Hasselblad H5D-50c - various problems

[danielsonn]

Hi,

I own a Hasselblad H5D-50c and I have various problems:

1. Tethered shooting is very, very slow compared with my H4D-40 : When I'm shooting 12 pictures I've to wait around 20sec to navigate from one pictures to the next - Phocus is blocked during that time. 100% magnification is around 4 times slower.
(with fastest and newest Mac Book Pro or Mac Pro)

2. Heat is a big issue.
I was outside (32°C/ 89°F) on a shooting and after 30 pictures the back stopped working and was very hot (with a error message on the back Error: -20004 / -20004)
 - After cooling the camera with the A/C from the car it worked again. That happened several times on different shootings.

3. With ISO 3200 and 6400 the pictures shows horizontal line-structrues in just the upper third of the sensor (visible only if the pictures area is very dark).


This is my second camera, the first had a massiv pink cast in some part of the pictures.


I'm curious if I'm the only one with that kind of problems.

Thanks,
Daniel

[Paul2660]

I don't own the 50c but the banding you report at the higher ISO range is not a surprise to me as this is common with a lot of CMOS camera when pushed to those extreme ISO ranges.   The banding may be improved over time with Phocus improvements or firmware to the back.

The heat issue is a surprise and a curious one. Does it only happen when tethered?  Glad to see the back has intelligence to monitor overheating.

Paul

[danielsonn]

I don't think it's banding, because it's just in the upper third of the sensor, the rest of the pictures is fine.
BTW The performance at ISO1600 and above is amazing.

The heat issue is when thetered and when shooting on to the CF card.

Daniel

[torger]

Canon sensors are well-known for their banding, but as far as I know the new Sony sensors should not have any banding issues. If they had it would be visible on the IQ250 too, and I've looked at a number of those raw files in detail and I have not found any banding issues.

My guess is that the H5D-50c was very rapidly developed reusing as much as possible from the previous CCD product, and as such it's likely to have some teething problems.

But let's hear the experience from other H5D-50c users...

[danielsonn]

My guess is that the H5D-50c was very rapidly developed reusing as much as possible from the previous CCD product, and as such it's likely to have some teething problems.

> that's my guess too.

BTW I send the log-file from the camera to Hasselblad, but no response since nearly two weeks......

[Paul2660]

I missed that point, on just the upper 1/3 of the sensor, that sounds like more a readout problem. 

You mentioned being tethered, and writing to the card.  This is a nice feature that Phase One currently doesn't allow.  I would like to be able to be tethered and write to both PC and card, or just card only.  Currently Phase One only allows writing to the PC.

Paul

[danielsonn]

You mentioned being tethered, and writing to the card.  This is a nice feature that Phase One currently doesn't allow.  I would like to be able to be tethered and write to both PC and card, or just card only.  Currently Phase One only allows writing to the PC.
Paul

> I meant that the problem occurs during shooting tethered OR shooting to the card - as far as I know it's not possible to shoot to the card and tethered at the same time.

[eronald]

are the structures in the same place shot after shot?
if so you have fixed pattern noise problems. these are usual with CMOS sensors, and should be dealt with by the firmware/raw converter. 

Edmund

[danielsonn]

are the structures in the same place shot after shot?
if so you have fixed pattern noise problems. these are usual with CMOS sensors, and should be dealt with by the firmware/raw converter. 

Edmund

> No the pattern looks similar, but it's not in the same place. It doesn't matter if I use PS, LR or Phocus to convert the raw-file.

I attached two pictures, in each case it's the upper right corner - more or less 1/3 of the picture-height: "Alp 0008.jpg" @ 3200 ISO / "Alp 0027.jpg" @ 6400 ISO

[george2787]

I'd send it back to hasselblad straight away...

[eronald]

I'd send it back to hasselblad straight away...

I agree. To my eyes this looks like something that can be fixed by firmware/calibration.

