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Hassey H1 and P25+ or Sony A900 & Zeiss 24-70

rollsman44

Well-known member
I have the sony A900 and CZ 24-70 and would like to know if its worth selling my Sony for the H1 and the Digital back. I shoot mainly portraits now and no longer shoot weddings. Thank you. rollsman
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
The forum can give you much better and more relevant answers if you give the forum more details about your wants and needs.

What are you hoping to gain? What are your priorities? Tell us about your shooting style (both current and desired). Have you ever shot medium format before? Do you shoot your portraits on location or in studio (or what mixture)? Do you work with an assistant or solo? Do you use all ambient light or all strobe or do you mix-and-match (which would imply a need for fast flash sync)? What is the end use of most of your images (i.e. large prints, small prints, web)? Do you shoot manual focus or autofocus with your Sony now? What ISOs do you typically shoot with your current lenses and at what typical apertures?

For instance one HUGE difference is that the H1+P25 is a fast, stable, fully featured tethering camera that - coupled with Capture One - makes a GREAT tethered experience. IF you're into that (some photographers for various reasons don't want to tether - some wouldn't shoot a frame untethered unless forced at gun point; it's largely a personality thing).

On thing about the P25+ for shooting portraits is it will moire often enough to be very annoying - but that mostly applies if you shoot stopped down. If your style is to shoot everything wide open it wouldn't affect you much.

A DM28 kit (back, DF body, Schneider 80mm leaf shutter lens with sync at 1/1600) is $11k and would not moire as much. Is this something you should consider? It depends a lot on factors you haven't given us any info on.

We all want to help! However, a question like this is no more answerable (without more details about your needs) than "is a pickup truck or a porche a better vehicle?"

The H1 gives you a larger viewfinder and a better manual focusing experience (IMO) but only one autofocus point.

There's only two ways you can get a quality answer to this question: give us a LOT of details about your needs and wants, or rent a system for a shoot (preferably a few shoots) to compare hands-on (we offer evaluation rentals, including on our demo and pre-owned inventory).

Doug Peterson (e-mail Me)
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johnnygoesdigital

New member
I've shot and owned the "H" and the Sony A900. IMO, i'd get the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4. for portraits on the Sony-you won't find any "H" MFD that can match its speed. The Zeiss, 24-70mm, although another fantastic lens, tends to flare somewhat easy. The H1 will allow you to switch to film, and also allow an upgrade to the new H4x from Hasselblad. The Sony is priced so nice, that you should keep it as a 2nd camera. P30+'s on H1/H2's seem popular, unless you go too wide (micro-lenses). The Hasselblad's are easy to hold and shoot, and being able to shoot with any Phase or Leaf DB, makes it quite versatile.
 
J

jcoffin

Guest
The H1 will allow you to switch to film, and also allow an upgrade to the new H4x from Hasselblad.
IMO, it's worth mentioning that if you want to shoot film, you can pick up a Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 9 (or 9Xi) for next to nothing nowadays. The control layout is reasonably similar to an A900, they're built like tanks, have just as nice of viewfinder as the A900, and they have even faster shutters (1/12,000th max and, more importantly, X-sync at 1/350th).
 

gsking

New member
IMO, it's worth mentioning that if you want to shoot film, you can pick up a Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 9 (or 9Xi) for next to nothing nowadays. The control layout is reasonably similar to an A900, they're built like tanks, have just as nice of viewfinder as the A900, and they have even faster shutters (1/12,000th max and, more importantly, X-sync at 1/350th).
Actually, it's 1/300 sec, so it's only a wee bit faster than the A900 at 1/250 w SSS off.

The problem with shooting 35mm film is that extracting useful detail out of the film is painful, especially vs 24mp of clean pixels on the A900. IMHO, you need to shoot 645 at least, or more advisedly 6x7, to get comparable resolution. A good scanner will help, but that drives up the hassle and cost even more.

But, that said, resolution isn't everything. I still have my Maxxum 7, collecting dust awaiting my last couple rolls of Ektar 100 and a lone Panatomic 32. In the meantime, I vacillate between my A700, 645 and 67 film, and 22mp MFDB.

At similar resolutions, the MFDB solidly trounced my A700, so I suspect it would equally put the 24mp sensor to shame. But, given all the other hassles and compromises of medium format, I'm sure that if I sucked it up and bought an 850/900, I'd have no reason to shoot MF anymore, either film or digital.

So I'm holding off. :)
 

djonesii

Workshop Member
At similar resolutions, the MFDB solidly trounced my A700, so I suspect it would equally put the 24mp sensor to shame. But, given all the other hassles and compromises of medium format, I'm sure that if I sucked it up and bought an 850/900, I'd have no reason to shoot MF anymore, either film or digital.
I have a 645 film camera, fuji, GaZi or some such, almost standard zoom, really really sharp lens, my p30+ smokes it ......

In addition, I have an Alpenhause polaroid converted to 4X5 film, 150mm lens and a grfmatic back, now that is getting close to my P30+ for resolution when drum scanned. However, there is a totally different thrill to 4X5 film, the tonality and all that other analog goodness + large format look ...... I have never quite got exactly the same thing from my DB. Nor have I have done near as much work for a few frames, and if you mess it up, no tethered review ....

Dave
 
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