Taking a break from uploading auctions to Ebay this afternoon, I shot these pictures with the Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar on the Mamiya 645AFD II and Phase One P25. Found out today that the Mamiya / Hasselblad adapter may be too thick for infinity focus. This is a surprise since there is plenty of room. I need to test the combination some more before I can be 100% sure.

All the pictures were taken handheld and while slipping & sliding down a steep embankment in flip flops. Considering the less than ideal shooting conditions I am happy anything was in focus. To help improve the odds of coming home with a couple keepers, all of today’s pictures were taken at ISO 100. Usually I shoot at ISO 50 (for the best quality), so ISO 100 is the exception, not the rule. Light was fading quickly and I could not get a solid footing in most cases, so bumping ISO was the best option.

Today’s pictures show the P25’s good side. It does very well with golden yellows and deep reds. The P25’s contrast and rich color palette worked well. The P25 seems most at home with this type of color palette. I am not sure if I will like the P25’s coloring for portraits. The colors work really well landscapes during golden hour, but the red tones may not work so well for portraits. I have read in the forums that the P25+ has a more neutral color palette (a-la the the C1 color profiles). I have seen reddish overtones in product shots and that has been manageable with some color balancing in Photoshop (mostly shifting the red color channel towards blue in the shadow range).

EXPOSING FOR HIGHLIGHTS

On the surface the picture to the right does not look challenging, but it took 12 attempts. The Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar did not like having the sun to the left just outside of the frame. It caused some veiling and various amount of flare. With some experimentation I was able to get the sun far enough out of frame to keep the Hasselblad happy.

The next trick was keeping the reflections on the rail road tracks from clipping. The P25 only has a couple stops of dynamic range above the mid-tones, so it will clip highlights quickly. Conversely, the shadows have amazing amounts of dynamic range and are very clean compared to the Canon 1Ds Mark II. In practice it is easiest to expose for the highlights and then in post processing push up the shadow levels. The shadows are clean enough that they usually tolerate 2-3 stops of boost without showing much (if any) noise. Today was a gamble because these were taken at ISO 100 - and ISO 100 does have more shadow noise. The rock bed was easily pushed 2 or 3 stops in Photoshop. The subject matter helps to hide the noise.

HASS 110mm PLANAR - 5TH GENERATION

Again, the picture to the left is innocent enough. The P25 hates images like this. The sun completely overloads then sensor if the lens is at a wide aperture. To shoot into the sun, the lens must be stopped down to F8, F11, etc. I do not know why shooting at fast apertures causes issues for the P25, but it simply cannot do it. The sun and surrounding area will be a white rectangle. The P25 is rated for 8 stops of anti-blooming; I think high DR settings such as this image push the anti-blooming to the max and the P25 chokes. It is not the P25 blowing out the region; the region is simply missing - zero data.

As for the Hasselblad 110mm F2 Planar - it hates these shots too. It tends to flare, though in this case it was not too bad (see the right side of the picture). This is a 5th generation 110/2 planar - and it cost a small fortune. The 5th generation added an additional baffle at the rear of lens. The baffle is supposed to help control flare and veiling. It is also rumored to improve contrast in general. Since this is my first Hasselblad 110/2 Planar and I have NOT tried the 3rd or 4th versions, I do not know if the 5th generation is better or not.

The above picture is just example of an extreme scene where medium format is less than happy. This is one of the few cases where I think the Canon 1Ds Mark II does better. I have shot similar images many times with the 1Ds Mark II. Whether the lens is stopped down or wide open, the sensor never failed like the P25’s. Replace the foreground with a beach and incoming waves, and this shot is a generic 101 sunset at any given beach. The P25 has difficulty. Obviously it can be done, but it takes 5 to 10 shots to dial everything in. Whereas with the Canon 1Ds Mark II set to -2 EC compensation, shots like this are simple with no hassle. For comparison purposes the picture to the right was taken with the Contax 100mm F2 Planar on a 1Ds Mark II.