blame them. It's more like a hostile takeover!

 

Now speaking as a physicist, with undergraduate background in computer science, digital is pretty cool. Right up my alley! It can also be a lot of fun. But the best digital rig doesn't hold a candle to 35mm film, in spite of advertising claims to the contrary. Digital has millions of pixels and film has billions of grains of metallic silver. Pixels are all the same size and the silver has a wide size distribution. Digital is perceived as "realistic" because it has a large color palette. However the art of B&W photography has no color, and relies on resolution. Digital cannot take you there. The same is

true of transparencies and delicate, beautiful Polaroid prints--where sharp lines make everything work.

 

So the idea of "going digital" is like saying you will remove the hammers from your toolbox, and use screwdrivers for

everything. You won't find Boston Symphony replacing the grand pianos with a digital synthesizer! Too many music lovers. Likewise, the Great Chiefs of Europe have the deepest contempt for McDonald's and Burger King. That is really what digital does, mostly--it serves commercial interests where the end product, newspapers, magazines, web sites, et cetera, where output is less than 300 DPI. Digital is actually overkill for what we see every day, very low resolution.

High definition television is low resolution...

 

I don't want to rant too much against digital. I use it and am quite resourceful with post-processing, storage, backup and archiving. Digital prints are getting better--but I don't trust the claims of manufacturers on archival quality. Most of my digital prints have been wiped out by sunlight, while photographic prints on the same walls are just fine, including Cebachrome. What I dislike about digital is a continuous stream of advertising claims that would make pathological liars blush. Fortunately some good web sites are popping-up with first-class testing of digital SLRs, so this creativity will be

harshly curtailed.

 

You can put a Phase One Model 21 on a Hasselblad C/M and get 18MP. The image is cropped so a 40mm would

be more like 60mm. The images are substantially better than Canon's top of the line SLR this year, but this will

not be so next year. Phase One will not be idle either. Before long, the entire current digital crop will be doorstops. I think the back is $8000. It's not a rip-job, digital technology is costly to manufacture and the margins

are quite competitive. With a $150 used A12 film back, you can get images with more than a thousand times the resolution of an 18MP file, that can be enlarged to three feet without objectionable grain, at normal viewing distances.

 

Want to "go digital"? Enjoy yourself--it's fun. Like a Big Mac, we also get instant gratification (and valuable real time

feedback). Photoshop is the land of dreams; you can do anything (almost). Prints are getting better all the time, but efforts to mimic silver papers don't really work. If they fade like Dorian Grey, don't be surprised--but if you've backup, an

image can be reprinted. I think I like digital--but it's not a mature technology like film, which has undergone continuous refinement for over 100 years--and was genius in the first place.

 

Of course, anyone is free to have hammers and screwdrivers in the toolbox. They are not mutually exclusive, and this is why all the major manufacturers continue to make film backs, and film bodies (if they can sell enough to break even).

 

Now my Pentax 67II is discontinued and obsolete. Should I stop using it? The camera will likely outlive me! I take very good care of it. I also shoot with a Kodak #1 5x7 view camera--I replaced the bellows, and with modern film + Fujinon glass, this camera never had it so good. The Kodak is just a light tight box, with an optical train and recording media, like the most sophisticated digital rig--except the Kodak has view camera movements, and fine art image quality. The Kodak is obsolete, and walks all over every camera that Hasselblad has ever made by virtue of 35 square inches of film.

 

What matters is eye and brain. Content. That is the machinery at work--the real value. Artists are the past, present and future of photography, not technology. That's just the paintbrush.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[q.g._de_bakker]

Richard,<br><br><i>"Also stayed away from the 2000 series bodies with focal plane shutters. There were reliability

problems, and I don't know all the details."</i><br><br>Not so much reliability problems as safety issues. The

shutter curtains were not safe from user's fingers. ;-)<br>But yes, the FC's shutter could do with an upgrade, which it

got. So later 2000-series models are absolutely fine, the latest FCW models in particular.<br><br><i>"For a

rectangular print, the Pentax wins, because you'd have to crop a Hasselblad negative. For a square print, it would be

necessary to crop the 6x7 negative, and the Hasselblad would deliver substantially better results. Obviously, leaf

shutter lenses are much better for artificial light."</i><br><br>"Wins" and "Substantially"?<br>The difference is

that between an 8x10" print made from a 6x7 negative, and a 10.3x13" print made from the same 6x7 negative, i.e. a

magnification factor of (not quite) 1.3.<br>Just for a bit of educational fun, make two such prints and examine

how 'substantial' the difference is. You'll find that it is not. ;-)

[richard_reddy]

Reply to Q. G. de Bakker's comments. I see your point about not getting carried away with comparisons.

