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Hasselblad HTS 1.5

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.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
In this case if I set up centered on the barn the tree on thee right would block more than half of the barn. I set up to the left of the center of the barn (you can see this in the placement of the cupola on the top of the barn) and used 16mm of shift and some rotation to center the barn without creating converging horizontals and to minimize the foreground. I've also included a crop from the upper right that demonstrates reasonable resolution in the portion of the image brought into play by the shift. This is the 28mm plus HTS (effectively 43mm) at f16. Stopping down really helps this combination

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Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
And finally the bad news: the brick wall test out my dining room window. Shifted 15 cm (the lens was shifted to the left). Note the uncorrected cyan shift on the left. This is the 28mm +HTS at f11 or so. I've included crops centered and at 10mm shift and 15mm shift. The later is unimpressive compared to a digitar. The full 18mm shift results in vignetting and significant cyan shift.Yet somehow I've managed to get good results in actual use in less demanding situations.

View attachment 22805

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Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
A few concluding thoughts.

The shift seems to work best if you limit it to 10mm or so and handle any uncorrected convergences in PS - this seems to provide a better result than relying solely on PS or solely on large shifts.

The tilt feature is terrific, and as far as I know is not otherwise available in MF.

Kudos to Hasselblad for coming up with technically difficult solutions to serious technical issues: the multi shot backs for museums and the like, a very large segment of the MF market; the HTS for architecture, not perfect but it offers a high level of usability; and now the focus and recompose feature of the H4D.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Thanks very much for the review Woody.

To correct the Cyan shift you could always shoot a custom white shot?
David - The position of the HTS adjustments is recorded in the exif data and Phocus uses the information to correct for color shifts. The makes using the HTS radically easier than shifting the Horseman, where you need a custom white shot for every shift. What you're seeing in the image is a bit of uncorrected cyan shift.

I didn't have the wit to shoot shifted through a white diffuser to really test this. I'll do so later today and post.
 
David - The position of the HTS adjustments is recorded in the exif data and Phocus uses the information to correct for color shifts. The makes using the HTS radically easier than shifting the Horseman, where you need a custom white shot for every shift. What you're seeing in the image is a bit of uncorrected cyan shift.

I didn't have the wit to shoot shifted through a white diffuser to really test this. I'll do so later today and post.
Hi Woody,

Well not quite. The information in the HTS is used to correct for CA, Vignetting and Distortion. If you have any lens induced color shift then a custom white may be needed. It just is not needed that often!

Best,


David
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Thanks for the clarification. Maybe there is an opportunity to do something with the issue in Phocus 2 or beyond - the information provided by the camera is theoretically sufficient to permit Phocus to correct for color shifts.
 

anGy

Member
Thanks for taking the time of doing this.
I was really looking forward reading such real field report of the HTS 1.5.
I own a Cambo Ultima that I'm using with a 47mm digitar and a 22mpix Hassy back. Difficult to say for sure but I think a 15mm shift on the Cambo gives better results than the 10mm shift with the HTS. I'm quite disappointed with those crops. I also see some noise in it which makes the distortion and loss of sharpness a bit less easy to read. Did you make those pictures at 200/400isos ? Which back are you using (if I can ask) ?

Thanks again for this report.
 

LJL

New member
Woody,
Thanks for posting your HTS 1.5 review thoughts and some sample shots. It does look like the tilt is very nice. The shift looks acceptable. We know it may not be as good or long shift as something like a Cambo, but then the Hassy provides a lot of other features and capabilities that the view camera does not, thus making it much more versatile. I think for folks that require shift all the time, the view camera may be a good solution, but for all around versatility, the Hassy with the HTS does more than a respectable job, IMHO.

The only caveat that we have to live with is the 1.5x multiplier with this device. The reasons have been explained and detailed elsewhere, so not need to rehash. It just would be nice if it was possible create a device, other than a true view camera, that permitted the movements without so much of the additional magnification. That being said, the HTS still seems like a very nice solution in the Hassy kit.

My next thoughts are wondering what the planned Leica 30mm tilt/shift lens is going to produce. The Hassy solution provided the ability to use with a few lenses, which is very practical, compared to having dedicated lenses for the solution (like the Canon 17mm TS-E, the 24mm TS-E, the 45mm and the 90mm TS-Es also).

LJ
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Thanks for taking the time of doing this.
I was really looking forward reading such real field report of the HTS 1.5.
I own a Cambo Ultima that I'm using with a 47mm digitar and a 22mpix Hassy back. Difficult to say for sure but I think a 15mm shift on the Cambo gives better results than the 10mm shift with the HTS. I'm quite disappointed with those crops. I also see some noise in it which makes the distortion and loss of sharpness a bit less easy to read. Did you make those pictures at 200/400isos ? Which back are you using (if I can ask) ?

Thanks again for this report.
39 m back. ISO 100. I'm certain that you are correct about the digitar at 15 out performing the HTS at 10.
 
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