My H4D-40 arrived yesterday :-)

[NikolaBorissov]

Oh, joy! I just became the proud owner of a H4D-40 - after being unable to sleep for a week, I bit the bullet and decided that the IQ alone is worth it having to live with the shortcomings in terms of speed of the H system, besides I feel that I need to slow down the pace and change my approach to photography, so it's ok. The good news is that the camera feels somewhat faster than the H3DII-50 that I used to rent (just a tiny bit), true phocus AF seems to be working (albeit tectonically slow, of course), and the IQ is exactly what it's expected to be, impressive . Quick note to Hasselblad: the display is rubbish, why only the H4D-60 gets the new display? How much does the upgraded new LCD cost, 5 bucks? Extremely disappointed - I will have to live with the rubbish LCD, but it leaves a bad taste....

Anyhow, I love the camera and the IQ it's capable of :-)

CLICK for the FFF, 57 MB (80/2.8, f2.8, 1/160 handheld, 800 asa). I just woke up and snapped the view from my window. I focused on the fountain and then recomposed (I should have used an object closer to me for the true phocus effect to be more  visible, but had nothing handy). Tomorrow I have a location shoot (of a fast moving model, sigh...) on which I plan to use the camera, so I could upload more samples.

Actually, am I the first guy to get it delivered?

[arashm]

Nikola:

Congrats, enjoy the new camera
also maybe you can share a few thoughts on why you chose/settled on the H4D-40
Seeing that you shoot fashion I would also be interested to see how the TF function works out on set.
Thanks for posting the file
am

[Kitty]

Tomorrow I have a location shoot (of a fast moving model, sigh...) on which I plan to use the camera, so I could upload more samples.

Thanks for sharing the experience. I would love to see more samples very soon.

[gwhitf]

Quick note to Hasselblad: the display is rubbish, why only the H4D-60 gets the new display? How much does the upgraded new LCD cost, 5 bucks? Extremely disappointed - I will have to live with the rubbish LCD, but it leaves a bad taste....

The thing that concerns me about this is: I think you *do* have the new LCD.

Everyone's wanting to see a side by side test of these cameras, but I'm wanting to see a side by side test done of the LCDs. Put them all on a tripod, one after the other, in a blackened studio, shooting the exact same scene, and then have another camera copy the LCD images. I'm kidding of course, but not really.

All I want to do is see my picture. Pure and simple. And without the ball and chain of a forced laptop. Some jobs are fine for tethering, but with Polaroid a thing of the past, you shouldn't be *forced* to tether, in order to see how your foamcore fill, or your fill flash, might be balancing to the ambient in the room.

For me, trying to move backwards, away from gear, away from cords, away from forced crew, and a quality LCD allows that. Right now, best LCD i've ever seen: the Canon 5D2 -- Tight and bright.

[Dustbak]

I am pretty sure only the H4D60 has the better screen.

Quite frankly I think all camera screens kind of suck. I don't even trust my D700 screen. These screens are simply too small to really judge what you are doing and zooming in I find too much hassle and time-consuming. There is no screen currently out there that I trust for more than the histogram (and that cannot even be trusted always, I am not sure every camera is basing its histogram on the actual raw file) and a general overview on what I have. If accuracy is truly important you work tethered...

I would love the day my preview comes in on something like an A4 or maybe I would prefer a smaller A5 Ipad via wireless.. (actually anything that is at least twice the size of the largest current screen, fits inside a large pocket and doesn't need a wire). Working stable and without connection issues that is.

BTW, keep coughing up those H4D40 shots and experiences, I am really curious to the effectiveness of TF. Especially when things are moving.

[tho_mas]

There is no screen currently out there that I trust for more than the histogram (and that cannot even be trusted always, I am not sure every camera is basing its histogram on the actual raw file)

slightly off topic...
DSLRs show the histogram of the sRGB/AdobeRGB JPG. DBs don't process JPGs so the histogram is based on the actual RAW file... but it's not necessarily the (linear) RAW data you're seeing in the histogram. As to Phase One backs they show the RAW histogram but with a Gamma 1.8 profile assigned (in Capture One you'll see exactly the same histogram as on the camera display when you set the input profile to "no color correction" - which is Gamma 1.8 based - and the film curve to "linear"). I assume it's similar on all DBs.

[NikolaBorissov]

Hello guys!

I just came back from my shoot, I'm very tired (woke up at 6am, extremely unusual for me...), so just a couple of quick impressions:

- it's official, the LCD is the good old crappy one. I had never rented the H3DII for an outdoor shoot, only in studio/indoor location, so I had no idea how completely useless the display is outdoors. Even with the contrast maxed out, it's still rubbish in daylight. My Canons' displays are light years ahead, which kinda p****s me off in a 18k camera. I usually use it only for composition evaluation and basic focus check, but still. Huge disappointment for someone who never has the option of shooting tethered. And yes, I too would literally KILL a human being for a A5/A4 wireless device...
Which reminds me - is it so hard to implement some kind of a Wi-Fi option? I suppose that with a big integrated buffer (4-8GB?) and the current WiFi speeds of transfer, it should be pretty usable. In a better parallel universe, the best thing would be writing RAWs on the CF and sending out JPGs over WiFi.... Ah, a guy can dream.

