kornelius_j._fleischer

From someone who has compared them: This is what I wrote in Camera Lens News no. 7, which you can access at www.zeiss.de/photo in the Camera Lens News Archives:

 

Distagon 2,8/50 FE from Carl Zeiss for Hasselblad - renewed

 

The Distagon 2,8/50 FE is a very popular lens with users of Hasselblad series 200 cameras, preferred mainly for three reasons over the Distagon 4/50 CFi, which can also be used with these cameras:

 

� The Distagon 2,8/50 FE is twice as fast as the Distagon 4/50 CFi.

 

� The Distagon 2,8/50 FE comes with databus connections, so it can be used with the built-in light meters of Hassel-blad 200 series cameras with full functionality.

 

� The floating elements of the Distagon 2,8/50 FE adjust automatically with focusing and do not need a separate FLE ring.

 

But the Distagon 2,8/50 FE used to be very bulky and heavy and the front rotated with focusing. So Carl Zeiss decided to redesign the mechanics of the lens to trim weight and even increase the existing high performance wide angle optics. The main weight reductions came from slightly reducing the close-focusing capability from previously 0,32 m to 0,42 m now. The result: the weight came down from 1240 g to 1025 g.

 

Even more important to some photographers is the fact, that the new version comes with a non-rotating front. Thus it has now become straightforward to use polarizers, special effect filters, and the Hasselblad ProShade compendium.

 

Most welcome to perfectionists is the fact that the new mechanics allow for more elaborate adjustment of optical air spaces and centering during assembly. As a result users will find further increased image quality when they use the Distagon 2,8/50 FE wide open.

Seen through the eyes of a perfectionist the Hasselblad pro shade is the best product of its kind on the market for keeping unwanted light off your photos. I use mine with all lenses in the Hasselblad range except the fisheye Distagon F-30 and the Tele-Superachromat 2,8/300. It even fits, and benefits, the long Tele-Apotessar 8/500 and the big Tele-Tessar 4/350. I can even adjust (narrow the angle of) the pro shade for the exact needs of a lens focused close, like a Sonnar 180 plus extension ring in a studio portrait situation with pronounced effects lights from the rear.

 

The pro shade may not be the most versatile filter holder, and may not be ideal for people who use gradated filters extensively, but filtering is a different story.

 

For controlling unwanted light, nothing beats the Hasselblad pro shade. I therefore use medium format often in situations, where 35 mm could do sharpness-wise, but there is no really convincing way of controlling unwanted light available in any 35 mm camera system. And I rather use the bigger device than compromising on image brilliance and color saturation, accepting flat and boring photos lacking vividness. My invested time is the same, anyway. So why not get the best out of my time invested?

 

The cine industry, on the other hand, uses adjustable matte boxes for the purpose of keeping unwanted light out of the camera. They work very well. But one of these costs as much as whole new Hasselblad camera outfit. So, what are we still photo people complaining about when we consider Hasselblad prices...

Pete, you said "...until Zeiss puts an actual figure to that "factor of two" difference that's quoted, then it's pretty meaningless. A difference, for example, between 2 and 4 microns out of flat would be totally irrelevent in practical use."

 

Here Zeiss puts that actual figure to the factor: The "altitudes" of that kink is typically in the magnitude of 350 microns!!! after the 120 film sat around the feed roller for one hour. With 220 film, we found the kinks to be around 200 microns high. Kinks start to become detectable after just one minute of time sitting around the feed roller. Thus our advice: Go through your roll quickly if you want to reduce film un-flatness. Or, discard the first frame after having paused for more than 15 minutes.

 

Film flatness problems of this magnitude can be visible in the picture if you shoot very detailed subjects at f/8 or larger, especially if the film magazine of the camera used places its kink at a very unfavourable position. The worst our lab at Zeiss found was the magazines of the new Mamiya 645 AF, where the kink was right in the center of the image, the worst conceivable position for both landscape and portrait shots.

