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Why do older lenses not work well with CFV

5

503CW

New Member
I am new to this system and have only bought a 503CW with two lenses.
Unfortunately I found this forum later than I bought my lenses and understand
that the older lenses do not work well with the CFV back that I was planning
to obtain early next year,
I bought a Hasselblad C Sonnar 150 mm/4 Carl Zeiss and a
Hasselblad C Distagon T* 50 mm/4 Carl Zeiss
With film they work great, but I would love to learn from you guys if I better
sell them and get something else, before I'll go digital.
Thanks!
 
What kind of digital back are you planing to buy .

There have been improvements to the CZ lenses over the years .
If you go for the CFV-16 I would not see a problem except the crop factor .
If you are going for a CFV-50 , the two lenses you mention will not give you the best and sharpest results .

Jürgen
 
Hi Jürgen, thanks very much for your reply.
i was planning to get the 50.
But do you what the reason is?
Are the tolerances with film so much different from digital?
GEO
 
Well, my Sonnar C 4/150mm (no T*!) does very well on my 500c/m with CFV-39. The Distagon C 4/50mm never had the best reputation.
 
Pixel pitch

The magic word is resolution .
The CFV-16 has a pixel pitch of 9µ , the CFV-39 6,2µ and the CFV-50 pixel pitch is 6,0µ .

When the C-lenses were designed and built , nobody even knew the word digital back :) .
In the meantime , the resolution of the CZ lenses has improved and the newer lenses can for sure all be used with the existing digital backs .
But not all lenses will give you an IQ , you obtain with a lens , which was designed for digital use .

The shorter the focal length of the lens , the more critical is exact focusing .
The best V-SYSTEM WA lens for digital use is the DISTAGON 4/40 CFE IF .
But it is also very expensive and not available as new any more .

I can not speek for the SONNAR 150 , as I have only used it with film .
IMO , the best V-SYSTEM lens for digital is the PLANAR 3,5/100 , but that might be regarded as personal preference .
 
For general shooting you'll find these lenses work just fine. No all lenses are created equal and there are variations within a focal length such as the older 50 f4. I used a half dozen different 50's over four decades and there were some that were better than others. If you have a good one it's very good but if not it could be a dog. Most were acceptable and should deliver good results. Most of the faults are only seen on extreme enlargement when pixel peeping at 100%.

I had a mix of older and newer lenses when I bought my CFV39 back and and all performed fine. I did update some of my lenses but it wasn't due to performance issues but rather due to my dislike of the old focusing rings on the C lenses. I much prefer the rubber rings of the CF and used CF lenses are very cheap now.

Take what you have and try it. You'll probably be quite pleased.
 
Thanks very much for the replies gentlemen!
Very much appreciated!
When Leica came with the M9, I had never read comments like this,
that's why I did not understood.
I do understand that 35mm is hard to compare with medium format.
GEO
 
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