I am going to buy a Hasselblad and have questions between 120 and 80mm...

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supermarvin76

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Help with my Hassy selection! Cart pick included in post 7

I am selling my GoPro and a Canon lens and going to grab a used 500 c/m from probably KEH. So stoked!

Money is certainly a factor and my question is if I want the 80mm or 120mm. With my Canon 5D I enjoy shooting the 85mm.

I am thinking of getting either the 80mm CF T* and 150 C or just split the difference and get a 120 CF T* (not the macro)? I'll be shooting maybe 60-75% portraits and the rest whatever. I am worried the 80mm may be too wide for me.

I appreciate any thoughts or tips!

Thanks!
 
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karl

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The 120mm does make a fine portrait lens, though some people consider the bokeh to be harsh. It focuses closer than the 150, which makes tight head shots easy. You need an extension tube to do that with the 150. You also might consider the 100mm Planar. A very sharp lens in a handy focal length.
 

nsurit

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I'm thinking the 150 would be the better choice given how you plan to use it. You will likely want to add additional focal lengths in the future.
 

TheFlyingCamera

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the 120 is only available as a macro. It absolutely shines as a macro lens; it is a competent but not great portrait lens. I would get the 150 C, and grab a 16mm extension tube (the 150 doesn't have phenomenal close-focus distance, so the extension tube will put you right in the range you want, and you won't really need to compensate for exposure with it either (technically it needs 1/4 stop, but you can't give Hassy lenses and shutters 1/4 stop increments). I have the same 80mm on my Rolleiflex, and it does a beautiful job with portraits. The only reason to get a longer lens for portraiture is to have a more comfortable working distance between you and the subject - not many people are comfortable having their portrait taken simultaneously with getting their nostrils examined.
 

Sirius Glass

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The 100mm lens is sharper than the 80mm lens and it {the 100mm) lens is consider a better lens [much better by some].

I have the 38mm [SWC], 50mm, 80mm, 150mm and 250mm lenses. I do not shoot portraits so the 150mm lens is the least used lens. If I had gotten the 100mm lens, then I would have gotten the 38mm [SWC], 50mm, 100mm, and 250mm lenses.
 
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supermarvin76

supermarvin76

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1. Is the C T* 100mm better than the CF T* 80mm?

2. Would I be better off buying BGN rated get from KEH, and getting the 100, or a whole kit that looks to be in great condition from a member with good feedback on a forum but getting a chrome 80mm lens?

I appreciate all help, comments, and guidance!

Here is what I have in my cart. Is there anything else I need. If so, I may need to drop down to the 80mm to keep it as close to $1,000 as I can.

hassy cart.png
 
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gone

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You don't want an ultra sharp lens for portraits, trust me. The older, chrome 80 would be great, but you won't get head shots w/ it. I wasn't crazy about the bokeh on my 120 lens either. Maybe get the 150 and the extension tube, or live w/ the focal length limitation of the 80 and crop. The chrome 80 is really good, and while it's not ultra sharp, it has great IQ. Truthfully, you can save yourself a lot of money by going to the Bronica system, and I saw essentially no difference in photo quality compared to my 'blad.

Have you ever shot one of these? They aren't everyone's cup of tea. Large, difficult to hand hold w/o a grip, heavy, and have a particularly loud, flappy shutter. I found TLRs a lot easier to deal with for medium format. If you're primarily using yours in a studio then none of this will matter, but on the street, a 'blad is not that much fun to shoot. A Kowa w/ a 150 would be a bit more doable.

I finally went to 35mm gear for portraits because it's so much smaller and lighter, and a good Leica R 90 lens can give you very large prints. The Canon FD 85 1.8 is pretty special for portraits too. Both lenses allow you to stand far enough away from your subject so that you don't bother them. Just my 2 cents.
 
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supermarvin76

supermarvin76

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Have you ever shot a 'bald? They aren't everyone's cup of tea. Large, difficult to hand hold w/o a grip, heavy, and have a particularly loud, flappy shutter….

I have never laid a finger on a Hassy. I have owned a shot a Mamiya RB67 through.

So… Thoughts on the 80mm with chrome lens from a forum member, or a bargain condition kit from KEH with the 100mm please...
 

Sirius Glass

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You don't want an ultra sharp lens for portraits, trust me.

The 100mm lens has been said to be too sharp for portraits.

