gianni_siragusa

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<p>Once more I don't understand what you are saying different from me and I believe I am not confusing anything at all. CFR are <em>rare</em></p>

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<p><em>CFR should have read CFE, obvious mistyping mistake I wish to apologize for...<br /></em></p>

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<p>Ray Butler wrote:<br>

It would be a big mistake to attribute the lower usage of digital backs on the big Mamiyas to lower optical quality. The main reason is simply that the MFDB sensors are so small that a 6x8/6x7 camera has a massive "crop factor", and it makes sense to use a 6x6 camera instead...and even more sense to use a 645 camera, which is why the only actively developed MF SLRs still left are 645s (Mamiya/PhaseOne, Hasselblad/Fuji, and Pentax).</p>

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<p>Ray , I never wrote that I attribute lower usage of digital backs to lower optical quality. I wrote that Hasselblad cameras made, for their size due to its square format a better platform. I also quote from my own post:</p>

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<p>The only other offers, later in time, were the Mamiya RB then RZ and eventually (in a timeline) the Fuji GX680. The RB was and probably is still if you have one , a great camera but very cumbersome and really heavy, similarly for its optics. The RZ marginally lighter faster to use but less reliable. Very good lenses though, even if not at the same level of both reliability and optics of the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss.</p>

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<p>So I said, if you wish to read again, that Mamiya made to great cameras with great optics but non "as" reliable as Carl Zeiss and despite being great lenses still a notch down from Hasselblad as and I talk from experience there are more chromatic aberrations to be corrected on Mamiya lenses used on digital than on CFE lenses used on digital. My main point though and I wish to stress that, was not so much on the quality difference - note "difference" not "lack of" - but on reliability on assumption, in both cases, of equipment as carefully and regularly CLA'd. This was my point and I stick by it 100%.<br>

Of course then "crop factor" is yet another additional big element in the RZ being less popular as a "digital" platform.</p>

 

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<p>You could be confusing cause and effect here. It is in considerable part <em>because</em> they are difficult to find that they are still expensive.</p>

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<p>Once more I don't understand what you are saying different from me and I believe I am not confusing anything at all. CFR are <em>rare </em>for a very good reason, whoever has them keeps them as they are excellent and fully compatible even with the H system by means of a CF to H adapter. Try having a look at procentre.co.uk (UK Hasselblad) how long CFE lenses stay on USED EQUIPMENT web page. A week or two and they've sold. The used Mamiya lenses don't have much of a market as professionally not too many people want to keep them so they flooded the market, hence they are a 2 a pence. So what are we saying here that is so different.</p>

<p>Hi Doug an Art Director is my client, but yes I do see your point. If you work direct to the end user and you are your own A.D. and have direct dealings with your client yes you'd be the one ultimately "calling the shots", but then you cannot tell me that a professional photographer is not "worthy" or even disorderly if he doesn't "crop in camera", such a statement being very superficial and oblivious of the reality of so much of the commercial world that saw many of the photographers that made photography what it is nowadays!!</p>

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<p>"Cropping is like walking out in an untidy manner, it suggests an untidy mind"</p>

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<p>Nick Knight, Avedon, David Bailey...all notorious "disorderly people"....LOL</p>

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<p>When it comes to the practical business of marketing images to publications, it was long a preference of art directors to have square format and somewhat looser composition because they and not the photographer decided whether an image was best used as a horizontal or vertical. Photographers with 35mm and/or DSLR cameras, especially with zoom lenses, tend to crop too tightly, leaving the AD no room for trap or alternate cropping options</p>

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<p>Now, the above text quoted from Don Douglas is clearly coming from someone who knows what professional work and requirements mean.</p>

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<p>Robin Smith wrote:</p>

 

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<p>"I think that Ed is correct that the original square formats for TLRs and Hasselblads are square for practical reasons not because of artistic vision, although 'blad afterwards stressed the "primacy of the square" in their marketing. Interestingly this was swiftly abandoned with the transition to the H series."</p>

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<p>Hi Robin the choices both Hasselblad, and Rollei with their Rolleiflex, made, were very precise ones. Have very compact camera systems that could offer the best optical and mechanical quality possible hence the best reliability. That is exactly what they achieved and that is why it has been recognized by professionals the world over that made them their workhorses for the last 70 odd years. The square format has been consequential to these needs.<br>

The only other offers, later in time, were the Mamiya RB then RZ and eventually (in a timeline) the Fuji GX680. The RB was and probably is still if you have one , a great camera but very cumbersome and really heavy, similarly for its optics. The RZ marginally lighter faster to use but less reliable. Very good lenses though, even if not at the same level of both reliability and optics of the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss. I used to assist so many photographers in London before going self-empoyed myself who used either Hasselblad or RZ's...I can truly tell you, never had one single failure on Hasselblad kit (on the equal assumption of well kept and regularly CLA'd equipment) , had instead quite a few due to malfunctioning contacts of lenses on the RZ and if you are on location it's a bugger!!! You can double bodies but if you need to double lenses too it becomes complicated!!<br>

Optically then the Carl Zeiss work better on the digital platform. Demonstration...you can technically still use the RZ (no idea if RB too but probably I'd think you can) quite succesfully with digital backs but it's not as common and as good as the Hasselblad V system used with CFV backs or phase one.<br>