Just the same, Hasselblad Zeiss lenses do have greater optical resolving power, in line pairs per millimeter, and

67cm format has more film area, so each camera has virtues when considering how much information is captured in a

frame. I get the impression it's a wash, and prints the same length will have equivalent definition.

 

Now, what if you put a 6x4.5 (4 square inches) back on the Hasselblad, with the intention of framing a

rectangular image? Wouldn't the Pentax be a better choice for rectangular images? A 6x7cm negative is 6.2

square inches, and that is 55% larger than 645. This is why I used the word "substantial". Since it's a

question of which camera is better for a particular type of subject, we could say Pentax "wins" the day.

Most photographers would agree there's a BIG difference between 645 and 67 formats.

 

On the other hand, if I envision using a square frame, then I could use a 6x6cm back on the Hasselblad, or crop

the Pentax 67 negative to 6x6cm. Which is a better choice? Now we have the same negative area with either

camera, 5 square inches, because I have to crop the 6x7cm negative to get a square frame. In this circumstance,

the Hasselblad "wins" because Zeiss optics have slightly greater resolving power, for a given film area. So this

is a small difference, but a real difference connected to optical design.

 

I am inclined to defend the choice of words. The difference between 645 and 6x7 is quite substantial! Where the

differences are modest, we can still say one choice "wins" over another as a contrast-comparison

theme involving subtle, but distinct differences.

 

I am really trying to draw attention the fact that an artist's intentions--even basic elements like composition,

have a drastic effect on what we can expect in the way of image quality. If you plan a square frame, Hasselblad

is 6x6. If you plan a rectangular frame, it's a 645. For me, the Pentax is a better tool to get

rectangular images, because I set 6x6cm as my lower limit for medium format. For print sizes I would make from

645, 35mm would also do the job.

 

The nice thing about Hasselblad: square format is excellent without cropping, for many subjects--especially

portraits. I like it a lot and have just added PME45 metered finder, Acute-Matte D screen, and 120mm f/4

CF Macro to my Hasselblad gear. At 54, a brighter viewfinder, with laterally correct image is very helpful for

sharp focusing (as are Hensel strobes with 300-watt modeling lights!).

 

Photography is all about feeling. What better reason to buy, or continue using a camera? Honestly, that's why

I bought a Hasselblad and am expanding the system to modest size. It's very useful, very reliable, and the image

quality is superb.

 

 

Thanks for your thoughts on the 2000 series bodies. I never suspected the shutters might be little guillotines!

Eek! Great Halloween camera!

[q.g._de_bakker]

<i>"A 6x7cm negative is 6.2 square inches, and that is 55% larger than 645. This is why I used the

word "substantial". </i><br><br>I understood.<br>But it (55% more area) really is not substantially

more. "Substantial" would

start at (roughly) 300% to 400% larger areas.<br><br>The difference between 6x45. and 6x7 is that - as was said -

between an

<i>"8x10" print made from a 6x7 negative, and a 10.3x13" print made from the same 6x7 negative, i.e. a

magnification factor of (not quite) 1.3."</i><br>Do make such prints and compare them. When you do, you will see

(i.e. opposed to agreeing with most photographers who would agree) that there really is not much difference in quality

at all. Nowhere near enough to be called "substantial".<br><br>The 2000-series shutters are not guillotines. It's not

photographer's fingers that run the risk of being seriously damaged should they encounter the shutter

curtains.<br>Quite the opposite: the extremely thin titanium foil shutter curtains are easily damaged when clumsy

photographer's fingers get too close. So the safety mechanism is there to protect the shutter, not fingers.