"All it does is take magical pictures"
Written: Oct 12 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Distortion free ultra-wide-angle photography
Cons: One of the most expensive medium formats on the market
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| frank_vanriper's Full Review: Hasselblad 903SWC Film Camera |
By Frank Van Riper
Professional photographer, author and photography columnist for <Washingtonpost.com>
Years ago, when I was studying photography at the Maine Photographic Workshops, Neil Selkirk, the great location photographer and portraitist, showed us some of his work made with the Hasselblad Superwide.
The sharpness was wonderful, but the lack of distortion in his images also was surprising. After all, this was a very wide angle camera--in fact, it was more a very expensive lens cobbled onto a Hassy film back.
The Superwide, Neil said then, is an odd camera. It costs an arm and a leg, it has no interchangeable lenses, and you can't even look through the lens when you make a shot.
"All it does is take magical pictures."
And he is right. I bought my Superwide a few years later--an older version Hasselblad Superwide C. I got it used and got a great deal on it, so that I was not unhappy about shelling out an additional $400 to have the camera professionally modified into a Superwide C/M that was able to take a Polaroid back.
I have used this camera in all kinds of portrait situations--and have gotten some of my best images when I broke the rules a little. The camera comes equipped with a 360-degree bubble level and when held absolutely level, its amazing 38mm lens shows absolutely no distortion! [This almost seems like a photographic parlor trick, but it's true.] For example, when I did the portrait of author Stephen King that is in my book, Down East Maine/A World Apart, I shot him in the Little League Stadium in Bangor that he and his wife Tabitha helped build. Though there are light poles and fences all around, none shows the barrel distortion so common in ultra-wide angle shots.
By contrast, when I shot a magazine layout at the Kennedy Center in Washington--of a man in the foreground of the Grand Foyer--I deliberately shot from a slightly low angle to make my subject loom dramatically and let the lines converge, also dramatically, in the background.
This camera also is a favorite of wedding photographers who love the way it allows for gorgeous environmental shots of bride and groom in a church. And handheld, shooting from the hip, the huge depth of field of the lens assures almost any picture will be acceptably sharp.
The new incarnation of the SWC, the 903, retains all of the "magic" of its predecessors--in fact the changes in it are largely cosmetic. But hey, if you've already developed a magical camera, why change it?
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
frank_vanriper
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Member: Frank Van Riper
Location: Washington, DC
Reviews written: 15
Trusted by: 120 members
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