Further demonstartion, on ebay you can get Mamiya lenses for 2 a penny and instead CFE lenses are difficult to find and when available they are still quite expensive. I will tell you more, even 40-50 yrs old Hasselblad lenses, considering their age, still hold their price well at an average of 250-350 Euros depending on lens and condition, not to mention the 40C that still sells at around 500-600 depending on condition. And this is for a 40/50 yrs old lens!!<br>

The Fuji gx680 then is such a monstrousity if you are asking me. Great camera in a sense (bulky), great and very complex engeneering (great and complex ingeneering doesn't always mean greater reliability) and this for achieving what? Effectively as others said a 6x8 camera where you can "crop" the neg in order to step down to another lower format.<br>

In order to make such a "monster" practical to use you need to be ...back to the square!! Yes that is the principle of a rotating back the only way to have practically a portrait mode, imagine otherwise having to turn on its side a 5Kgs camera!! Yes 5kgs + loads of batteries because you need them to operate this camera. And again 5kg, so if you are on location imagine the following scenario 5+5=10 so sat least ten kilos just of main body and 2nd spare body this versus Hasselblad say 503cwd at 1155gr so 2310grs so both main and spare body!! I guess you might start seeing WHY the square format became the most widely adopted and the best optically and mechanically. Simplicity, best optics and as a result a compact reliable system.<br>

To answer then your argument of the H system yes they went to rectangular format and no surprise it's digital, conceived 60yrs later and there is a motor inside to cock the shutter so why not!? Professionally in any case even the "square" of the V was used "square"...ever seen a square fashion magazine?? Practicality man, practicality... ;-))) But then you'd see an exhibition of Avedon or Bailey and all "squares"...</p>

<p>To Russ Britt and to F Ph It's so funny Adrian Wilson seems very "Square" himself having failed to understand what I meant with Hasselblad being the quintessential "multiformat camera".<br>

As plenty here, it seems I have being a working photographer for quite a while now but have "failed to do my homework". Reassuring though that quite a few of us understood who I was referring to in terms of top professional photographers that used the square format. Avedon who failed clearly big time to do his homework if you have ever bothered seeing any of his work where contact sheets are displayed. 90% of his published editorial work from the 50's and 60's was shot on Rolleiflex and Hasselblad and then cropped.... there you go I think he should have gone for evening classes thought by Adrian Wilson I guess. With him the likes of Helmut Newton etc...a big class Adrian would have been very busy teaching them how it's done!!</p>

<p>I suggest that quite simply square format yes it has become associated to high quality images as it has been said, but this was not due to mere chance, but quite simply because over the years, professional photographers found the best medium format quality was given overall by the likes of 1)Rolleiflex; 2) Hasselblad. I quote in this order since this was the way chronologically it happened 50's Rolleiflex then 60's and 70's Hasselblad...just see Antonioni's "Blow up" cult moivie as a testament of that.<br>

Hasselblad then if you like is the ultimate multiformat film camera! Just crop it if you need either way you like, the lenses are so excellent that the argument you are missing out in format is totally outweighed ! Demonstration of its versatility is that it's the camera you can more easily use upgraded to digital with either Phase One or even with the Hasselblad own digital backs and also the very reason why this is proving so successful that Hasselblad released the CFV50 Digital back. Just try for yourself how amazing the lenses (CFE CF and CT* and even C when used in the right conditions) are when used with digital backs, even 50 yrs old lenses (not many "old" lenses can stand this test) and that will show the level of excellency Hasselblad always sought and provided over the years and you will have your answer to why and who made Square format synonymous of professional top quality!!</p>

<p>Hi Patrick,<br>

I've both had in the past and still have one of these 500s (but this specific one is the newest type before they became RX - the one to be clear with the Eilinchrome 500 brand in green and with user replaceable flash tubes ) and also used the older 500 EL plenty of times and in all conditions. From Florida in August and you know how humid that is to studio set-up in London. Always worked. The only times they don't work is when capacitors start leaking and that would correspond to the syntoms yours manifested...irregular flash patterns (doesn't fire for 3-4 times then it does etc....What I find unusual though is that a leaking capacitor wouldn't "fix itself" once you are back at the studio! Something makes me think that the power supply here might have been the cause here.</p>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=2224439">On Nov 28, 2009; 10:52 a.m. Wolf Rainer Schmalfuss</a> wrote:<br>

<em>Bruce,<br /> distance is today really not a problem. My freind has his business in Hamburg/Germany, and he told me, that he has happy customers from all over the world. Some of them, travel extra to Hamburg, just to show up and bring their expensive photo equipment for repair. Everything is possible!</em></p>

<p>Hi Wolf, can you please supply me with you repair person address or website or email address. Can you confirm he deals with repairs from abroad and that he still deals with "C" Hassy lenses. Thanks.</p>

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=1013562">Hans P. Strobl</a> , on Jun 22, 2004; 04:03 p.m wrote<br>

<em>"The Varios have one significant drawback: They do not have an internal power discharge feature."</em><br>

<br /> This is true but one may disagree in the sense that most of monoblocs of that period didn't and I would not really see it as a "significant drawback"! Even Elinchrome Classic 500 EL of that period did not have an internal power discharge<em> </em> feature<em>.</em> You had to "dump" the extra power by firing the flash. Frankly in my practice it's never been a big deal. What's more the Hensels Vario B have a feature that does it automatically so there is no possibility of forgetting to "dump" the extra power. Should you lower your powersetting it will automatically fire once to bring down the power! Excellent feature if you ask me! Hensel Monoflash Vario B are excellent made sturdy monoblocks that can last you forever!<br>

Best regards,<br>

G. Siragusa</p>