Stuart Richardson
Active member
I have not had my Hasselblad back perfectly aligned...I will be honest. That said, it is not the alignment issue alone. The hasselblad back winds the film in the opposite direction of its natural curl, so if you leave it in the back for too long, some of your exposures can have bumps in the film left by the rollers...they will sort of stick up a bit, and this leads to unsharpness. This is one of the reasons David Odess (a well-respected Hassie technician) is down on the 200 series...he thinks that there is no way you can reliably focus a 110/2 at f/2, no matter how good you are, because the film flatness is simply not reliable enough...you may luck out for one exposure, but you cannot reproduce it reliably. I am not entirely convinced, but I normally shoot at f/2.8 or f/4 unless I have to use f/2.
The Rollei system is simply better in this regard -- the film is wound with the natural curl of the film, so it does not develop kinks if you leave it in the magazine, and the design of the magazine itself has the film pressed against the body of the camera, not the back, so you can achieve accurate, consistent focus on all your backs as long as the camera is set up properly. No need to worry about matching backs to the camera. The pressure plate is also larger and presses more firmly against the film, so it works better. This is ignoring the other nice features like the built in sliding darkslide.
Anyway, I am not saying the Rollei is a better camera, but the backs certainly are better designed.
The Rollei system is simply better in this regard -- the film is wound with the natural curl of the film, so it does not develop kinks if you leave it in the magazine, and the design of the magazine itself has the film pressed against the body of the camera, not the back, so you can achieve accurate, consistent focus on all your backs as long as the camera is set up properly. No need to worry about matching backs to the camera. The pressure plate is also larger and presses more firmly against the film, so it works better. This is ignoring the other nice features like the built in sliding darkslide.
Anyway, I am not saying the Rollei is a better camera, but the backs certainly are better designed.