WASHINGTON CONNECTICUT – Here’s a meeting of a book group.
Day 5801 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back exactly one year to an end of season party. Day 5436 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – A shower; back to my Leica M11M.
Day 5800 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back exactly 14 years to Manhattan, shot with a PhaseOne back on an Alpa technical camera. Day 686 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Today I have attached the current Hasselblad 907 camera to the CFV 100C back, with the excellent 55mm Hasselblad “normal” lens. This combination works much better than legacy Hasselblad gear. But shooting side by side with my Leica M11 Monochrom, the Hasselblad setup doesn’t offer any obvious advantage over the Leica – they’re just different. I prefer the Leica native monochrome rendering, and detail and resolution are comparable, with a slight edge to the Leica ASPH glass that I shoot with. The Leica is better at shadow detail; the Hasselblad is better at highlight recovery. There is very little (if any) resolution difference between the Leica 60 meg monochrome sensor and the Hasselblad 100 meg color sensor.
Bottom line: I’m send the Hasselblad back to the rental place and selling my Hasselblad gear, which I’m attached to sentimentally but is difficult to get decent digital results from.
Day 5799 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back to Kenya exactly 15 years ago. Day 320 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – I walked over to a farm equipment graveyard that I sometimes visit for visual stimulation. Here I’m shooting with the Hasselblad CFV digital back on a 50 year old classic Hasselblad 503 body, with the legendary 80mm CZ lens.
The results are predictable: this camera is almost impossible to shoot hand held. Only about 1 image in 10 was a keeper. I really don’t shoot with a tripod: my work tends to be static and shooting with a tripod makes it more so. Here’s one of the few keepers.
Day 5798 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back to not seeing much in Warren on this day exactly five years ago. Day 3972 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – Here’s what the Hasselblad digital back looks like mounted on the Superwide C. It’s a handful.
Day 5797 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back precisely 15 years to a bush plane in Tanzania. Day 318 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – The Hasselblad CFV 100C experiment continues. Today I’ve mounted the back on my Hasselblad Superwide C (SWC) camera. Because the sensor on the digital back is substantially smaller that the SWC’s 6x6cm film format, the camera isn’t really superwide, just pretty wide.
Here’s a landscape cropped to square. The rendering is classic SWC and lovely. This is the reason that I’ve undertaken this experiment. The problem is that focusing is critical with the digital back because it has much higher resolution that legacy film, but the SWC has no focusing aid. Using liveview on the digital to focus is difficult from an ergonomic point of view. Only about a third of my captures with this setup were acceptable from a technical standpoint. I might be able to improve that with practice but not by a lot.
Day of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back exactly 15 years to Tanzania. Day 317 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
WARREN CONNECTICUT – This is the beginning of a week of camera experiments. I’ve rented a Hasselblad CFV 100C digital back, which has a largish sensor (twice the size of 35mm), 100 megs of resolution, and is compatible with legacy Hasselblad film cameras. The question I’m asking is should I buy one of these things to use with my 50+ years old Hasselblad cameras.
First off is an experiment with a 30mm XPan lens. With an XPan lens mounted the CFV 100 automatically reverts to the long skinny XPan format. What I learned in shooting with this for a day is that I don’t have much to say shooting in XPan format.
Day 5795 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
Looking back 13 years to Salt Lake City. Day 1047 of one photograph every day for the rest of my life.
