Woody Campbell
Workshop Member
I thought that might be useful to post a micro review of the Hasselblad HTS 1.5 - user experience on the web has been scarce - there is a dearth of information on it in actual use.
What is it? The HTS is a tilt-shift adapter that fits between the H3D (and presumably the H4D) body and the current generation of Hasselblad digital prime lenses from focal length 28 through 100mm. It provides 10 degrees of tilt and 18mm of shift, both on a single axis. The HTS rotates which effectively permits various combinations of horizontal and vertical shift or tilt. The shift and tilt functions are at right angles to each other, which is generally a useful configuration for landscape and architecture. The HTS includes an optical element that acts as a 1.5x focal length extender and expands the image circle to cover the shift area. The 28mm becomes a 43mm, which is roughly equivalent to a 28 T/S in 35mm format. Here's a link to Hasselblad's data sheet.
HTS 1.5 datasheet
In use the HTS offers a key advantage over digital "view" cameras like the Alpa and the Horseman: you can actually see what you are doing. You can see the effects of tilt and shift through the viewfinder and compose, focus and frame accurately. The HTS results in 1 stop of light loss; I use the waist level finder (which is brighter than the eye level finder because it doesn't employ a prism) to compensate for this. In this configuration the Hasselblad is totally manual so I carry a light meeter and adjust exposure based on the camera's histogram display. The waist level finder is a nuisance in portrait orientation but it's not really worse than the eye level finder.
The key disadvantage to this setup is that the 28mm + HTS or 80mm + HTS are not digitars. Performance is outstanding centered, but is not comparable to the digitars shifted, at least not beyond 10 mm or so. By the way the mts curves in the data sheet suggest that the performance of the 28mm and 80mm with the HTS is better than the other focal lengths. This is consistent with my experience.
I've images in the following posts.
What is it? The HTS is a tilt-shift adapter that fits between the H3D (and presumably the H4D) body and the current generation of Hasselblad digital prime lenses from focal length 28 through 100mm. It provides 10 degrees of tilt and 18mm of shift, both on a single axis. The HTS rotates which effectively permits various combinations of horizontal and vertical shift or tilt. The shift and tilt functions are at right angles to each other, which is generally a useful configuration for landscape and architecture. The HTS includes an optical element that acts as a 1.5x focal length extender and expands the image circle to cover the shift area. The 28mm becomes a 43mm, which is roughly equivalent to a 28 T/S in 35mm format. Here's a link to Hasselblad's data sheet.
HTS 1.5 datasheet
In use the HTS offers a key advantage over digital "view" cameras like the Alpa and the Horseman: you can actually see what you are doing. You can see the effects of tilt and shift through the viewfinder and compose, focus and frame accurately. The HTS results in 1 stop of light loss; I use the waist level finder (which is brighter than the eye level finder because it doesn't employ a prism) to compensate for this. In this configuration the Hasselblad is totally manual so I carry a light meeter and adjust exposure based on the camera's histogram display. The waist level finder is a nuisance in portrait orientation but it's not really worse than the eye level finder.
The key disadvantage to this setup is that the 28mm + HTS or 80mm + HTS are not digitars. Performance is outstanding centered, but is not comparable to the digitars shifted, at least not beyond 10 mm or so. By the way the mts curves in the data sheet suggest that the performance of the 28mm and 80mm with the HTS is better than the other focal lengths. This is consistent with my experience.
I've images in the following posts.