My Camera Bag Is Almost Complete.

I have hinted at this a bit here already but here it is in reality. I picked up the camera that I have been wanting since I first heard about it way back in 2014. 

I picked up the Hasselblad CFV 100C Digital back for my Hasselblad 503CXI Or well any camera that can take the Hasselblad film back. So in my case my Omega 4X5 as an example. 

Shooting Film Is Awesome Except it really isn’t.

I have only had it now for about 3 or 4 days but I have managed to run a few hundred exposures though it already. and… It is FREAKING AWESOME!!! I love, I mean LOVE shooting with old cameras. I would shoot pretty exclusively with them if film wasn’t

A: Super time consuming

• It takes about 8-10 min to scan in a single 35mm frame in the quality that I want and about 15-18 min for a 6×6 frame. 
• Each roll of film takes two turns at loading and setting up the negatives to be scanned meaning to scan in the 12 exposures that I get on a roll of 120 when shooting on the Hasselblad 500 C/M or the Mamiya C330 can take 3-3.5 hours to scan in.
• This isn’t counting the time to either self develop it or drive it to the Lab and drive to pick it up from the lab which is a 20-25 min round trip each way. So add another 40-50 min to that scanning time.
• So each exposure takes 20-25 min of work to even see it! 

B: Super expensive. 

• A roll of Kodak Portra 400 is about $26 to $30 dollars CDN depending on where you buy it and it costs about $8-$10 dollars CDN to develop. 
• Meaning those 12 shots on that roll can cost $2.50 to $3 dollars an exposure. That shit ain’t cheap! 
• I could shoot kodak gold or black and white to make it less expensive but less expensive is really something like 2 dollars an exposure. So still not cheap. 

I have always felt that the happy medium is a digital camera that acts and behaves like a film camera.

In the past I have found great joy shooting with the Nikon DF and my old Leica M9 as they are great examples of a digital camera that shoots and acts like a film camera. In the, just shy of three years that I had the Nikon DF  I shot over 17,800 exposures with it. In fact it was so Film Camera like that you could change the focus screen to allow for split level focus assist.

In the 4 and a half years that I had the Leica M9 it was almost 16,000 exposures. That is a lot of shooting with old ‘style’ cameras. In fact I would still be shooting with both of these cameras today if they hadn’t been stolen from our studio in 2017

Doogie is one of my favourite digital cameras that acts like a film camera, as it is as ‘film camera’ as you can get while still being digital. By Doogie I am meaning the Leica M-D (typ 264)

The joy of this camera is that there is no screen and all the controls are as they would be on say an Leica M6 Or M7. It has all the same dials and the ISO selection wheel is where your ISO selection wheel would be on a film camera. You can shoot all day with it and you still have to wait until you get home and stick the SD card in the computer to see what you shot. I find that it really makes you focus on the experience rather than constantly chimping to see if you got the shot or not. You get to know the camera and you know that you got the shot or not from experience. I love this. I don’t know why bit I really really do. As of this writing this is the last screen less Leica that has been made. the M10 and now the M11 all have screens and buttons. I am hoping that the M11 with all of its wireless connections comes in a M-D version that would let you control those settings from the wireless connection rather than the screen, but I am really quite doubtful that will happen.

Shooting with this camera I am free in a way that I never was with standard DSLR cameras as I can shoot with impunity not worrying about the ‘film cost’ but I still need to ‘develop’ my shots before I can see them. It is the best of both worlds really.

In the 3 years that I have had doggie I have shot the equivalent of 450 rolls or 35mm film or 16,000 exposures. at $33 CDN (25 for the roll and 8 to develop) that would have been almost $15,000 in film & developing costs, (not even accounting for my time) well paying for the $4,500 I bought It for used. Paying for itself three times over :)

In the 20 years that I have shot with my Medium format cameras, My Hasselblad’s and Mamiya’s, Holgas, and Penticon Six’s I have shot maybe 150 to 250 rolls of 120 film or 2400 to maybe 3000 exposures. Which is to say way fewer exposures than most of my digital shooting. To say that being able to shoot digitally with my medium format film cameras has always been the holy grail. And now I have it! It is already way more amazing than I could have imagined. 

What are the drawbacks

Isn’t that camera super expensive?

Yup!! it was very freaking expensive! Like I really don’t like talking about it expensive. However, based on the film cost calculations I outlined above, like my Leica MD, it will have paid for itself in just 3700-4400 exposures (remember at $2.50-$3.00 per medium format exposure adds up to the purchase price in no time) not to mention that I will be free to shoot way more with this setup then with film. I no longer need to look a the photo I am taking and ask if it is worth 3 dollars. which allows me to experiment and take risks that wouldn’t be financially feasible when shooting with film.

Isn’t there a ‘crop factor’ with that sensor? Isn’t it way smaller then 6×6?

