Woody Campbell
Workshop Member
I'd be very interested in a straight answer on these issues on an IQ 180 back. I prefer the look and size of Schneiders. I've got a Schneider APO Switar 36mm and an APO Helvatar 48. Both used on my Alpa TC and Alpa Max. I tend to be a wide shooter so these are workhorse lenses for me.
Moderate color shifts are in my view inevitable with these lenses - even shooting unshifted - and are entirely acceptable. The color shifts theoretically change with changes in f-stop and focus but these changes are minor in practice so a single well-made lcc shot for each lens at infinity and the most likely working f-stop is all that is needed (particularly if you're correcting only for color shift - not for vignetting). Corrections can be applied by default in Capture One or Phocus, as the case may be. The "moderate" part of the topic sentence of this paragraph is important - correcting strong color shifts eats up dynamic range and contrast and can result in color channel clipping.
Banding is another issue entirely. It's not acceptable.
So does the IQ 180 exhibit banding (or any other artifacts) in wide tech camera applications, shifted or unshifted? This isn't a tough issue to spot - post an uncorrected lcc image and then an image of it corrected with itself.
My Hasselbald 60meg back is fine unshifted (actually outstanding) with these lenses. But it exhibits centerfolding when shifted with either of these lenses, which is why my Alpa Max is gathering dust, and a major irritant - enough so that I'm considering a move to Phase - but only if the Phase can tolerate 15mm or so of shift in either direction with the 48mm Schneider.
If there is a an IQ 180 owner in NYC PM me - I'd be happy to get together to run a test with my Alpa max.
Kevin and Christopher - thanks - your posts came up while I was writing this. I look forward to samples. I'm particularly interested in the centerfolding issue. With the hasselblad I would describe it as follows. Put the back in portrait orientation and shift on the horizontal axis. With both lenses centerfolding is evident. It's very subtle at small shifts (the 48 is "usable" at 4mm of shift or so) depending on the subject. It becomes more evident at large shifts. It's not evident or is barely visible in the cluttered parts of images, it's painfully evident in blue skies. The Phocus scene correction tool definitively does not correct it. I'll post a sample scene correction image when I get back to my computer in NYC.
BTW I haven't seen any banding with the H 60 back shifted or unshifted.
I'm going to experiment with the following workflow with my H 60 back: Hasselblad native files to DMG in Phocus; Kevin's suggested processing in C1.
Moderate color shifts are in my view inevitable with these lenses - even shooting unshifted - and are entirely acceptable. The color shifts theoretically change with changes in f-stop and focus but these changes are minor in practice so a single well-made lcc shot for each lens at infinity and the most likely working f-stop is all that is needed (particularly if you're correcting only for color shift - not for vignetting). Corrections can be applied by default in Capture One or Phocus, as the case may be. The "moderate" part of the topic sentence of this paragraph is important - correcting strong color shifts eats up dynamic range and contrast and can result in color channel clipping.
Banding is another issue entirely. It's not acceptable.
So does the IQ 180 exhibit banding (or any other artifacts) in wide tech camera applications, shifted or unshifted? This isn't a tough issue to spot - post an uncorrected lcc image and then an image of it corrected with itself.
My Hasselbald 60meg back is fine unshifted (actually outstanding) with these lenses. But it exhibits centerfolding when shifted with either of these lenses, which is why my Alpa Max is gathering dust, and a major irritant - enough so that I'm considering a move to Phase - but only if the Phase can tolerate 15mm or so of shift in either direction with the 48mm Schneider.
If there is a an IQ 180 owner in NYC PM me - I'd be happy to get together to run a test with my Alpa max.
Kevin and Christopher - thanks - your posts came up while I was writing this. I look forward to samples. I'm particularly interested in the centerfolding issue. With the hasselblad I would describe it as follows. Put the back in portrait orientation and shift on the horizontal axis. With both lenses centerfolding is evident. It's very subtle at small shifts (the 48 is "usable" at 4mm of shift or so) depending on the subject. It becomes more evident at large shifts. It's not evident or is barely visible in the cluttered parts of images, it's painfully evident in blue skies. The Phocus scene correction tool definitively does not correct it. I'll post a sample scene correction image when I get back to my computer in NYC.
BTW I haven't seen any banding with the H 60 back shifted or unshifted.
I'm going to experiment with the following workflow with my H 60 back: Hasselblad native files to DMG in Phocus; Kevin's suggested processing in C1.
Last edited: