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My H4D-60 arrived

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
I'll be reporting on it over the next week or so. It's clearly going to demand a real effort to get it to perform up to its potential. If there are any issues that anyone would like me to look at reply to this thread. I'll be exploring 50 vs 60 megs with the HCD lenses (two of my favorite lenses ever), and long exposures.
 

symbolphoto

New member
Please do report! Are they now shipping with the higher res screen or is that still in the firmware updates?
 

dick

New member
I'll be reporting on it over the next week or so. It's clearly going to demand a real effort to get it to perform up to its potential. If there are any issues that anyone would like me to look at reply to this thread. I'll be exploring 50 vs 60 megs with the HCD lenses (two of my favorite lenses ever), and long exposures.
What can we report to demonstrate the differences?

Are you talking about H3D11-50 v H4D-60 or do you have an H4D-50?

The H4 features like the true focus are also on the H4D-40.

Pixel-res should be similar, as the pixel pitch is the same.

¿I think some people might be interested in the difference between the 40 and the 60 at high ISO?

I am sure there might be someone out there with a 40 for hand-held and a 60 for tripod/view camera work?
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
What can we report to demonstrate the differences?

Are you talking about H3D11-50 v H4D-60 or do you have an H4D-50?

The H4 features like the true focus are also on the H4D-40.

Pixel-res should be similar, as the pixel pitch is the same.

¿I think some people might be interested in the difference between the 40 and the 60 at high ISO?

I am sure there might be someone out there with a 40 for hand-held and a 60 for tripod/view camera work?
If there is anyone in NYC with an H4D-40 PM me. I'd be happy to shoot side-by-side so we can make the comparison.

I plan on spending some time with the 50 vs 60 issue for HCD lenses. The HCD lenses are two of my favorites.
 

jlm

Workshop Member
should be close to a 0 crop factor; be interesting to see the HC28, pretty sure you have one, eh?!
 

Dustbak

Member
What do you want to know? I have mine for a couple of days now. A bit early to make bold statements but generally I am quite happy with it.

What do you plan to replace with the H4D60?
 

fotografz

Well-known member
What do you want to know? I have mine for a couple of days now. A bit early to make bold statements but generally I am quite happy with it.

What do you plan to replace with the H4D60?
Many thanks for any help you can provide! :thumbs:

The decision is down to trading in the CF/39 MS back plus an old Mamiya RZ body for the H4D/60. I'd still have a H2F camera and H adapter for any CF/CF-II back ... plus 3 film backs ... that I can sell separately. I also still have an H4D/40.

Some of my shooting needs in studio have changed and I'm curious whether the 60 gets at least close to the 39MS in rendering detail and tonal gradations for table-top work. The up-side of the 60 is newer H4D technology, newer sensor technologies, fuller use of the wider lenses like the 28, 35, and 50 when using the HTS/1.5 (and the 28HCD or 35-90HCD straight on-camera with a minor trim), and utilization of the higher resolution single-shot for location work where motion may be present ... which is a growing part of potential business for me.

The second alternative is trading for a H4D/50MS ... which is roughly $4K more when trading. The 200 meg micro-step technology for the 50MS that's in development gave me pause over the 60 ... but that is speculation, and adds an unknown cost ... I'm sure it won't be cheap.

The 3rd alternative is do nothing ... however, the trade deal from so many months ago was pretty good, and makes the move less painful.

Mostly, I'd be very interested in seeing or hearing impressions of the H4D/60 used with studio strobes, and also used on location is decent lighting. The H4D/40 covers any higher ISO, longer exposures or faster shooting situations ... so it's more about pure data capture at base ISO or maybe one ISO up when DOF is needed.

-Marc
 

Dustbak

Member
I get you. I also use a CF39MS with H2F. I got the H4D60 by trading in a CF39. You basically want to know whether 60MP will be enough to replace the multishot functionality of the 39MS I guess?

I still have the 39MS. If I would not, I would have upgrade towards a 50MS. I was kind of in the same boat as you.

Frankly your situation with the H4D40 plus the CF39MS seems to me the best of all worlds. I would have upgraded towards the 40 but the price to upgrade the CF39 towards the 60 was so good it did not make sense to take the 40 for about the same price (I reckon I can always find someone willing to trade his 40 with me :)). The 50MS was much more expensive and did not make sense considering I also have the 39MS. The 200MP shot seemed good but realize you cannot take a single shot to blend it meaning you really need to shoot something without any moving stuff.

Files from the 60 are noticeably bigger than the ones from the CF39. It definitely takes my fast machine more time.

I will keep you posted.
 
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Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Ok. Some impressions.

The files are sensational. Deep and pliable. They absorb endless abuse in post and come out smiling. (For example when I do grayscale conversions sometimes I push the blue slider to the left to darken the sky polarizer-like; if you overdo it the sky turns grainy and white fringes appear where the sky meets whatever; pushing the slider all the way to the left resulted in no fringing and only slight noise with the 60 - and almost totally black skies.) Not that you have to push the files around a lot. I liked the color straight out of my H3D 39. The look is pretty much the same with the h4D 60 and I still like it. I could go on and on about the files and will at some point. This is why we bother with MF.

