Wow, thanks for sharing Bradley. It's always kinda nice to know I'm not the only one using a "Frankenkamera" - I shoot with a Bronica SQ-B body, S and PS Zenzanon lenses with a Hasselblad V-mount Hasselblad Ixpress back attached via a Silvestri Hassy V-mount adapter for Bronica SQ!
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Definitely! I guess sometimes you just have to mix it up to get what you want! It's an Olympic year--perhaps the Olympic judges will give out style points for the creative 'independent spirit' of Frankenkameras...
Hi, Nicholas,
I was looking for the best possible image quality from my medium format system, and after researching the HC lenses, I came to the conclusion that for my needs, I could do better. The Fuji glass can be very sharp, but how it renders many images isn't particularly pleasing (esp. outside of the studio), and when compared head-to-head with some admittedly different-price-category glass (such as the Schneider 35XL) the HC came up short.
A couple of examples: MR's now famous (infamous?) [a href=\"http://photo.net/equipment/hasselblad/h1/]HC bokeh photograph shown here[/url] and the above-mentioned comparison of the HC 35mm vs. the Schneider
shown here.
My feeling is that these lenses are optimized for the studio (probably not a bad business decision on Hasselblad's part, given how rare a breed the medium format fine art nature shooter is by comparison). I came to the conclusion that for my needs, the Rollei Schneider lineup followed by the Hasselblad Zeiss lineup would be about as good as I could do without a view camera.
In terms of how much "hassle" the H to CF adapter represents, I also think it also depends on where you are coming from. I was using the Hasselblad 500 C/M and was looking for better ergonomics--the H camera represents an improvement in ergonomics and flow over the 500 (for me). Since you are already on an H3D with HC glass and looking for an additional lens, I could very well imagine you experiencing some frustration with the adapter, since the HC lenses already 'just work'. Let me give you a rundown of the workflow with the adapter, so that you can decide for yourself whether it's worth the plunge.
1) In my case, I have several V-series lenses, so the adapter remains fixed on the camera. In your case, if you only buy one V-series lens, you can leave the adapter fixed to the lens.
2) Mount the lens into the camera.
3) Camera body will guess which lens is attached and immediately show you the lens on the LCD. Assuming you have no TC's or extension tubes in play just press the 'drive' button to confirm. If you have V-series TC/Tubes, you can dial in which one is attached and then hit 'drive'. If you V-series TC/tube do NOT have the databus contacts, the camera has no idea what is attached and you may have to choose from a larger list of options. HC TC's and tubes are not supported at all. My advice would be to be sure to get the XE line of V-series TC's and tubes if you were going to do that at all.
4) You may optionally connect the flash sync cable. If you are using flash, you'll need to do this. Even if you are not using flash, the digital back will not know exactly when the exposure ends without this cable. Your resulting image will be exactly the same with or without the cable, but the back will not record a shutter speed without the cable. The whole camera will delay 1.5s after the exposure "just to be sure". This is in the manual and is not particularly troublesome. It is nice to know that even with a missing or defective cable, one can still take pictures without a problem.
5) The camera will be in a special "Manual" mode for metering. You cannot change the shutter speed or aperture via the camera dials. You can change the aperture on the lens and the change will be reflected by the camera meter. The meter will be showing a shutter speed which it recommends you transfer to the lens' shutter ring. Of course, you can set the lens to anything you wish, given the artistic interpretation you want.
6) I have the camera set to provide focus confirmation when I half-press the shutter. It's like 'manual drive' AF... Two triangular focus indicators will light up when the camera detects peak focus. I find this to be more accurate than typical small format focus confirmation, such as provided by my Canon 1D-series body. Note that I have not been able to find a split-recticle focusing screen for the H body.
7) Take the shot.
Cock the shutter with the left thumb. This cocking maneuver is very well designed and requires just a single travel of the lever. I felt like I was winding forever with the 500 C/M--I'm glad they've upped the gear ratio on this lever to make it very quick and natural.
So you can see it's quite a different workflow than simply attaching the lens and shooting. I've posted this information here in as much detail as I could because I was unable to find this information before I purchased this setup. I hope it's helpful to you.
Best regards,
Brad
