Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography => Topic started by: simplify on January 17, 2011, 12:51:58 am
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Hello,
I photograph art with a Betterlight and also a Phase One P45+. With the Betterlight I use the ZigAlign (http://www.zig-align.com/) system to make sure the camera is exactly perpendicular to the artwork. Does anyone have any tips for doing this with my Phase One on a Hasselblad 503cw. The ZigAlign site (http://www.zig-align.com/)is horrible, and I can't see any pictures of their products.
Thanks,
JP
John-Paul Jespersen Photography (http://johnpauljespersen.squarespace.com)
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Zig Align does make a product that is compatible with medium format systems. I had to call them to figure out what I needed for mine/
Good luck.
Dan
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Gosh but that website really is awful!
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Hasselblad made the "Hasselblad Linear Mirror Unit" which shows up every now and then on eBay. It's best used at shorter distances (under 4 feet) from my limited tests to date.
Shooting straight down can usually be squared up using a good level. (Remember aligning an enlarger?) Maybe buy an extra camera body and setup a permanent copy stand.
Archeologists have used a long stick with a knotted string attached to the ends of the stick to triangulate centering and aligning a camera to a subject in the field.
There are a few advantages to using a Hasselblad. You only need to align the camera and not each standard of a highly adjustable view-camera. Although I would expect the Betterlight to produce the best images, you won't need to pound the subject with light to use f11-16 and therefore getting a decent focus will be easier. (Not fun trying to get the focus across a large copy when you're stuck shooting at f5.6)
Hope some of this helps...
Chris