I would recommend CF or later lenses since they are more ergonomic [easier to use], still have all parts available [chrome lenses have had spring shortages], and except for the 40mm lens they all use the B-60 filters. One set of filters will would for all the lenses. The chrome lenses use B-50 filters which are harder to find.
 
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supermarvin76

supermarvin76

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The 100mm lens has been said to be too sharp for portraits.

I would recommend CF or later lenses since they are more ergonomic [easier to use], still have all parts available [chrome lenses have had spring shortages], and except for the 40mm lens they all use the B-60 filters. One set of filters will would for all the lenses. The chrome lenses use B-50 filters which are harder to find.

I now have the following in my cart at KEH:

- excellent condition chrome body with finder and rapid winder

- bargain 80mm CF T*

- bargain A12 back

- bargain 150mm C Chrome. I would love the vocal length and it's $144. I don't know though.... Tell me more.


OR should I just split the difference and get a 120mm CF T*? Instead of both those?

OR OR just the 80mm and a good focusing screen? Suggestions?


And with all that I've pretty much stretched my budget to the limit.


Sorry to ramble...
 

John Koehrer

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And a third recommendation for the 150.
You prefer the 85 for your toy camera and a 50 is "normal" so you're at almost 2X the focal length.
With the Hassenblatt normal is 80 so...........2X would be.........?

About the body from KEH, make sure it has both a focusing screen and waist level finder. The picture shown doesn't have the finder shown and they(KEH) sometimes don't include them with a body.

The C lenses also use the EV system where f stop and shutter speed are linked together. Some people like it, some don't. The CF have separate rings and may be more comfortable.
 

film_man

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Here's my take. I have owned/own the following: 2x501CM, 500ELX, 50CT, 50CF, 60CB, 80CB, 150CT, 150CF, 160CB, 250CT. Still have the 501CM, 80CB and 160CB.

Now...for me in order of importance:

Expect to pay for a service some time in a year or two. If you buy old C lenses then some are lucky and will keep going, others start drifting (shutter speeds). The bodies can run forever but a serviced body will run smooth, a non-serviced body that is on its last legs will be rough to operate and may skip a frame or so. Also, a bargain back may be light-tight...for now. And may have spacing issues. Or not.

Focus screens: I just cannot use anything older than an Acute Matte. In fact my current screen is a plain Acute Matte D. Brightest screen I ever used. Easy to focus anywhere on the screen too. Very difficult to find though if you don't get one with the body. Then again, if you are the split-screen kind of person it doesn't matter much what you get.

Prism: I don't like using the WLF on my Hasselblad. I find it tricky to frame and focus. I also don't like the 45deg prism. I use mine 99% of the time with a PM90 prism (at eye level, like any 35mm SLR). Otherwise I get shots of people's nostrils. And I don't like those. Maybe you want to budget for one.

Lenses. You may like 85mm on your 5D but square is not the same. I just cannot work out wides on square, for example. Long lenses on the other hand are easier for me to frame. Loved the 250. 150 is a spectacular lens, either C or CF. The older C seems to render a bit nicer to tell you the truth. With all said, I still think the 80mm is the most versatile, though I wish it would focus a bit closer sometimes.

Also, the handling of C/CT lenses is very different to the CFs which is different to the latest CB/CFE/CFi. The latest will be lighter to focus and have nicer grips. The CFs are heavy abut at least have a rubber ring. The C/CT have cheese grater focus rings which if you get a heavy focusing (ie not serviced) lens can be painful to use. Also, the C/CT have a coupled shutter/aperture ring. Change one and the other follows to match exposure. So if you want to change exposure you have to lift a tab and move the rings. All the others work as you'd expect, free rings but you can push a button to lock them together.

Overall, a Hasselblad was my dream camera. I bought one (actually three), and was ecstatic when I first held it in my hands. It is a sublime machine to hold and marvel at the engineering quality. The image quality is outstanding. But now that I have owned a RB67 for nearly a year...I just have this thought in the back of my head that the swedish camera should go. Too much money sitting on a shelf and that Mamiya glass is just outstanding. Believe it or not, I find the RB easier to shoot with. The Haselblad gives my 4 shutter speeds to work with: 1/60, 1/125, 1/250 and 1/500 with the 80mm lens. With the 150/160mm lenses I get 1/125-1/500. The 160 is a f/4.8 lens for goodness sake (though it is outstanding, particularly in colour).