Here is the background to my comment on the 553 ELX: The 553 ELX was my Hasselblad workhorse until I got my 201 F after photokina 1996. I needed the 201 F to be able to use the FE lenses, the Tele-Tessar 4/350 in particular. Once I had the 201 F, I noticed that this camera has a vastly superior straylight absorption compared with the 553 ELX. So I gave up my ELX. The engineers from Hasselblad told me that the 555 ELD is the first electric Hasselblad with a straylight absorption on the level of the 201 F.

Rick, sorry, but you can´t. These cams are not "generic". Linhof grinds a cam for the individual lens and its individual focal length. It makes a difference! If your individual Sonnar 180 is actually a 180,4 mm in focal length, than Linhof grinds the cam for 180,4 and therefore marks the cam with the serial no. of that very lens. At least they did all this when I bought my Super Technika V 4 x 5 and had the rangefinder calibrated for three lenses. Each of my cams is numbered with the serial no. of the according lens. Maybe this is one of the reasons why they have liked to use the name "Linhof precision camera works".

 

Now, if a cam is ground for 180,4 mm, and your lens is actually 179,6, then your focus will never be really accurate.

Q.G., so far, I had a H1 in my hands only once, at photokina, when a Hasselblad engineer demonstrated it to me. I got the impression, that this camera was conceived with considerable expertise in medium format, as you would expect from a Hasselblad product.

 

I noticed, however, three things, important to me: 1. Zeiss lenses are missing. 2. The magazine "shutter" concept is copied from Rollei, but their´s is much quicker to use, and looks more reliable to me. 3. The autofocus seems to be a little bit faster than others in medium format, although far slower than Canon´s in 35 mm, but is, like all the others, unable to know where exactly I want sharpness. So I still have to do the focusing myself or take about the same amount of time for verifying that the AF got it right.

 

The user interface of this camera is "intuitive", said the Hasselblad engineer. He is a very capable electronics engineer. I am not. I am not the type of person who quickly understands the "logic" in cell phones, video cassette recorders, Microsoft programs and the like. My "intuition" and personal background can better handle classical photography interfaces with clear indication of aperture, shutter speed, and focus. And the software on my Mac.

Yes, square is all you need. But quite often people buy things they do not need. Like 645 cameras. So Hasselblad business administrators saw in the 1990s that many photographers, professionals and amateurs, were buying 645 SLR cameras, mostly Mamiya. So they decided, as business administrators watching figures are used to do, to come up with a Hasselblad camera which would successfully compete with the Mamiya 645 (non-autofocus at that time) in terms of frame size and price, not to forget cheap lenses!!! Now, it´s here...

Do you intend to sell your pictures? Then they better be critically sharp. This translates into shutter speeds of no longer than 1/500 s and, as a logical consequence, a lens that is designed to be used wide open with very convincing performance. Such a lens is the Planar 3,5/100, which is used by many professional aerial photographers who use medium format. And the NASA. The appropriate camera for this lens is, on earth, the Hasselblad 555 ELD. Preferredly, it should be used with 220 roll film, so you have 24 frames in rapid succession, if you want. After having done many comparisons, which include real aerial cameras, I found: Anything else in medium format is inferior to this combination. The only superior combination I encountered is a custom made camera by aerial photographer Albrecht Brugger, a camera which uses special order unperforated 70 mm film in a custom made vacuum back, producing 6.5 x 10 cm frames, using Zeiss Biogon 4,5/75 mm and custom made Zeiss Apo-Planar 4/300 mm lenses. Brugger put more than a million dollars into his camera. And another million into the Apo-Planar. The Hasselblad combination which I outlined above is significantly more affordable.

Bill Dewberry, why are you lying? All Zeiss lenses for Hasselblad are made at the Zeiss Oberkochen factory in Germany. Being the marketing manager of the Zeiss camera lens division I would like to invite you to visit the Zeiss Oberkochen factory and see for yourself.

