My guide to buying a cheap Hasselblad medium format camera

[Shirozina]

This is pretty basic stuff...... Perspective is entirely governed by subject to viewer / camera ( specifically the lens's so-called nodal point) distance and nothing else. Focal length and format size just change the crop / FOV. All other factors brought about by changing focal length, sensor size and optical formula such as DOF and Bokeh will change the apparent 'sense' of depth or other peripheral characteristics but they cannot change perspective which is a clearly defined and universally understood concept in geometry and specifically the projection of the 3d world onto a 2d surface.

[hansel]

I think @Andrew Reid is looking at it from a real world 'perspective'. You are all probably right but apllied this means that you shoot with a 24mm lens 3m away from the subject and then crop in later to gain the same perspective/framing as you would be shooting with a 85mm from the same distance? This sounds like a stupid idea just to proof the point of "same perspective". Also the idea of shooting with a 2x crop chip and use a F0.6 to blur out the background. Are there lenses with an fstop like that? So my question would be:

Can you copy the same shot/framing/perspective and DOF with medium format and lens of 50mm F2.8 wide open compareable on an MFT camera without speedbooster and croping, etc.? I mean physically what lens would you shoot with that really exist? I can't do the math really but wouldn't this be in need of something roughly around 25mm F0.7?

[Trek of Joy]

2 minutes ago, hansel said:

I think @Andrew Reid is looking at it from a real world 'perspective'. You are all probably right but apllied this means that you shoot with a 24mm lens 3m away from the subject and then crop in later to gain the same perspective/framing as you would be shooting with a 85mm from the same distance? This sounds like a stupid idea just to proof the point of "same perspective". Also the idea of shooting with a 2x crop chip and use a F0.6 to blur out the background. Are there lenses with an fstop like that? So my question would be:

Can you copy the same shot/framing/perspective and DOF with medium format and lens of 50mm F2.8 wide open compareable on an MFT camera without speedbooster and croping, etc.? I mean physically what lens would you shoot with that really exist? I can't do the math really but wouldn't this be in need of something roughly around 25mm F0.7?

Yes, it makes more sense to use longer FL's form an actual usage standpoint because in reality its silly to shoot a 12mm portrait from three blocks away to get the same look as a 135mm - but all this lens compression stuff is just nonsense. The article I previously linked explains it perfectly, so I don't need to rehash anything. Its distance to your subject, and nothing else.

Side note - for stills you could use the Brenzier pano method to replicate the look of any larger format with smaller sensors, even theoretical ones. I shot a promo image of a car in front of a museum with a 85/1.4 wide open on a FF camera and stitched 8 frames together, giving the look of something like a 32mm f0.45 on FF and something no MF lens can do - though my memory is a little fuzzy on the exact FL/aperture as its been a few years.

[forafewpixelsmore]

When taking a portrait in some cases we try to keep a certain distance to have a more natural / less deforming one-eye perspective of the face. Sensor size and focal length put aside there is one thing i am still wondering. it's the fact that medium glas can be pretty big; if the frontlens diameter is close to let's say eye to eye distance so doesn't that have an impact on how the image looks? espacially when it comes to 'enveloping' the face? And doesn't big glas need big sensors to get the most out of it ?
Using a panoramagimbal (nodal) and stitching should give a similar effect ...

[Fred Flohrschutz]

I posted a link to my One drive with a few Pentax 645D jpegs, but it seems like it's broken.

Here is one which I believe is good:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Agjz04kRC3VT2zbzCk2-emql_jPF

Let me know.

[aly324]

For better ergonomics and better lenses (and in my opinion more refined images), get a used Leica S2 medium format DSLR. It has a 3:2 sensor (which I prefer over 4:3) and a beautiful viewfinder and is weather-sealed. CCD and 16-bit color depth also.

The lenses are really superb, even if bulkier than the Hasselblad equivalents. The lenses are even better than the Fuji GFX and Hasselblad X1D lenses in my experience (I've used the Fuji and looked at X1D sample images), especially if you like Leica's gentle style of rendering spatial and tonal transition.

I bought (and sold) a used Leica S2 body for $3k flat. But even generally you can get a body for $3500 or so. The Summarit-S 70mm, roughly equivalent to 55mm POV on 35mm, can be had for under $2k. 

 

 

[Andrew Reid]

Good deal on the S2 body there.

Shame the lenses are so expensive still

Does anything adapt?

[j-oc]

The real sweet spot price wise is a used RZ67 with a 110mm lens. One of the greatest cameras ever and can be had in good condition on eBay for £800 or so.

[aly324]

19 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Good deal on the S2 body there.

Shame the lenses are so expensive still

Does anything adapt?

The S adapts most medium format DSLR lenses--manual MF lenses (Mamiya 645 and the old Hasselblad Vs etc.) via expensive Leica adapters or cheap Metabones ones, and HCD and Contax 645 lenses via expensive electronic Leica adapters. Not as flexible as the mirrorless GFX but not far behind. In my experience with adapting Mamiya and Contax 645 lenses though, they are so inferior to the native S lenses that using them felt like defeating the purpose of having the S body.

