Hasselblad 150mm & 120mm Macro - any point in keeping both?

[film_man]

Apart from the minor hassle of ensuring you take them on/off in the right order (which seems to be a unique Hasselblad problem, no other camera had such issues) the real hassle is that if you are shooting portraits with a tube unless you are on a tripod and/or a fairly fixed setting like sitting them on a chair you will most likely end up hitting the focus limit with/without the tube. This really breaks the flow of shooting and you either put the tube on/off all the time or you don't use it at all.

Of course if you are shooting static objects/macro then this is not much of an issue but the OP did mention portraits specifically.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Apart from the minor hassle of ensuring you take them on/off in the right order (which seems to be a unique Hasselblad problem, no other camera had such issues) the real hassle is that if you are shooting portraits with a tube unless you are on a tripod and/or a fairly fixed setting like sitting them on a chair you will most likely end up hitting the focus limit with/without the tube. This really breaks the flow of shooting and you either put the tube on/off all the time or you don't use it at all.

Of course if you are shooting static objects/macro then this is not much of an issue but the OP did mention portraits specifically.

Not really - it's an issue if you are trying to do both head and shoulders portraits and environmental portraiture at the same time, but with a say 16mm extension tube, infinity focus is still going to be somewhere around 30 feet. So unless you're trying to shoot a mountain and your sitter in the same frame and on the very next frame, fill the frame with their face only, it's not likely to be a problem. And the OP's query was about getting closer for portraits, so the infinity vs. macro issue is not really in play here.

 

[film_man]

Not really - it's an issue if you are trying to do both head and shoulders portraits and environmental portraiture at the same time, but with a say 16mm extension tube, infinity focus is still going to be somewhere around 30 feet. So unless you're trying to shoot a mountain and your sitter in the same frame and on the very next frame, fill the frame with their face only, it's not likely to be a problem. And the OP's query was about getting closer for portraits, so the infinity vs. macro issue is not really in play here.

If memory serves me a 150mm lens will focus 1.5m-infinity. With a 16mm it will focus something like just under 1m to 2-3m. Which is impractical if you are not on a fixed setting.

Anyway, I wanted to highlight the practicality issues of using a tube to get closer vs using a lens that lets you focus continuously. Whether this is an issue for the OP it is not for me or you to say, the OP needs to make up their own mind.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

If memory serves me a 150mm lens will focus 1.5m-infinity. With a 16mm it will focus something like just under 1m to 2-3m. Which is impractical if you are not on a fixed setting.

Anyway, I wanted to highlight the practicality issues of using a tube to get closer vs using a lens that lets you focus continuously. Whether this is an issue for the OP it is not for me or you to say, the OP needs to make up their own mind.

You may be right about the distance of "infinity" with the tube on - I was going from memory which as we all know can be very faulty, and assumption which as we know makes an ass out of you and me. So infinty moves in a lot closer with the tube on than it does with it off. It doesn't really change the equation much for the stated purpose of doing close up portraits though. I just don't think it likely that someone is going to be jumping back and forth between doing head-and-shoulders portraits and distant landscapes multiple times in the span of a single roll of film.