Hasselblad Lens Adapter

[greeny]

I have been following a couple lens adapters for hasselblad lenses. I was thinking about the adapters for Yashica and Nikon SLR's. Has anyone used or are presently using one of these adapters? How does it work out and is it worth the trouble?

 

[pvdhaar]

This really depends on your motivation to use MF lenses on a 35mm body..

The larger image circle of medium format lenses allows them to be used on a adapter with tilt/shift possibilities. So if that's the way you want to go, I'd say yes then it's probably more economical than forking out for a dedicated perspective control lens.

Another reason would be if you have a Hasselblad lens in a focal length that you don't have for the Nikon/Yashica, or if a lens gives a particularly desirable look. The latter argument may be flawed though, as the larger magnification required to obtain a same size print from small format may completely take away the lens' character. Also, I wouldn't expect is to have a MF lens outperform a small format lens of similar focal length when used on 35mm film.

The downsides to me seem the lousy integration if you've got leaf-shuttered lenses, the stop down metering, relatively long close focus distances in some focal lengths that demand additional extension tubes..

 

[greeny]

This really depends on your motivation to use MF lenses on a 35mm body..

The larger image circle of medium format lenses allows them to be used on a adapter with tilt/shift possibilities. So if that's the way you want to go, I'd say yes then it's probably more economical than forking out for a dedicated perspective control lens.

Another reason would be if you have a Hasselblad lens in a focal length that you don't have for the Nikon/Yashica, or if a lens gives a particularly desirable look. The latter argument may be flawed though, as the larger magnification required to obtain a same size print from small format may completely take away the lens' character. Also, I wouldn't expect is to have a MF lens outperform a small format lens of similar focal length when used on 35mm film.

The downsides to me seem the lousy integration if you've got leaf-shuttered lenses, the stop down metering, relatively long close focus distances in some focal lengths that demand additional extension tubes..

Thank You pvdhaar for your reply.

What got me thinking about doing this was the fact that I only have one Nikon SLR (a FG) and only one lens for it. I have four Hasselblad lenses so my thought was I could save the cost of more lenses if I could use the Hasselblads.

 

[Nokton48]

What got me thinking about doing this was the fact that I only have one Nikon SLR (a FG) and only one lens for it. I have four Hasselblad lenses so my thought was I could save the cost of more lenses if I could use the Hasselblads.

I bought a Hasselblad to Canon FL adapter, and a Canon FL to Sony Nex3 Adapter. By combining the two adapters, I can shoot digital photos with all my Hasselblad lenses.

This was worth it for me. Depending on the price of the adapter (prices are all over the place), I'd say, go for it.

 

[21-135 Apo All Good]

This really depends on your motivation to use MF lenses on a 35mm body..

The larger image circle of medium format lenses allows them to be used on a adapter with tilt/shift possibilities. So if that's the way you want to go, I'd say yes then it's probably more economical than forking out for a dedicated perspective control lens.

Another reason would be if you have a Hasselblad lens in a focal length that you don't have for the Nikon/Yashica, or if a lens gives a particularly desirable look. The latter argument may be flawed though, as the larger magnification required to obtain a same size print from small format may completely take away the lens' character. Also, I wouldn't expect is to have a MF lens outperform a small format lens of similar focal length when used on 35mm film.

The downsides to me seem the lousy integration if you've got leaf-shuttered lenses, the stop down metering, relatively long close focus distances in some focal lengths that demand additional extension tubes..

You post is excellent in the beginning and most of what you said is correct, except:

Forgive me, but I had to chime-in with the area that I highlighted. Almost since the days of wet plates has it been understood that there does exist a "sweet spot" towards the center image area of a given optic. Using a reducing back on a field or view camera has for decades yielded a superior image quality just by using the central portion of an optic's image circle. Such would be the case when using Zeiss optics for Hasselblads on any 35mm camera body. As long as the film plane is held perfectly flat and parallel, superior image quality will result and there won't be any sign of "fall-off" or "unsharpness" at the corners of the 35mm frame, even with said Zeiss lens wide-open!

Here's another example:

A famous Canadian Portrait Artist husband & wife team from Quebeck used to use a 300mm (12") lens that had an image circle that covered a 8x10 negative. He used this optic with a (Graphmatic Back) 4x5 sheet film holder, only using the very center of the image circle. His 30"x40" and larger custom canvas prints were absolutely fantastic and I have first hand knowledge of this couple, their studio and hired them to teach what they do so well to a gathering of more than 100 of the best Portraitists in NJ at the time.