Also used copies of the common S lenses actually aren't that expensive. I got my S35 and S70 for under USD 2k each. Pretty reasonable.

 

 

[TwoScoops]

On 18/09/2017 at 9:06 AM, j-oc said:

The real sweet spot price wise is a used RZ67 with a 110mm lens. One of the greatest cameras ever and can be had in good condition on eBay for £800 or so.

I agree, and cheaper than that. I got a mint Pro II, 65, 110, 180, and various misc extras for £700 + shipping. Of course a decent digital back for it like the Aptus costs quite a bit more.

[Nikkor]

Look at the new voigtlander. 40mm 1.2 for the E mount.

The diagram looks like a speed booster behind a medium format lens, the samples look medium format to me, although bokeh at 1.2 looks ugly.

http://www.cosina.co.jp/gallery/iida-40-1_2/01.html

[arant.joseph]

Mastin Labs is currently running a contest where you can win a Pentax medium format camera if anyone is interested...

http://bit.ly/2xjsSvP

[maxotics]

On 9/17/2017 at 12:28 PM, Trek of Joy said:

Side note - for stills you could use the Brenzier pano method to replicate the look of any larger format with smaller sensors, even theoretical ones. I shot a promo image of a car in front of a museum with a 85/1.4 wide open on a FF camera and stitched 8 frames together, giving the look of something like a 32mm f0.45 on FF and something no MF lens can do - though my memory is a little fuzzy on the exact FL/aperture as its been a few years.

This is what I've been working on for the past year and a half.  This is an early test with my daughter.  Bad photo (she was tired) but shows the shallow DOF. you can get ONLY A FEW FEET AWAY  In this is use a Graflex 4x5 with my "digital" back, Sony A7.  Image is 200 megapixels.  Eat that Hassablad

Here one I did the other day using a pano method. It's around 250 megapixels.  Again, all the inventing (and embarrassing myself with comments on EOSHD  ) leave me little room for taking good photographs.  However, I think this image shows that special look you can get with larger format images.  I'm hoping to get some knockout shots in the next few weeks now that the "Large Format For A7" thing I'm building is working well.  The problem with pano heads is they do too much and are too heavy and difficult to work with (at least for me).  So my thing is made for a specific camera, in this case an A7R and 55mm.  It's only meant to take 25 shots and stitch them together.  The Brenzier method relies on a telephotos and a lot of shot duplication where you could miss something, or have a parallax issue.

Here's a shot that shows how much color richness you get from hundreds of megapixels of data.

One could blow these photos up to 10 feet and they wouldn't pixelate.

[TwoScoops]

On 19/09/2017 at 11:30 PM, Nikkor said:

Look at the new voigtlander. 40mm 1.2 for the E mount.

The diagram looks like a speed booster behind a medium format lens, the samples look medium format to me, although bokeh at 1.2 looks ugly.

http://www.cosina.co.jp/gallery/iida-40-1_2/01.html

 

Wow, you aren't kidding. That looks more MF than most MF digital.

[Andrew Reid]

On 18/09/2017 at 10:06 AM, j-oc said:

The real sweet spot price wise is a used RZ67 with a 110mm lens. One of the greatest cameras ever and can be had in good condition on eBay for £800 or so.

It's a bellows focusing film camera though. The article is about finding the price sweet spot for digital medium format.

If you added a half decent Leaf back to the RZ67 you'd still end up past the £3000 point.

Hasselblad H3D and Pentax 645D is where it's at.

[maxotics]

1 hour ago, Andrew Reid said:

The article is about finding the price sweet spot for digital medium format

Digital medium format isn't as, I don't know how to put it, standardized or commoditized, like full-frame and down (as if anyone can agree on those).  There is little resolution to be gained, they're mostly 50mp cameras and you can now get similar resolution from Nikon, Canon, Pentax and Sony.  The slightly shallower DOF you can get up close would not be noticed by most people. My guess is 95% of all commercial work gets stopped down from maximum DOF.  In short, no one would buy one for price alone, at least I wouldn't, unless it was like $1,000.  And then I'd need to use old MF lenses which will have issues (because modern MF lens prices will NOT go down  ).  And then I wouldn't really need it  As soon as you go into larger format, you generally want some sort of tilt-shift (unless you're strictly doing portraits), so I would include  @j-oc sweet spot camera.  Call my crazy, but MFs as straight-on DSLRs are one-trick phonies for people with money to burn.  

[j-oc]

7 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

Hasselblad H3D and Pentax 645D is where it's at.

Not at £3000 or upwards it isn't. For me at least. With the difference in price you can get an almost unlimited about of TMAX.

 

If its good enough for Annie Leibovitz, Vincent Peters et al, it's good enough for me.

 

 

[Bo3bG]

I note you love Hasselblad but don't mention that Fuji made all those bodies and lenses.
Hard to touch the Fuji GFX line if you really need medium format, but who REALLY wants files that big for everything?