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 How much is image quality worth to you? If you’re a pro, you’re used to paying a premium for cameras and lenses that guarantee the highest quality images—because that’s what your clients expect. And increasingly, those clients expect you to deliver digital files.
So should you switch over entirely and abandon your trusty medium-format film cameras? Not if you already own the new autofocus Hasselblad H1 reviewed in last month’s issue ($5,700 street). All you need to turn this great film camera into a super-high-res digital is the ultimate camera accessory—the $11,995 16.6MP
Kodak DCS Pro Back 645H. Just slap the 645H into the same spot as the removable film magazine, and you have a fully functional, untethered, 16.6MP autofocus digital camera. But is this pricey pixel partnership really worth the investment? Here’s what we discovered in our lab and field tests.
For starters, the Hasselblad H1 was designed to work seamlessly with the 645H, offering a full range of exposure controls, as well as TTL flash metering, an intervalometer, and shutter speeds longer than 1/4 second. (These last three features are missing on earlier 645 versions compatible with the Contax 645 and Mamiya 645AF/AFD). The 645H includes a removable focusing screen for the H1 that clearly outlines the capture area of the sensor, which crops the field of view to a 1.5X lens factor (a 100mm lens delivers a captured field of view equivalent to a 150mm lens). LED viewfinder readouts in the H1 also alert you to problems in the 645H, such as when the camera back is turned off or the memory card is full. Then, after each shot, the control LCD on the H1 displays a large and very useful histogram to help confirm exposure.
The Pro Back 645H contains one of Kodak’s most advanced CCDs, featuring greater blue sensitivity and low noise. The square sensor measures 36.72x36.72mm, which accounts for the 1.5X lens factor, and captures more than 16.6 million pixels (4080x4080). The 645H sensor is protected by a removable IR filter, and an optional anti-alias/IR filter ($1,450 street) speeds up the image processing by optically reducing moiré patterns instead of doing it via software.
Controls on the 645H are relatively sparse, since most exposure settings are handled by the H1. However, it features a large, two-inch color LCD, and an easy-to-read menu system that lets you set many image-quality and storage parameters with the four-way toggle switch. The left side of the 645H includes power, FireWire, video-out, and serial-debug ports, while the right side houses the CF card slot.
ISO speeds can be set from 100 to 400, and camera white balance can be set to several calibrated settings (ICC profiles included) or customized to a gray card in the scene. The “Looks” setting lets you choose between Portrait, Product, and Reduced color modes; you can also turn on noise reduction when shooting longer exposures. All of these settings can be modified in Kodak’s Photo Desk software, a powerful tool for fine tuning images.
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