Yup the sensor is definitely smaller than the 6×6 frame of the film back. At 44mm x 33mm it is just over 2/3rd’s as wide and just over half as tall as compared to the 56mm x 56mm ‘6×6’ film frame size. Which absolutely makes your lenses have a narrower filed of view. x1.44 as I have calculated it

(although this isn’t 100% correct as we are going form a square frame to a 4:3 frame so it is actually functionally somewhere between 1.27 and 1.44 I will use something in the middle 1.35 for the following calculations )

This is to say that your medium format 80mm lens on the smaller digital back now has the same field of view as a medium format 101mm – 115mm lens would with a film back (which is close to a 80mm lens on a 35mm full frame equivilant)

Fun Fact: While it is not exact, when you calculate the ‘crop factor’ of your medium format lenses on a Hasselblad 503CXI with the CFV 100C Digital Back and then convert that new equivalent focal length to the its 35mm full frame equivalent, functionally your medium format lenses on the 500 series cameras with the smaller digital back have an equivalent field of view to your 35mm lenses on a ‘full frame’ camera. That is to say that a Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 on your Hasselblad is pretty close to the same as an 80mm on your Canon Full frame DSLR. This isn’t perfect or exact conversions as we are comparing apples to oranges to Orangutans, but let me walk you through the math that I used to work this out.

6×6 Film frame – The diagonal length of a 56mm x 56mm frame is 79.20
The CFV 100C Digital back Frame – The diagonal length of a 43.8mm x 32.9mm frame is 54.78
35mm ‘full frame’ camera – The Diagonal length of a 35mm x 24mm frame is 42.44

The ‘Crop Factor’ of 6×6 to the CFV 100C is calculated by dividing the diagonals of both film and sensor sizes.

79.20/54.78 = 1.44 (but due to aspect ratio differences I would say more like functionally 1.35)

So Your 80mm Hasselblad Medium Format lens times the CFV 100C ‘crop factor’ of 1.35 = 108mm. Meaning your 80mm lens on the digital back has the equivalent field of view as 108mm lens on a film back. With me so far?

Now the conversion of that digital medium format sensor size as compared to 35mm is calculated by dividing the diagonal of the 35mm sensor size by the diagonal measurement of CFV 100C sensor.

42.44/54.78 = 0.77 (again there is an aspect ratio difference here from 4:3 to 3:2 but it is probably negligible)

If I take that 108mm medium format field of view equivalent and times it by 0.77 I get a 35mm field of view equivalent of 83mm

So that 80mm medium format lens on the Hasselblad 500 C/M with the CFV 100C digital back is functionally the same field of view as an 80mm lens on a 35mm full frame camera. While not at all exact It is close enough to be a functional work around.

Speaking of lenses This Digital back makes all my lenses preform better…. Let me explain.

Lenses of all makes, kinds, and qualities will diminish in image quality the further you get from the centre. Good lenses will be better with things like vignetting and distortions at the edges than cheap lenses but all lenses have a reduction in quality the further you get from the centre. Because these lenses are projecting an image circle that is way to large in respect to the smaller digital sensor reduced geometric distortion and vignetting

Are the files sizes too big to work with? Will I need a new computer?

I have had no problems working with the much larger file sizes. I have been shooting the full quality 16bit .3FR files and they have been averaging about 211MB per file and at 11656 X 8742 pixels they are much heftier files then my now 8 year old Leica M-D (typ 262) with file sizes around 25-30MB and coming in at 5976 x 3992 Pixels. That said I haven’t had any performance issues with these MUCH MUCH MUCH larger files. I think that the .3FR file format must be super efficient or something because thus far they have been a joy to copy and work with in Lightroom and Photoshop.

What about battery life? Arn’t they super expensive and don’t you need a bunch for a day of shooting?

I haven’t had the camera very long and for the most part the longest session that I have shot with it is 3 hours of what would be pretty constant shooting or a 6 hours of off and on shooting. The lowest I have seen the battery get has been about 35% I have two extra batteries as they are the same ones form the Hasselblad X1D but I haven’t needed to change them once. I have been fairly routinely shooting 200- 300 exposures in a session and haven’t even had to worry about changing the battery once. I am sure that if I had it on the 907X body with an autofocus lens that it would be closer to the my personal experience of the pretty MEH battery life of the Hasselblad X1D, but this combo has been thus far unbelievable!

That said I never leave the house without a spare battery far any camera I am shooting with even if I never plan on using it I like to have them. But I think similar to how I have been carrying a spare battery for Doogie the Leica MD that I pretty much never need in the field I will have at least one extra in the bag for this.

What about charging it? isn’t having to plug in your camera kinda janky?

I nearly ordered the battery charging hub when I ordered the camera but I didn’t. Mostly when I submitted the order I just forgot and I didn’t have time to go order it. I find that because I am plugging the camera into my computer to offload files to Lightroom that the charging has been happening almost by accident.