Studio Portraits Shoot
Professional fashion and portrait photography is one of the few realms where the medium-format camera is still king. Richard Sibley tries out the Hasselblad H4D-40 in a studio environment
One of the main reasons for the continued popularity of medium-format cameras among professional studio photographers is the high resolution of images that are captured. For a professional photographer this is vitally important, as the client may wish to make large prints at a high resolution.
It has been a couple of years since I used a medium-format camera, a Bronica ETRS, in a studio, and one of the first things that struck me about the Hasselblad H4D-40 was its size, especially with the 35-90mm f/4-5.6 lens attached. I was a little concerned about camera shake while handholding the camera. I was also slightly concerned that my arms might not be able to keep holding the camera while shooting for a couple of hours.
My fears were largely unfounded. While the camera is more substantial than a professional DSLR such as a Nikon D3X, it is surprisingly comfortable to handhold.
I needn’t have worried about camera shake, either. By turning off the lights for the studio and selecting a shutter speed of 1/250sec, the dim ambient light wasn’t captured by the sensor, leaving the quick burst of the studio flash lights as the sole source of illumination.
