Hasselblad H3D 39 II
Hasselblad H3D 39 II
History
I have always loved Hasselblad cameras! I can’t really explain why. Perhaps it came from watching the moon landing on TV at school as a child. Seeing modified Blad’s in space in the 60’s and the awesome images that came back with them. Anyway, I was using my second hand Hasselblad 500 C/M 6x6 film camera occasionally to shoot higher resolution transparencies in my studio. The other main camera was either my Canon 20D or the later 40D. Both had crop sensors and since I was shooting cars in the large cyclorama with a moderately wide lens I found I was getting a lot of lens aberration issues. Purple, red and blue fringing towards the edge of the frames around contrasty surfaces like black tyres against the white background. Tedious stuff to remove manually in post and hard to hide in large poster size prints. At the time there were no lens corrections built into apps like Lightroom and I was wanting to do more high end architecture, product and automotive work so I started to consider alternatives.
Choosing a Hasselblad
Who buys a Hasselblad medium format camera??? Well in my case it was a straight forward business decision. In 2012 when I bought my Hasselblad kit there were only a few choices for a medium format digital camera. They were all expensive and most were putting a sensor onto an existing medium format film camera body or view camera with lens technology that was designed for film. I could not afford the newer 50 megapixel version so the 39 megapixel sensor was my best pick. Now like any camera purchase for a working professional you need to also commit to lenses and accessories consistent with your intended usage which is why its a huge decision! I have all prime lenses - 35mm, 50mm, 120mm Macro and the 80mm standard lens as well as the tilt and shift adapter. Being a small business and still building I had to take out a finance lease to pay it off over 5 years. I’ll never regret the decision. In business you have to always push yourself to get work, build experience and ability and get the gear you need to produce the best imaging outcomes possible for your customers. The world wasn’t producing images for instagram and solely computer screen viewing in 2012. My work was aimed at large format print outcomes demanding very high resolution. The image quality and colour rendition of this camera is just stunning. Sure other camera technologies may have caught up to it but it’s 12 years old as I write this and I can still enjoy it with my new projects today.
Shooting with the Hasselblad
The Hasselblad is an SLR style camera but it is not fast (read that as it is very slow). Auto focus is not one of its strong points either compared to my Canon 5D for instance. Now I bought the Blad to do mostly highly detailed studio work and architectural, tripod mounted shots, not F1 and sports action. The Canon 5D Mk II is the go to camera in my kit for that kind of immediate action work. Now I am retired I am starting to do more table top studio type work and hopefully macro shots. I shoot with the H3D camera tethered to my older 17” MacBook Pro which I keep for just that purpose since it is the only computer I have with an old style firewire connection available. The H3D rear display takes some time to build the review image and its resolution is not really high enough to make critical assessments of focus on the run. Tethered to the MacBook I can control all the camera settings, trigger the shutter and drill into the images for detailed evaluation of focus, composition, lighting etc. So its more like shooting a large format film camera than run and gun with something more modern. I am using the H3D for more outside work these days and it is fun. It is reminding me to visualise my compositions more carefully and look at the lighting variations in a scene before I blaze away. Can you easily walk around and take snapshots or do street style captures with it? Of course you can. It just won’t be as fast to use as a more modern medium format camera or a smaller, lighter 35mm style SLR or rangefinder unit. If you ever get the chance you should try one - “it is so choice!” (Apologies to Ferris Bueller)
“If you ever get the chance you should try a Hasselblad. It is so choice.”
– Ferris Bueller (kind of)