- True Phocus seems to be working! I am downloading the images now, so I'm still not 100% certain as to how efficient it is, but on the field it seemed to do it's job. I've enabled the "true focus in af-s mode" option, so I don't have to press the dedicated True Phocus button for every shot, and it's pretty comfy. More on that when I check the files. I'm actually kinda worried right now, because I used recomposing at f4-f5.6 for all the frames, and if it doesn't work, the guys over at "Glamour" will not be very happy  How very unprofessional of me.

- I don't know if it's just me, but the camera as a whole seems faster than the H3DII-50. Not by much, but it's palpable.

- Had no issues whatsoever, no strange messages, nothing. The thing worked like a charm for all the 290 captures.

- I was forced to slow down the pace because of the recharging time of the 1200 W/S battery packs (had to use them at 100% power), so the camera had no problems keeping up, at all.  The bottleneck were the flashes.

- What else.... Gotta get some sleep, will post some FFFs when I wake up :-)))

[NikolaBorissov]

@arashm: well, I chose it because I think Hasselblad is pretty much the only MF brand that makes sense for my kind of work right now - in terms of speed, reliability, choice of modern lenses, system features as a whole. Love the "closed system" thing, it really helps for a trouble-free workflow, which is my n2 priority - n1 being IQ. But at the end what really got me was the True Phocus thingy and the usable 800 ASA (I work mainly on location, outdoors).

Off to bed

[G_Allen]

I would love to see one of the location fashion shots...an outtake, or even a lighting test with an assistant would do.

[Dick Roadnight]

Hello guys!
- I was forced to slow down the pace because of the recharging time of the 1200 W/S battery packs (had to use them at 100% power), so the camera had no problems keeping up, at all.  The bottleneck were the flashes.

Using my 4 1,500 w/s Elinchromes I found the recharge time not a problem, but I was in a small set and using 1/16th power @ 50 iso. What were you using?

[arashm]

@arashm: well, I chose it because I think Hasselblad is pretty much the only MF brand that makes sense for my kind of work right now - in terms of speed, reliability, choice of modern lenses, system features as a whole. Love the "closed system" thing, it really helps for a trouble-free workflow, which is my n2 priority - n1 being IQ. But at the end what really got me was the True Phocus thingy and the usable 800 ASA (I work mainly on location, outdoors).

Off to bed

Hi
Thanks for your feedback, I guess we're all very interested to see what the feedback on the True focus is.
please keep sharing your thoughts with us.
and files would be a bonus.
thanks
am

[Nick-T]

Hi
Thanks for your feedback, I guess we're all very interested to see what the feedback on the True focus is.

My (biased as I have a very close relationship with Hasselblad) feedback:

http://www.nick-t.com/blog/?p=3

(scroll down a wee bit)

[PeterLindeberg]

Hi Nick-T

Great blog!



Peter.L

My (biased as I have a very close relationship with Hasselblad) feedback:

http://www.nick-t.com/blog/?p=3

(scroll down a wee bit)

[gwhitf]

Absolutely. True un-tethered live view via that high definition zoom enabled A5 wireless screen.

Here is something, by some company in Poland. Transmits the signal from LiveView, to some other device. I can't figure it out, but anything that I see on the market, related to this topic, gets me excited, (to think of not having to drag laptop around).

http://www.pixelhk.com/en/proview.asp?P_ID=1543

But in this case, if the in-camera LCD is 3inch, (and damn good), and the external device is 3inch, what are you gaining?

[gwhitf]

Thanks for the link. In this case I suspect you'd gain little if anything.

All that time invested, and all that money, to design that thing, and all I can hear, inside my head is the designer realizing what he'd done, and a Homer Simpson voice saying, "DOH!"

[Dick Roadnight]

Thanks for the link. In this case I suspect you'd gain little if anything.

I perhaps should have added that I'd want that true un-tethered live view via that high definition zoom enabled A5 wireless screen to work with MFD.

Got a feeling I won't be seeing it any time soon.

Could you not mount a mini-mac on the camera, and have wireless LAN to another mac?

[john milich]

Nick:

it's been awhile, but isn't that formula the Lorentz transformation?

[Nick-T]

Nick:

it's been awhile, but isn't that formula the Lorentz transformation?

John it's something to do with the speed of light which seemed appropriate, the rest of the article where I found it was substantially beyond me

Nick-T

[BJL]

My (biased as I have a very close relationship with Hasselblad) feedback:
http://www.nick-t.com/blog/?p=3

One comment: it has often been suggested, and again in that blog, that developing a multi-point AF module for 645 format would be prohibitively expensive ... but the very first MF camera with AF, the Pentax 645N, had three point AF, and the extra two should already help in a number of off-center subject situations. Maybe Pentax should sell that AF module to other 645 makers, at a suitably profitable "Hassleblad/Phase One" price point.

[Nick-T]

One comment: it has often been suggested, and again in that blog, that developing a multi-point AF module for 645 format would be prohibitively expensive ... but the very first MF camera with AF, the Pentax 645N, had three point AF, and the extra two should already help in a number of off-center subject situations. Maybe Pentax should sell that AF module to other 645 makers, at a suitably profitable "Hassleblad/Phase One" price point.

I did not know that Billy I shall see what I can find out.