Above: Linhof 6x7cm Film Back With this film back, I can shoot 67cm format with a Sinar F view camera and razor sharp Fujinon lenses (see large format section). Since my shortest Fuji lens is 90mm, the Linhof is only used occasionally. A view camera is a good tool to enliven essays done with 6x7 film, when I want to tilt the plane of focus. In most circumstances, the desired movement is shift, and the Pentax shift lens serves this purpose
Hasselblad
Above: A few mug shots of my Hasselblad rig. I needed a suitable camera for weddings and portraits. The Pentax is superb for outdoor photography, wide angle photography, working in natural light, and artificial lighting of stationary subjects. In contrast, Hasselblad leaf shutters are ideal for use with strobe, and the image quality is legendary. I am open-minded in matters of composition, and find many situations where a square format is visually effective, including portraiture. One of my silent rituals is framing shots that seldom require cropping.
Above: A Zeiss 250mm f/5.6 Sonnar lens featuring a leaf shutter. Test shots are quite impressive. The 80mm f/2.8 Zeiss Planar is also an excellent lens, and very useful in low light situations.
I am building the Hasselblad gear slowly due to costs, but only a few items remain. Two lenses, two film backs, and a metered prism finder will complete my short list. One lens, the SMC 165mm f/4 will complete the Pentax system, enabling "walk-around" shooting with flash, and daylight fill, which are both common routines. No hurry...
It's all film! Digital imaging can be enjoyable, and profitable, being in harmony with the commercial universe (300 DPI or less, narrow range of luminescence). Hasselblad, Mamiya and Rollei manufacture medium format digital rigs, of interest to some photographers, but cameras on this page are purely for shooting with film.
Medium Format
Pentax is my favorite camera manufacturer. They have a very practical engineering philosophy, and make superb manual cameras. It's always a pleasure to shoot with the Pentax 67II shown at left. It does have advanced automation, including a microprocessor in the body, but it's helpful and not intrusive. Pentax metering is very accurate, so adding an AE finder was a good idea. Photographers can use a hand held meter, but sports and wildlife require fast responses and lighting conditions also change quickly. I often work in manual modes.
My right thumb is the "motor drive". Pentax redesigned the film transport, so the winding crank rides on roller bearings, smooth as silk. The body accepts 120 or 220 film, and Pentax managed to squeeze one extra shot from a roll of 220 film, for a total of 21 shots. This is a 5% film savings!
It's a big camera; 6x7cm is a generous film size. The negative is 4.5 times the
size of 35mm frames, for large prints with very fine grain. I chose this camera because it
performs so well outdoors. The body incorporates a focal plane shutter, with a top
speed of 1/1000th of a second, an impressive feat of engineering for such a large shutter.
Since the shutter is not in the lens, lenses can incorporate larger apertures, and
are "fast" for this format. High speed film can be used freely in this format, because
common print sizes require small enlargements.
Above: Rigged for flash Pentax has a clever design for working with artificial light. The strobe mounts on a hotshoe grip, and is triggered by the camera. The strobe also features TTL flash metering. Flash is a major drawback with the Pentax 67II system due to a slow synch speed of 1/30th of a second. This is so slow, it's laughable. A tripod is required, and daylight synch is out of the question. Pentax does make leaf shutter lenses for flash synch from 1/60th to 1/500th of a second, a 165mm f/4 LS lens. For my purposes, the 165mm f/2.8 is a better lens without a leaf shutter. It is an extremely popular lens; quite sharp, with excellent background blur and narrow depth of field for subject emphasis. One of these days I will add the leaf shutter lens, but it's not urgent because my Hasselblad has leaf shutter lenses. The flash will cover wide angle lenses down to 55mm and is suitable for many interior shots. The same strobe can be used with a Pentax digital camera, and so can 67 format lenses.
Lenses are shown in the frame at left.. They are arranged by increasing focal length,
and also include some exotic glass--lenses designed for special applications.
Fisheye Lenses are objects of beauty, sometimes the perfect tool to render your subject. This costly lens is built like a tank, and incorporates 11 elements in 7 groups. Obviously there is no way to attach a filter on the front of the lens, but there is gel filter holder in the rear. It also has built-in filters (UV, Y2, O2 & R3) for black and white photography. A fisheye effect is uncontrolled rectilinear distortion, and though might seem lenses of this kind would be easier to build, professional standards are high, and production runs are small (also the case for shift lenses). Canon makes a good fisheye lens for 1/4 the price, but I prefer 6x7cm film for this kind of image. A fisheye lens produces dynamic compositions, with a strong sense of motion. Motion needs space, and I find large prints to be more effective in visual terms. Larger prints need bigger negatives.
