Shooting Beauty: Hasselblad 120mm HC or 150mm HC

[Juanito]

I'm doing a series a beauty shots and need to rent a longer lens for my Hassie. Is 120mm long enough or should I go with the 150mm? Can I get in close enough with the 150mm to do a tight head shot? If anyone wants to share samples of the two lenses, I'd appreciate it.

John

[Ken R]

I'm doing a series a beauty shots and need to rent a longer lens for my Hassie. Is 120mm long enough or should I go with the 150mm? Can I get in close enough with the 150mm to do a tight head shot? If anyone wants to share samples of the two lenses, I'd appreciate it.

John

Which back are you using?

[Professional]

I think he is using H4D or H5D or even H3D maybe, so whatever he uses they all are almost equal, just one with 33x44 and another with 36x48, so it will not be a big different which lens he uses much.

For portraits, i recommend HC 100mm f2.2, if not then HC 150mm is very nice one, i heard nice reviews about 100 and 150 for portraits.

HC 120mm is great and very sharp, but it is very heavy and very slow focus, i had bad time using 120 macro for portraits, but once i look at the results i forgot all that bad time.

[DavidP]

I also find the 150 a lot easier to focus and handle then the 120 doing head shots, I really like the 100 too, but to me it seems not quite long enough to do close up shots of people. The 150 is plenty sharp.

[Mr. Rib]

150 3.2N is awesome. Still quite bright and renders such crisp and sharp imagery..
I don't know about HC 120mm in particular but in general Macro lenses aren't best performers in near-infinity focus, so you need to take that into account. They are designed for close-up work.. HC 100mm is an awesome lens as well, you are good with either 100 or 150. I would really get deep into the subject before I'd pull a trigger on HC 120 for potrait/fashion stuff.

[design_freak]

120mm is amazing. It is better for that job. But.... You need to teach to work with. ( focusing )

[Hulyss]

I'm doing a series a beauty shots and need to rent a longer lens for my Hassie. Is 120mm long enough or should I go with the 150mm? Can I get in close enough with the 150mm to do a tight head shot? If anyone wants to share samples of the two lenses, I'd appreciate it.

John

Well, I would go for the 100/2.2 because of his versatility and plugging on a H1,7x when needed in portraiture. No loss in IQ (and some Cents saved, as well).

[paulmoorestudio]

I also use the 80 and the 1.7x for head shots.. works well for me with the 39back.  here is a recent example

[mitchino]

love that shot

[paulmoorestudio]

thanks, for those interested, there is a slight crop on the shot and this is approaching min-focus for the 80 1.7 combo, for tight heads you need extension..