It’s been nearly a year since Hasselblad lent me an H4D-40 with a 28mm lens and 80mm lens. I got off to a bit of a rocky start with it, it’s not an easy camera to use compared to my Nikons but once I bonded with it I grew to absolutely love it. I now miss it.
This is what my kit bag looked like for the year when I had it, Nikon D700 on the left, D800 in the middle and Hasselblad on the right. The Nikons were for quick shooting and action, the Hasselblad for when I have a bit more time to shoot “properly”.
A holiday snap of it in use in the Alps last Summer…
The Hasselblad tones and detail were just lovely, for the first 4-5 months I would take very few photos on the Hasselblad compared to the Nikon and come back and regret it as the Hasselblad photos were so much nicer!
It really dealt with natural light scenes brilliantly, giving me control when processing to bring out parts of the image. For these Cayman photos it allowed me to bring out the yellow of the car and show the lines of the car beautifully.
I of course had to test it with a little action, so standing atop a scissor lift looking down I had one shot to get this each time it went past. I imagine that’s what it must have been like for people who shot on film!
Next up was the day after my 21st Birthday, Classic Bike Magazine asked me to go take photos of James May from Top Gear for a feature for them. James May approved of the Hasselblad.
Sometimes it was nice to just do some very simple shots with it, like this shot for Classic Cars magazine
One of my friends got married so I broke the hasselblad out and a flash head and shot away
Another 3 natural light shots to really show up the dynamic range of the camera
I shot this gritty shot for GTSpirit of the Jaguar CX75 prototype. I lit the car using flash in several separate shots which were then merged in photoshop.
This is when I really started to love the Hasselblad, when I was shot this Enzo, I realised just how much detail the camera could pick up
A bit of flash fun with my mini and some water
A trip to Scotland with Twisted was a lot of fun!
I especially love the flare that the Hasselblad produced
I brought the GT86 to Scotland with me…
Early this year I went to Saudi Arabia. The Hasselblad surprised me that it worked even better when the Sun’s out (that hadn’t happened much in the UK) and allowing me to bring out detail on the dark parts of the image when my other cameras just didn’t allow me to.
As last of all, here are two images from my last shoot with it for Bespoke VIP.
The Hasselblad will be missed. So much so that I’m thinking very seriously of buying one!
George