Pentax lenses are pretty heavy. The fisheye weighs over 2 pounds, and a shift lens is 36 ounces. The 300mm telephoto lens tips the scale at over 3 pounds. I adapt to using a bigger, heavier camera, to get large negatives and fine grain prints. All the lenses are manual focus, which is more important than some artists realize for critical focus.
The Pentax Shift Lens is very useful. The image circle is much larger than the 6x7cm film area, and this allows rise/fall/shift movements. The lens rides on a mechanical platform, allowing movement in one direction, but also offers 360 degrees of rotation in click stops, so the lens will shift in any direction. This is a very expensive lens, with 9 elements in 8 groups, but it does deliver high-quality images. We have all seen photos of buildings or landmarks, where the camera has been tilted to include a roof, or the head of a statue. Converging lines are a great distraction. As this is a frequently encountered problem, a shift lens is worth the cost. This one is a moderate wide angle lens, that will work in most circumstances, assuming you have room to frame the shot. Sometimes, when doing architecture or interiors, a view camera is necessary equipment. By not going too wide in designing this lens, there is no decernable wide angle distortion, and it delivers crisp images with fairly even illumination.
Portrait Lenses include the older 150mm f/2.8, and 165mm f/2.8 short telephoto lenses. The 165mm is new, but I decided to keep the 150mm length, which has a distinctive optical personality. A 120mm f/3.5 Soft Focus lens is sometimes handy. This lens has five settings, in 1/2 f-stop increments, betwee f/3.5 and f/8, with progressively smaller soft effect. At apertures between f/8 and f/22, images are sharp. This is a clever design. If you're photographing many people on location, it is only necessary to change the aperture to get soft focus, or very sharp images.
Above: Pentax 67II With Extender Working in the telephoto range is asking a lot of Pentax! In this format, optical reach is very expensive. For subjects like birds, or wildlife photography, 35mm cameras are usually a better choice. If the goal is 20" x 24" prints, the Pentax is clearly a better choice.
Pentax 67II Virtues: Image quality is excellent. For rectangular prints, quality approaches Hasselblad. Since 6x6cm is a square frame, there is loss of detail when negatives are cropped. For a square print, often very suitable to a subject, Hasselblad wins the day (and the Pentax negative must be cropped by 15%). I always use the Pentax for black and white photography, because it delivers much richer images than 35mm format. Pentax wide angle lenses are superbly designed, while Canon wide angle lenses are nothing to write home about. Medium format is easier to print, and I get better prints for my efforts.
Cameras are certainly objects of desire. Especially Hasselblad. The reputation is well-earned,
because the camera bodies, lenses, film backs and accessories are superbly designed. It is also
an extremely durable camera, and operation is very smooth. Mechanical and optical refinement is as good
as it gets. Female subjects, and children seem to get a nice feeling from this camera. It's pretty.
Photography is all about emotion, and if a particular camera feels right, there is no
better reason to buy gear.
Just the same, a logical plan is helpful. Since Hasselblad equipment is expensive, it is helpful to plan
purchases. Here is the plan:
- Hasselblad C/M Camera Body and Wide Strap
- Waist level and Metered Prism Finders
- Two A-24 Film Backs, and one A-12 Back
- 80mm f/2.8 Zeiss Planar CF lens
- 150mm f/4 Zeiss Sonnar CF lens
- 250mm f/5.6 Zeiss Sonnar CF lens
- 60mm f/3.5 Zeiss Distagon CF lens
- Compendium lens shade (one size fits all)
- Lens hoods for outdoor shooting (2 sizes fit all)
- Metz Mecabliz 45 CL-1 Flash
Above: A Metz "Masher". This is a very impressive portable strobe. It produces enough power to light up a large hall, and the internal flash meter is very accurate. A strobe with a grip is just what you need for walking around. When coupled to the Hasselblad, with any of the lenses, it is still a light, compact rig. This unit came with an extra battery, charger, et cetera. It's a very good idea to carry a spare synch cord. Metz has a reputation for consistent, accurate output, and long life. I can also use the Metz as low-power fill, triggering a stand-alone Quantum T2 with Turbo battery. A main/fill arrangement is a little more interesting than photographing many subjects with frontal lighting.