Post by jmi on Feb 17, 2008 13:37:00 GMT -5
I should start with an apology - I've not been around much, sorry! The whole moving country and new job really drank up a lot of my time over the autumn...
First, the why part. I came over here with just the Leica and the XA, so only rangefinders. I've recently (and totally unexpectedly) got into shooting portraits in the studio, so of course the first time I just used my M3 with the 90mm. This is not very practical at the best of times, and with the sync cord poking my eye out all the time, made me wish for an SLR very rapidly.
I was going to ship the Hasselblad and get it a 150 but after seeing the prices for used RB67 gear and Craig Nelson's (proprietor of the Nelson foto forums) excellent results with the RB, and especially since he seemed to be able to hand-hold it down to far slower speeds than I ever could with the hassy. Well, the RB67 body + 120 back + 90 + 180 lenses hardly cost much more than the 150 for the hassy (and certainly far less than the 120 macro I was really lusting after) so what the hey!
It's a pretty nice system. When I was first considering moving to MF I had researched and dismissed it due to all the internet lore about it being very big and heavy, and therefore not suitable for handheld field work. IMHO after using it for exactly that, I now do not agree with all those reviews out there. Yes, it's heavy, but at a recent studio session one of the guys there took some interest in it, and we did a 5-minute swap of my RB67 + 180 for his EOS-1 with 70-200/2.8 L. The Canon felt heavier. I swear the lens alone was heavier than the RB with lens! I will grant that it's very big though. When I went back to the UK this Christmas to visit the family I picked up the Hasselblad and it felt like a toy!
Craig's claims about hand-holdability are almost true for me. I get very sharp results with the 90 at 1/125, pretty good at 1/60, perfectly acceptable at 1/30. This is almost as good as my Leica M3. My personal theory is that although the mirror is huge, it seems to be quite well-damped, and there is a slight delay between the mirror slapping and the shutter firing. The size and weight also seem to help. On the Hasselblad, the mirror motion is faster, there's less delay (because delay has to be bad, right, all those folks that complain about speed on dSLRs would say) and there's also a secondary shutter curtain firing that's not there on the RB. On the Hasselblad I would be doing well to get acceptable results at 1/60 unless the mirror was pre-fired.
The rotating back is a godsend especially for portrait work. I tend to shoot a lot of verticals anyway, and I would not want to hold this thing on it's side for too long
I think it has helped with the composition of these a bit, since it's always awkward holding an eye-level finder sideways (especially on an RF), whereas it's easy with the RB.
Another thing I really like is the bellows. I had a Mamiya C220 so I knew how useful this is already. It's even better on the SLR since all the problems with parallax are gone! With the 80 it goes most of the way to 1:1 (I believe it does beyond 1:2, with no tubes, if memory serves). I've used it a lot, and although it's necessary to be a little more careful, I often use closest focus handheld with Tri-X outside and the results are very good.
The downsides... the system is a bit finicky to operate. It's very easy to make double exposures (I have the original model though, there's an interlock on the Pro-S and SD), and the separate cocking and wind-on take some getting used to. However I find the slow operation to actually be an advantage especially for my studio shooting where it seems to slow me down to about the right rate to increase the fraction of keepers. This is good with only 10 shots per roll (I use B+W so there's only one emulsion readily available in 220, not enough choice!).
I still haven't decided about the lenses - I occasionally get not-that-great results for reasons I haven't quite figured out. Could be a film flatness issue in which case I'm guessing my back might need fixing. For studio work the depth of field is frightfully shallow with the long lens, even at f/11, so careful focus is still a necessity. This is a bit on the slow side, but the finders are decently bright, and unlike the modern "acute matte" screens in the hasselblad they have much better "snap" and are easier to focus even though they are darker. Brightness isn't everything.
So... any other RB fans around here? Think I'm gonna get me a 50 next which adds to the fun since it has a floating element which must be adjusted as well as focus on the bellows
First, the why part. I came over here with just the Leica and the XA, so only rangefinders. I've recently (and totally unexpectedly) got into shooting portraits in the studio, so of course the first time I just used my M3 with the 90mm. This is not very practical at the best of times, and with the sync cord poking my eye out all the time, made me wish for an SLR very rapidly.
I was going to ship the Hasselblad and get it a 150 but after seeing the prices for used RB67 gear and Craig Nelson's (proprietor of the Nelson foto forums) excellent results with the RB, and especially since he seemed to be able to hand-hold it down to far slower speeds than I ever could with the hassy. Well, the RB67 body + 120 back + 90 + 180 lenses hardly cost much more than the 150 for the hassy (and certainly far less than the 120 macro I was really lusting after) so what the hey!
It's a pretty nice system. When I was first considering moving to MF I had researched and dismissed it due to all the internet lore about it being very big and heavy, and therefore not suitable for handheld field work. IMHO after using it for exactly that, I now do not agree with all those reviews out there. Yes, it's heavy, but at a recent studio session one of the guys there took some interest in it, and we did a 5-minute swap of my RB67 + 180 for his EOS-1 with 70-200/2.8 L. The Canon felt heavier. I swear the lens alone was heavier than the RB with lens! I will grant that it's very big though. When I went back to the UK this Christmas to visit the family I picked up the Hasselblad and it felt like a toy!
Craig's claims about hand-holdability are almost true for me. I get very sharp results with the 90 at 1/125, pretty good at 1/60, perfectly acceptable at 1/30. This is almost as good as my Leica M3. My personal theory is that although the mirror is huge, it seems to be quite well-damped, and there is a slight delay between the mirror slapping and the shutter firing. The size and weight also seem to help. On the Hasselblad, the mirror motion is faster, there's less delay (because delay has to be bad, right, all those folks that complain about speed on dSLRs would say) and there's also a secondary shutter curtain firing that's not there on the RB. On the Hasselblad I would be doing well to get acceptable results at 1/60 unless the mirror was pre-fired.
The rotating back is a godsend especially for portrait work. I tend to shoot a lot of verticals anyway, and I would not want to hold this thing on it's side for too long
I think it has helped with the composition of these a bit, since it's always awkward holding an eye-level finder sideways (especially on an RF), whereas it's easy with the RB.Another thing I really like is the bellows. I had a Mamiya C220 so I knew how useful this is already. It's even better on the SLR since all the problems with parallax are gone! With the 80 it goes most of the way to 1:1 (I believe it does beyond 1:2, with no tubes, if memory serves). I've used it a lot, and although it's necessary to be a little more careful, I often use closest focus handheld with Tri-X outside and the results are very good.
The downsides... the system is a bit finicky to operate. It's very easy to make double exposures (I have the original model though, there's an interlock on the Pro-S and SD), and the separate cocking and wind-on take some getting used to. However I find the slow operation to actually be an advantage especially for my studio shooting where it seems to slow me down to about the right rate to increase the fraction of keepers. This is good with only 10 shots per roll (I use B+W so there's only one emulsion readily available in 220, not enough choice!).
I still haven't decided about the lenses - I occasionally get not-that-great results for reasons I haven't quite figured out. Could be a film flatness issue in which case I'm guessing my back might need fixing. For studio work the depth of field is frightfully shallow with the long lens, even at f/11, so careful focus is still a necessity. This is a bit on the slow side, but the finders are decently bright, and unlike the modern "acute matte" screens in the hasselblad they have much better "snap" and are easier to focus even though they are darker. Brightness isn't everything.
So... any other RB fans around here? Think I'm gonna get me a 50 next which adds to the fun since it has a floating element which must be adjusted as well as focus on the bellows