With the Mamiya I can go to 1/15. The square-ish format is easier to fit for prints. So there are a lot of things to consider. Not meaning one is better than the other, just different. So....here's the final advice: don't stretch the budget. Get just the 80 or just the 150. Learn the system, see if you like it, then make the next move. You never know, you may use it for two shoots and decide that it just isn't for you.

In the end, if you do like the Hasselblad, you'll end up spending lots more buying another screen, maybe a body, lenses, backs, etc...there is no escape!
 
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Oldwino

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The nice thing about KEH is that they do offer a 180 day warranty. So hopefully any major problems will become apparent within that timeframe.
And it does seem like their ratings system is very conservative - EX seems to be pretty much like new, and BGN probably means VG+. And I do get the feeling that they check all of the gear out before offering it. Everything I've bought for them has been really nice.
 
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The 150 is an absolute no brainer for portraits, far and away my favourite Hassy lens. You don't want the 120 unless you are contemplating macro work, and while the 100mm Planar is a wonderful thing, it comes at a stiff premium over the 80mm...which is still a top lens...you won't pick the difference.
I use the old single coated 150C lens, and prefer it to the later MC version. You can save quite a few dollars here.
If you are a young 'un, then the standard screen is plenty good enough, go for a prism finder if you have trouble focusing. Have fun with the Hasselblad, they are wonderful things!
 

John Koehrer

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Isn't there some vignetting on the screen with the 150 until you get into the 503 bodies?

The vignetting is visible in the finder but has doesn't affect the negative.
 
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There are few if any bad Hassy lenses. I love my 150, probably my most used. I recommended the 100 as from your initial comments it sounded like the 150 was too long for what you wanted, the 80 too short and the 120 is a macro lens. Thus the 100. Maybe with a softar if too sharp?
 

Slixtiesix

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Regarding the lens it all depends on what kind of portraits you´re after. From my experience 80mm is good for full body /environmental portraiture to half body shots. 120mm is well suited for half body. 150mm is nice for half body or head and shoulders, though I prefer 180mm for the latter, which is also very good for head shots. I always found 250mm a bit too long since proportions start to flatten. This is only from the aspect of appealing facial proportions of course. You can also use a 250mm lens for a full body shot and get a dramatic effect, but using an 80mm for a tight shot of someone´s face will look ugly in most cases.

As a rule of thumb, when comparing 35mm and 6x6 lenses, just divide the focal lenght of the MF lens in half and add 10%.
So 80mm roughly equals 45mm
100mm 55mm
120mm 65mm
150mm 85mm
180mm 100mm
250mm 135mm

Of course the effect may be somewhat different since on is rectangular, the other square...


With regard to the 120mm I must say it is one of my favorite lenses (the old 120/5,6) because of its high sharpness, beautiful bokeh and the fact that the picture quality is very even across the whole frame. However, this lens only retains it good qualities in the near range. The newer 120/4 is better in this regard, since Zeiss traded some of the excellent close up qualities for better sharpness at farer distances, but even this lens has to be stopped down to f11 to be on par with the others at infinity. On the other hand, if used in the range between about 25cm to 5m it is a ̶v̶̶e̶̶r̶̶y̶̶ ̶̶g̶̶o̶̶o̶̶d̶ excellent lens even wide open!

The 150/4 is a very sharp lens too and has beautiful bokeh either.

I do not own the 100mm, but from what I´ve read it is sharper than the 80mm wide open and the MTF sheets confirm this. From own experience I can say the 80mm needs to be stopped down to f5,6 to develop its full potential. At f2,8 it renders softer (not unsharp, not bad, just softer), but this could also be a benefit for portraits...
If one must only have one single lens for portraiture, I think the 100mm would be a good choice since it offers a good compromise on everything and is a bit tighter than the 80mm, so it is more suitable for head and shoulder work. If this does not suffice, its high quality will also allow for some cropping. For a two lens setup, I would recommend 80mm and 150mm. Three lens: 80, 120 and 180mm or 60mm, 100mm and 180mm.

Concerning extension tubes, for 80mm the 8mm or 10mm is reasonable, for 150mm the 16mm tube makes more sense.
 
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supermarvin76

supermarvin76

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Done! 500cm w/ rapid winder, waist level finder, A12 back, 120mm Makro CF T*, and 5 rolls of Ilford Pan 400 and 6 rolls of Ilford 3200 on it's way!

So I had every intent on grabbing the 80mm, however, when I added everything to my cart, they were sold out of the 80mm CF T*, so I ended up with a 120 with "plans" to trade it locally later and pick up a 150mm CF T*.


Now I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas!
 
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