Yes, the current Distagon 50 CFi has a 70 mm bayonet and comes with an adapter that reduces the 70 to 60. This was Hasselblad´s set of reasons:

 

1. Hasselblad dislikes vignetting and tries very hard to avoid it.

 

2. Hasselblad is aware that photographers often combine two filters, like a red plus a polarizer for black & white architecture and landscape photography.

 

3. On a wideangle lens like the 50, a combination of two filters could cause some cut-off in the corners, if bayonet 60 was used. With bayonet 70, these two filters can be stacked on the Distagon 50 CFi without vignetting.

 

4. Hasselblad includes a step-down adapter with every Distagon 4/50 CFi, so owners of bayonet 60 filters can simply continue to use their existing filters.

Could this kind of annoying problem be one reason, why Hasselblad and Rollei have filter bayonets on their lenses? In daddy´s times, interchangeable lenses were attached to the camera with a thread (e.g. Leica M 39). And it sometimes sticked. Today we use more advanced solutions: bayonets. Why not for filters, too? Ok, bayonets cost more. But only once. The benefit can then be had every time I use that filter. I do a lot of black & white work and use a wide variety of filters, so for me, a bayonet filter is a clear improvement over a threaded one. Just my 0.02c

Luciano, I have done what you are planning to do. I use the Leimik adapter from Novoflex. The combination works perfectly and delivers great results. This shutter adapter by Rollei is a great tool and adds a lot to the flexibility and overall photographic value of this system. I also use it with other specialty optics like the S-Planar 4/74 and Imagon lenses.

The perfect solution exists: The Rolleiflex 6008i with the rotatable 4560 magazine. A wide variety of lenses is available, with central shutter offering speeds from 1/1000 to 32 seconds, full flash synchronization. Even Imagon genuine soft focus lenses can be used on the Rollei 6008 via the seperate Rollei leaf shutter unit plus extension rings. I have all that stuff and use it with great results.

You may want to check out the "Lens Cleaning Set" shown at www.zeiss.de/photo

Steve, the spectral transmission of the Zeiss T* multi coating cuts UV. And so do some of the glass types used in the Biogon design. So, for UV cutting, you do not need a filter at all. If it is for mechanical protection against sand storms, the front cap or the polarizer can handle that task. Again, no extra UV filter needed.

Frederick, you may want to check the information on theses two lenses which is available at the Zeiss website: www.zeiss.de/photo. If you really consider close-up work with such a superwideangle lens, the Biogon is the only way to go, image quality wise. The Biogon focuses much closer than the Distagon does and the resulting image image quality is strikingly superior. I have done such a comparison just last week. The subject I shot was a little larger than an old record cover. And I examined the results through the eyes of a Zeiss camera lens division employee.

The 4560 rotating magazine for the Rolleiflex 6000 series cameras also takes 120 and 220 type films with no mechanical change of settings, pressure plate, film canal. Just the electronics of the counter need to be informed of 220 vs. 120. At Zeiss, we found this Rollei magazine to produce unusually good film flatness, probably the best of all medium format magazines without vacuum technology.

The Zeiss Planar 3.5/100 comes with a built-in central shutter, which may be beneficial in some situations. Articles on the benefits of central shutters can be found at www.zeiss.de/photo and www.hasselblad.se. It is smaller and lighter than the Planar 2/110. It has next to zero distortion, similar to the Biogon 4,5/38. Aerial photographers prefer it for its wide open performance. Technical data are available in the medium format/Hasselblad section of www.zeiss.de/photo

 

If any or all of this is reason enough for you to add the Planar 100 to your lens set, only you can decide.

 

By the way, we at Zeiss consider the Superachromat 5,6/250 our sharpest lens, not the Planar 100, and not the Sonnar 180.

"skin tones ... overly red..." this is what my female sitters disliked about Kodak Portra 160. So I changed to Agfa Portrait XPS 160 and keep getting very satisfying results. Maybe you can give this film a try.

