I’ve always loved my Hasselblad 500cm bought many many years ago. It’s a 2×2 square format film camera used by many of my favorite photographers. I did not use it as much as I’d hoped because I was not equip to make prints from the larger negatives myself. So when digital photography overtook film, I researched buying a digital film back for the 500cm. Unfortunately, they were prohibitively expensive so my camera sat in the closet.
Last year (2019) I discovered Fotodiox makes an affordable Hasselblad to Nikon Z lens adapter. It not only adapts the lens but add shift control (not tested here). These few images are are my first test of using the Hasselblad 80mm Carl Zeiss lens on my Nikon Z6. A Z7 or higher pixel-count camera would probably be more appropriate for medium format results. But the Z6 24.5mp full frame sensor is the best I have right now.
These photos were taken in Julian, CA during a pre-Thanksgiving day trip Nov 2019. It took a few tries to adjust to & optimize the fully manual lens. Focus peaking on the Nikon helped but manually stopping down the lens after focus was easily forgotten. The 80mm Carl Zeiss lens has a leaf shutter that was locked open. The Z6 was on a study carbon fiber tripod.
Left image is the full jpeg, right is an enlarged detail. Note: these are not high resolution but should show the potential image quality. Miner Diner & Pioneer Cemetery were the last images taken and look particularly good.
In Lightroom, exposure compensation, contrast & saturation were used on the raw .NEF files. Default sharpening & noise reduction were applied. Clarity & dehaze were not adjusted.
Nikon Z lenses have proven to be extremely sharp on my Nikon Z7 when used properly. So my next test will be to try the Hasselblad lens on the Nikon Z7. Will a stellar prime lens from the late 1970s designed for a medium format lens perform better than or at least as well?