Hassy to Nikon adapters are the most popular by the way. I believe that they have been manufactured the longest.

 

[pvdhaar]

You post is excellent in the beginning and most of what you said is correct, except:

Forgive me, but I had to chime-in with the area that I highlighted. Almost since the days of wet plates has it been understood that there does exist a "sweet spot" towards the center image area of a given optic. Using a reducing back on a field or view camera has for decades yielded a superior image quality just by using the central portion of an optic's image circle. Such would be the case when using Zeiss optics for Hasselblads on any 35mm camera body. As long as the film plane is held perfectly flat and parallel, superior image quality will result and there won't be any sign of "fall-off" or "unsharpness" at the corners of the 35mm frame, even with said Zeiss lens wide-open!

You're absolutely right, it's definately a good idea to use the center sweet spot of a lens designed for a larger format. What I mean though, is that
because of the demands that smaller formats pose with respect to resolving power (especially in view of high pixel count small format digital sensors), the peak resolution performance of modern smaller format lenses of similar focal length and (lets be fair) a similar price point is generally higher. Case in point: my Tamron 90/2.8 completely outresolves my Bronica PS80/2.8, and the latter is not a bad lens at all..

 

[21-135 Apo All Good]

You're absolutely right, it's definately a good idea to use the center sweet spot of a lens designed for a larger format. What I mean though, is that
because of the demands that smaller formats pose with respect to resolving power (especially in view of high pixel count small format digital sensors), the peak resolution performance of modern smaller format lenses of similar focal length and (lets be fair) a similar price point is generally higher. Case in point: my Tamron 90/2.8 completely outresolves my Bronica PS80/2.8, and the latter is not a bad lens at all..

I respectfully disagree with your premise. Tamron never made a lens in the same price point as Bronica, so your analogy is flawed somewhat. I don't believe a price point exists where you can purchase a medium format 50mm lens and one from a company that makes & markets a lens line designed to interchange the mounts. I can't speak as to the quality of Bronica glass but I have several friends that used them to earn a good living. Only once you got past 16x20 size prints did the differences become readily apparent between my Zeiss lenses and the Bronica ones of similar focal length.

I have a 40"x50" photo from a slightly cropped Hassy neg shot with a 50mm CF Zeiss Distagon and printed using a 10"x10" Devere enlarger. The edges are as sharp as the middle of the image at 2K sq. inches.

In terms of resolving power one must look at actual results. Since lenses that are designed to work on 35mm format need only to satisfy a much smaller throw of the image circle, they're generally cheaper to mass-produce. As image sensors become even more sensitive and capable of distinguishing between run-of-the-mill performance glass and say that of the newest Leica Aspherical or Apo-Aspherical models, the need for large sensor medium format digital cameras will become blurred somewhat. On this we agree. After-all how many of us are shooting for billboards along the highways?🙂

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

I had a Hassy lens to Canon EOS mount adapter for a long time. I ended up only using it once, making a decent short tele out of the 80mm Planar.

For me, it was a bit of a waste. I used it for a 'fashion/nude/portrait' session with a friend. It, simply, just felt very limiting. I kept the lens at 2.8 and f4, just so that i didn't have to deal with juggling the viewing versus taking aperture, but the focus screen was dim because of the max 2.8 aperture, and i didn't like feeling constricted to those two apertures. It just wasn't worthwhile. At the time, i didn't have an 85mm lens with me. But as soon as i started using this adapted kludge, i realized i'd rather have just shot it all with the 50mm Canon lens i did have with me.

Granted, there are probably certain applications for which using this kind of adapter has fewer compromises. But, for people, for me... ick. I won't do it again.

I don't believe i ever scanned the final results, but the contacts seemed okay. What meant more, though, is that i didn't really succeed with the images because i was too involved with the equipment. I'm sure if i had been more used to that working process, it wouldn't have been so intrusive, but if you're planning to do this only occasionally, you may find it just gets in the way.

I was working with a high quality adapter - i believe it may have been a Novoflex. I also have a couple of Nikons (FE2 and F100). I don't see any reason why my experience would have been different if i had used one of them, instead of the Canon EOS 3.