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Hasselblad H4D-50 or 60 for Landscape Photography?

R

Richard Naismith

New Member
Hi all,

In the light of the recently announced price discounts on new Hasselblad H4D cameras, I’m considering trading in my H4D-31 to get either an H4D-50 or 60. However, looking in their online catalogue:

http://www.hasselblad.com/media/2455019/product catalogue 2012.pdf

on page 5 the details of both cameras are presented, and I noticed that the 50 is described as being “for studio and location photography” whereas the 60 is described as being “for controlled lighting studio photography”.

My use is mainly landscape, usually in reasonable to strong sunlight, with occasional use indoors with flash. From the above it sounds like the 50 is better for this type of use. They have quite different sensors, the 60 being bigger, which initially led me to believe that it would be better in general, but perhaps the sensors have different characteristics in terms of performance in different lighting situations.

So I wonder which might be better for my use. What comments would any users of these two systems have in this regard?

Thank you in advance for any guidance.

All the best.

Richard Naismith
 
The 31, 39, 40 and 50 meg backs use a Kodak sensor, and the H4D/60 uses a Dalsa sensor (as do the Phase One IQ160 and 180).

The 60 is a bigger sensor, and Dalsa is renowned for it's natural colors and skin tones.

The 50 will do longer exposures, 256 seconds (4.25 minutes) and doesn't need an equal time dark frame to be shot like other backs do. The 60 does about a minute. Both offer ISOs from 50 to 800.

Both would be excellent for landscape work ... I do NOT limit the use of my H4D/60 to the studio at all ... I even carry it on the street while on vacation and such. To realize every pixel of quality from either requires care and attention to technique and a tripod or mono-pod is recommended ... but I shoot it hand-held all the time by custom setting a slight mirror delay. Works great.

-Marc
 
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