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Some Basic Questions about the H4D Line

mbn

New member
Hi

As you can see, I'm new to the forum and also new to the MFD world.
Never had a MFD in my hands, downloaded some of the pretty rare RAW's, compared them to my FF-DSLR Files and came to the conclusion that it's worth investing some more time reading about MFD. I also downloaded some user guides from Hasselblad, which for me as a newbie, had plenty of information that cleared things up... a bit at least. Anyhow, two questions for you guys using a Hasselblad H4D!

The H4D 50 seems to be quite a nice Camera for my style of shooting.
Larger Sensor than the 40, which will be nice for the wideangles, and Longexposures of up to 128 seconds, which isn't as good as the 40's 256 seconds, but it should work out just fine if the Files are useable.

I'm Photographing exterior Architecture...
Tripod, Base-ISO (100), closed down Aperture with shutterspeeds ranging from around 1 second up to about 60 seconds. So with a base ISO of 50 on the H4D 50 I'll be straight up there at the max of 128 seconds. I can't find any RAW's or crops of shots with such shutterspeeds on the net, at least not in the past two weeks I'm reading about MFD. So, no clue how a 128 second exposure of an H4D 50 looks like. I've found a Landscape shooter that uses his H4D 40 quite often for 256 second shots, but there are no high res files available, and I have no idea if the sensor in the 40 is by any means compareable to that one in the 50.

I used Exposure Bracketing a lot with my DSLR...
The H4D's do up to 9 Frames of bracketed exposures, no word about limitations in the user guide. It seems like bracketing works in the auto exposure modes as well as in full manual mode? Does it allow me to set the exposure for the Shadows or Highlights for a Bracketing Sequence, or do I always have to set the Middle Exposure of the Sequence? Are there any limitations to shutterspeeds when bracketing, or does it work over the full range from 1/800 to 128 seconds?


Well, I told you I never had one in my Hands!:eek:



Any comments much appreciated!
Mike
 

fotom

New member
Hello Mike,

welcome to the world of MF.

I do not have a H4D- 50 but a H3DII- 50 and I could give you some files with such long exposures.

For best results with a Hasselblad you should download the free Phocus software. I used ACR/ Photoshop CS6 and the results with Phocus are a lot better.
 

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
I'd be happy to help if your search broadens and you find yourself in need of raw files from e.g. a Phase One P45+ (large sensor, up to 1 hour exposures, good compatibility with both SLR and tech cameras).
 

mbn

New member
First of, thank you guys for trying to help!:clap:

To clear things up a bit.
I had a Canon System with tilt shift lenses from Canon and Hartblei/Zeiss, until I left the Hotel Room for Dinner a few weeks back. Except for the 14mm Canon there wasn't one AF Lens in my Kit. If I had the opportunity, I tried to shift and stitch to get some extra pixels. But I also like the Idea to just get it right at the moment it clicks and don't do much pixelbending in post, skrewing up Detail and Ratios/Proportions to get the Verticals straight. This in mind, the Hasselblad System with it's Lenses and HTS combined with their Software looks quite promising to me. For an MFD System it's pretty versatile and compact at the same time, and I don't see any problems using my Panorama stuff with the SLR Body of the H-Series.

On the other hand, shooting Architecture there is no way around considering the Tech Cameras. They are so tempting with it's tilt, swing, raise, fall, schneiders and rodies!
I'm pretty sure that if I will join the MFD world, I will sooner or later end up with one of these. Framing/Focusing by Groundglass, maybe with an Sliding back, taking LCC Shots... well, if all that effort is showing off in the final Prints, I'm in! Of course, Bracketing isn't as comfortable with them as is with the SLR Bodies, but an ND Filter for the shutterspeeds (w/o Filter) from 1 second up to around 10 seconds should help a lot to get the exposures right with Bulb and Cable Release.

So, I'm pretty open minded and not biased to any special Brand, but those questions about the H4D came to my mind as I was reading the user guides.

RAW's are welcome, no matter what Brand or Back they are from, they will help me a lot to become a general overview of the Possibilities of MFD!
The P45+ is also an very nice option with it's long exposure capabilities and large Sensor, and I would prefer it as my #1 Back for a Tech Camera.

So, let's sort out how you could send me your RAW's or showing me some Crops of them.
Any Ideas?


Best regards,
Mike
 

Bildifokus

Member
I´m very satisfied with my Hassy. But when reading your last post I would recommend you to look at the tech cam. My good friend Dan are using tech cam from Alpa and I can honestly say that my Hassy will never get closed when shooting Architecture. But maybe it´s just my lack of photographic skill. :)
 
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