Edmund

[Paul2660]

Boy that is clean, nice file besides the banding.  Really clean shadows.  It looks like a frequency issue and since it's only on the 1/3 of the chip, I agree with the rest, it's a tad out of calibration.  They might be able to handle this by sending a file to you, or may need the back in for a quick repair.

Overall the future does look very clean. 

Thanks for sharing, and hope that they step and get it fixed soon. 

Paul

[torger]

It does not look like typical sensor banding noise or other pattern noise, so it's probably some issue with that particular back. It looks more like (half-)dead columns.

[rxchaos]

Hello.... I've been using my H5D50c for over a month now, and have used it extensively - tethered to my MacbookPro using Phocus v2.8.1.  I've done about 300 frames of tethered shooting in a studio with flash, all at ISO100.  I've not experienced any of the problems you've mentioned. Here're some of the details of my settings..

- I set the camera to draw power from the battery, and not from the host.  I had issues with the camera loosing connectivity to Phocus when I was using an H5D50 (CCD sensor) with the camera set to draw power from the host.  I was told there were power related issues with the Mac's Firewire/Thunderbolt  adapter.   The problem was resolved once I switched to drawing power from the camera battery. I also switched to using a DC Powergrip.

- I've done some long exposures at not so high ISO settings (max 400) and didn't see any banding or such artifacts.

- The temperatures my H5D50c was used in were very comfortable temps - about 65-70'F.

- I experienced no delay in Phocus navigating from one image to the next.  I generally don't navigate from one frame to the next at 100%, I scroll to the desire frame in and then view at 100%.

- Just noticed Phocus 2.8.2 became available for download.

Best...

-c

Hi,

I own a Hasselblad H5D-50c and I have various problems:

1. Tethered shooting is very, very slow compared with my H4D-40 : When I'm shooting 12 pictures I've to wait around 20sec to navigate from one pictures to the next - Phocus is blocked during that time. 100% magnification is around 4 times slower.
(with fastest and newest Mac Book Pro or Mac Pro)

2. Heat is a big issue.
I was outside (32°C/ 89°F) on a shooting and after 30 pictures the back stopped working and was very hot (with a error message on the back Error: -20004 / -20004)
 - After cooling the camera with the A/C from the car it worked again. That happened several times on different shootings.

3. With ISO 3200 and 6400 the pictures shows horizontal line-structrues in just the upper third of the sensor (visible only if the pictures area is very dark).


This is my second camera, the first had a massiv pink cast in some part of the pictures.


I'm curious if I'm the only one with that kind of problems.

Thanks,
Daniel

[danielsonn]

Hello.... I've been using my H5D50c for over a month now, and have used it extensively - tethered to my MacbookPro using Phocus v2.8.1.  I've done about 300 frames of tethered shooting in a studio with flash, all at ISO100.  I've not experienced any of the problems you've mentioned. Here're some of the details of my settings..

- I set the camera to draw power from the battery, and not from the host.  I had issues with the camera loosing connectivity to Phocus when I was using an H5D50 (CCD sensor) with the camera set to draw power from the host.  I was told there were power related issues with the Mac's Firewire/Thunderbolt  adapter.   The problem was resolved once I switched to drawing power from the camera battery. I also switched to using a DC Powergrip.

- I've done some long exposures at not so high ISO settings (max 400) and didn't see any banding or such artifacts.

- The temperatures my H5D50c was used in were very comfortable temps - about 65-70'F.

- I experienced no delay in Phocus navigating from one image to the next.  I generally don't navigate from one frame to the next at 100%, I scroll to the desire frame in and then view at 100%.

- Just noticed Phocus 2.8.2 became available for download.

Best...

-c

Thanks for your input.

I've got a new camera from Hasselblad - the problem about the horizontal line is solved.
And yes with the new Phocus 2.8.2 the navigation is much faster.

So overall I'm happy at the moment, I hope I won't have the problem with the temperature again (Hasselblad mention it has nothing to do with high temperature at all).

Anyway the high iso-performance is fantastic.