I test lenses by shooting out of our dining room window in NY. There are about a billion bricks in the scene - all on parallel walls because of the city's grid. It's clear from brickwall testing that at infinity the back oversamples the Hasselblad lenses. I own them all, except nothing in the 35 to 90 range except the zoom and I don't own the 50-110 (kind of redundant for me), the macro or the 210. I've now tested all that I own. In general terms wide open the last 3 or 4mm of image toward the edges exhibit a bit of that oatmeal-like brand of fuzziness. I shoot bookcases as a torture test at closer distances. The outer zones of images generally looked good to perfect in the 4 - 10 feet range, suggesting how these lenses are optimized (or suggesting that the bookcase test is defective). Obviously no CA, linear distortion, etc. - these are all taken care of in Phocus.

A couple of thoughts on the foregoing. I believe that all MF systems have roughly the same issue in terms of the imager oversampling the lenses. Otherwise people wouldn't go to all the trouble that it takes to put a digitar in front of one of these backs. One conclusion from the foregoing is that I won't pay anything, not a single dollar, to trade up to 80 megs.

Now, on the 50 vs. 60 issue. This is important to me because the HCD lenses are my favorites. Phocus lets you convert without cropping. That last 5mm is indeed pretty funky. It's more evident on the left and right (in landscape orientation) - obviously because that's further out in the image circle. If your crop to a 4 x 5 aspect ratio you get rid of the funky parts with far less pixel waste than trimming off the entire outer 5mm. I actually like 4x5 but haven't used it much in the past because of pixel waste issues - I'll use it much more in the future.

More importantly for me is that I often crop a bit in post, and very often apply perspective controls in post. This means that I throw the funky region of the image away anyway.

On high ISO - I haven't done a lot of this. 800 looks fine at short exposure times. At 4 seconds iso 800 looks like hell. I haven't explored where the margin is or what the alternatives are.

I've worked at bit with the HTS 1.5 and the new camera. Since the 60meg sensor reaches the edge of the good part of the image circle (or beyond) there's not much room to shift. On tilt, the issue is focus. It's hard for our technical camera friends to achieve focus on a ground glass that's accurate enough for these demanding backs; the same applies to using the HTS 1.5. I need to work on this a bit - I really do like having tilt capacity.

In actual use this camera is a dream. It's been observed before that these systems outperform their brick wall tests in actual use - that's true in spades with the H4D 60. I don't know why this is. Perhaps because you achieve accurate focus in a large percentage of images; because the lenses have really good micro contrast and flare control; or because oversampling the lenses produces a natural, non-digital look. I don't really know why, but it's there. I've had no issues shooting the 35-90 wide open. The larger sensor doesn't change how this camera works handheld - it works very well.

I now have a week's experience walking around with this camera, generally with the 35-90 which is amazingly flexible and produces terrific images in actual use, shooting iso 100 or 200. I'm delighted with what I'm getting from it. This is fairly deep water - the benefits of file size are subtle but evident - it's really going to take a lot more time to fully come to grips with what's possible.

There are some minor issues with firmware that come into play if you reassign button functions. Hasselblad has been very good about updates so this doesn't concern me.

A final note. This whole Hasselbad vs. Phase thing is crap. In the same way that the Nikon vs. Canon thing is crap. I've owned both Nikon and Canon systems and they are both excellent and about evenly matched in strengths and weaknesses. I'm certain that that's the case in Hasselblad vs. Phase.

I'll update this with images and more mature reactions when I get the chance.
 

Woody Campbell

Workshop Member
Many thanks for any help you can provide! :thumbs:

The decision is down to trading in the CF/39 MS back plus an old Mamiya RZ body for the H4D/60. I'd still have a H2F camera and H adapter for any CF/CF-II back ... plus 3 film backs ... that I can sell separately. I also still have an H4D/40.

Some of my shooting needs in studio have changed and I'm curious whether the 60 gets at least close to the 39MS in rendering detail and tonal gradations for table-top work. The up-side of the 60 is newer H4D technology, newer sensor technologies, fuller use of the wider lenses like the 28, 35, and 50 when using the HTS/1.5 (and the 28HCD or 35-90HCD straight on-camera with a minor trim), and utilization of the higher resolution single-shot for location work where motion may be present ... which is a growing part of potential business for me.

The second alternative is trading for a H4D/50MS ... which is roughly $4K more when trading. The 200 meg micro-step technology for the 50MS that's in development gave me pause over the 60 ... but that is speculation, and adds an unknown cost ... I'm sure it won't be cheap.

The 3rd alternative is do nothing ... however, the trade deal from so many months ago was pretty good, and makes the move less painful.

Mostly, I'd be very interested in seeing or hearing impressions of the H4D/60 used with studio strobes, and also used on location is decent lighting. The H4D/40 covers any higher ISO, longer exposures or faster shooting situations ... so it's more about pure data capture at base ISO or maybe one ISO up when DOF is needed.

-Marc
I can't comment on your specific issue except to refer to my good daylight experience. On the lenses, at the center 2/3ds of the image circle they are probably not oversampled by the 60 so it may be possible to squeeze a bit more resolution out using MS, and of course MS gets rid of issues induced by Bayer interpolation (but Phocus does a real good job on these anyway). I'm primarily a landscape shooter so MS is not in play for me. With the 50 MS the MS performance increment is across the frame in the good part of the image circle so it may make more sense for your applications - what the 60 is doing is adding pixels at the edge of the image circle.
 
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