The film position in a camera is not defined by the pressure plate, but rather by the film guiding rails. These touch the sensitised side of the film from the front, not the back side, as the pressure plate does. These guide rails, for defining the precise position, have to be in the exact same place regardless of film type. So it is not surprising that 120 type roll film in a 220 magazine gives correct sharpness. The spacing might be affected. And the friction might be higher, since the thicker package of film plus backing paper is forced through a thinner channel which is dimensioned for film only.

"...there are no sensors yet as large as a MF frame." Really? I had one in my hands recently. Approximately 6 cm x 9 cm in size. What more medium format could one want? Not quite "affordable" for usual photography applications, though. And then there is the Sinarback 54 with its 22 million pixel chip, the size of a 645 frame. Again, a bit too expensive just for a preview system.

OK, David, if you want more precision, here it comes: The Zeiss corporate photo studio is within my resposibility. We have Broncolor studio flash equipment there. As I said in my previous post, this equipment can adjust flash output in 1/10th stop increments. On product shot we occasionally did exposure bracketing variations in 2/10th stop intervals, which equals 1/5th stop intervals. Having the resulting transparencies on the light box, we could easily arrange them in the correct order of lighter or darker. This is why I am convinced: every experienced photographer who does professional product shots for publishing in glossy magazines or similar demands can see exposure variations of 1/6th stop, if all other variables were kept constant for that series of exposures. I am not saying that doing bracketing series at this fine intervals is necessary at any other product shoot. In my experience, 1/3rd stop intervals is all we do in day-to-day product shots on transparency film, and this is actually a thing of the past already, since most of our product work is done digitally today and transparency film is not used very much any more.

 

In color negative work, 1/2 stop intervals for bracketing may even be too fine. Doing full stop intervals is fine enough with modern color negative films.

 

I hope this post gave some of the precision you missed with my previous one on this thread.

Elliot Erwitt is 50% correct. Seeing is the first step. The input stage. Only. If you want to communicate to other people what you have seen, you have to decide on how you want to do this. Some decide to use spoken words, others use written words, some use still pictures, drawn or painted or photographed, some use motion pictures, maybe even with music or sound... The output stage. The other 50%.

 

Whatever output method you decide to use, and most of us here on this formum seem to prefer photographic still pictures without sound, technology is available to aid the process. Training the useage of photographic technology and having the materials and equipment available that we feel most comfortable with, can substantially improve our ability to communicate effectively and convincingly what we have see and what we want to share with others. So, what is fundamentally wrong with discussing equipment and the degree of us feeling comfortable with it? Just my .02

Just to add a few facts towards answering the question clearly:

 

All current Zeiss lenses for Hasselblad have detents at full stops and half stops on the aperture ring. Those with built in fully mechanical central shutters have full stop increments for the exposure time. Adding the capability of more time settings on a fully mechanical shutter, which produces each exposure time by means of expensive precision gears like a traditional Swiss wrist watch, would mean to cram even more of these tiny and costly components into that confined space. The 200 series Hasselblads have exposure time rings with full stop and half stop increments. It generates the exposure times electronically and can do so only as long as the small but expensive battery serves it well (mine did quit occasionally and unexpectedly).

 

The current Rollei cameras have 1/3rd stop increments for both aperture and exposure time. These are, as far as I can see, the only cameras on the world market to offer this. The timing is done electronically, and the camera has a massive power supply for it. The power supply on my Rolleiflex 6008i gives ample pre-warning if the battery needs recharging.

 

The aperture on large format shutters from Compur (please do not confuse with Copal) and Prontor can also be set in 1/3rd stop increments in a defined way.

 

With transparency film, an exposure variation that exceeds 1/6th of a stop can be visible to a trained eye. Some studio flash systems, like Broncolor and Profoto, which are used in demanding commercial photography, therefore offer power variation in 1/10th stop increments.

 

With modern color negative film types, the situation is rather relaxed. Variations in 1/2 stop increments should be fine for any bracketing needs.

Peter, how can you know "Zeiss didn´t change the construction"? Are you working at the Zeiss camera lens division? I am. And I can say for sure that all Zeiss lenses for Hasselblad available today have been newly calculated in the last 3 years.