victor by hasselblad (2009/03)
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Victor by Hasselblad magazine (2009/03)TRANSCRIPT
online 3.2009
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04 >> MARCO GROBPenetrating, intense and intimate portraits are the hallmark of Swiss photographer Marco Grob. His frequently black&white images show just how extremely close he gets to the stars.
10 >> THE EVOLUTION OF LENSESDo Hasselblad’s new HC-lenses meet the standards once set by Zeiss’ CF-lenses? A detailed test reveals that the HC lenses do stand up just fine to the legendary CF lenses.
18 >> MASTERS WANTEDThe race for the 2009 Hasselblad Masters Awards is soon coming to an end. Medium to large format photographers can still submit images in any of ten categories up till April 1st.
20 >> JOEL MEYEROWITZSince beginning his career as a street photographer in the early sixties, renowned photographer Joel Meyerowitz just loves to unveil the poetry he discovers in everyday life.
28 >> HIGH 5Which photographers have made it to the top? Inter national advertising agencies present their five candidates for the pan theon of the best (commercial) photographers in the world.
30 >> NEXT VICTOR ONLINE
The next issue of the VICTOR online magazine, will appear onApril 1st. Discover the imagery of top US newcomer photographer August Bradley and the nine other Hasselblad Masters 2008.
VICTOR by Hasselblad
has built up a broad reader-
ship who anticipate with
keen interest each new
issue of the award winning
magazine. All is well, the wait is over!
Starting now, a new VICTOR online magazine
will appear every month, in addition to the
regular print version. Once a month you’re
bound to be inspired by the captivating imagery,
along with exciting stories of technical devel-
opments from the world of photography. And
if you really want to be knocked out by the
great picture quality, just zoom in on any of the
images. Zoom in, find out and get bowled away
by the precision and sharpness of detail!
By using the magnifying feature, you’ll
find it incredibly easy to count each individual
hair on Blues legend Joe Cocker’s beard,
or examine the minute details of renowned
violinist Nigel Kennedy’s finger tips. Both
these accomplished musicians have been
captured in striking portraits by Swiss photo-
grapher Marco Grob who currently lives in
New York. The portrait specialist also set the
stage for an impressive photo shoot with
British musician Dave Stewart of the “Euryth-
mics” – wearing dark sunglasses, of course.
The outcome of that session can be ad mired
on the Cover of this issue.
The award winning images by photographer
Joel Meyerowitz, who became world famous
for the shots he took of Ground Zero, are equally
impressive. On page 20 and beyond, you’ll
dis cover that there are many more facets to
Meyerowitz’s work – he creates monumental
picture compositions that capture unique
moments in both black&white and in color.
To achieve technically perfect pictures is
not just a question of the camera you use,
but also of the lenses. This fact was more than
enough reason for VICTOR to take another
very close look at the performance capabilities
of the HC lenses. Our conclusion is clear: they
are easily at a par with Zeiss’ legendary CF lenses.
Take a close look at the smallest details
in the comparative pictures, and let yourself
be seduced by enticing worlds of imagery –
it will make the time fly till the spring issue of
VICTOR by Hasselblad appears in print.
Enjoy reading, viewing and experiencing
the first issue of VICTOR online!
Stephan Bittner, publisher
EDITORIAL CONTENT
Photographer Marco Grob captures band
leader M. Thompson (right) – and Dave Stewart from Eu-
rythmics (see cover)
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PORTFOLIO
Having a dressmaker for a mother, Marco Grob grew up surrounded by glamorous magazines such as “Vogue” and “Harper’s Bazaar”, which stimulated his initial interest in photography. Although he then be-came keener on films, the lack of a film industry in Switzerland and the prospect of an adventurous career shooting celebrities confirmed his decision to become a photographer.
“Nevertheless,” he says, “being Swiss, my parents thought that I should at least have a serious career as a back-up in case the photography didn’t work out, so I studied mechan-ical engineering. But the moment I finished my degree – at 5.30 pm on April 25th, 1985 – I was off to start my photographic career!”
“I had to learn my job from scratch,” he says, “but that was fine as I wanted to know everything about photography and wanted to do every thing. By spending thou-sands of hours in the lab perfecting techniques, I actually became quite a good black and white printer. Looking back at it today, however, I think that, to a certain degree, it was time that I could have used in a
more beneficial way. I am, after all, a photographer, not a printer. To imagine how photographs could be and then to bring them to life – that’s my job.”
Marco, whose major clients now include Levi’s, Adidas, Louis Vuitton and Zenith Watches, takes his in-spiration from the likes of Richard Avedon, Irvin Penn and Nigel Parry, and sees the key to his success as be-ing his own self-motivation to create the best possible picture. He contin-ually strives to generate, as he puts it, ‘some kind of magic’ through his photography, an attitude that deliv-ers superb photographs but which also, by his own admission, puts him under lots of pressure.
To date his most interesting as-signments have been the shoots he’s done for his clients Levis and Zenith, and he’s currently working on a cam-paign for Levi’s in Japan, China, South Africa, Venice and London. While
he is happy to leave the planning of the assignments to his agents (if he handled the planning, he says, it would be a disaster!), he remains in complete control of his camera sys-tem – a Hasselblad H3DII-39.
Marco started using Hasselblad camera systems as soon as he could and, since then, he has never stopped using Hasselblads, because, thanks to their reliability, optical excellence and speed, they have never, ever let him down.
As he succinctly puts it, they are ‘the best’. “I know it sounds like a cheap ad,” he comments, “but – good for Hasselblad – I really mean it!”
Coming as he did from an intense black and white background, latterly working with an Imacon scanner and negative film, it took a long time for Marco to become convinced about the merits of digital photography, but he now loves the quality it delivers. Like many converts, however, having made the crossover, he’s never looked back: “One day in New York, I had dinner with Raymond Meyer, one of the most successful photographers at the time. A known perfectionist and quality fanatic, he told me that
he had been working fully digital for the past couple of years – and that rang my bell! I tested and ordered my Hasselblad H2 and digital back the same week and have never gone back to analog since!”
While he certainly has no regrets about his choice of career: “I love it and think I’m incredibly lucky to be able to do what I do,” he does wish that he’d changed the subject matter of his work sooner: “I’ve only been doing what I like best – photograph-ing people – for the past four years. Before that, I concentrated on still life and automotive photography and I sometimes regret that it took me so long to make the change.”
When asked what advice he’d give to a young photographer starting out, he passionately declares: “Fight for your stuff! Give everything and hope it is enough!”
At the same time though, while formulating serious plans for the de-velopment of his own career – what he wants to achieve, which agent and what clients he wants to work with – he never forgets to include that other crucial aspect – when to take a vacation!
MARCO GROB He’s had them all: based in New York, the Swiss photographer Marco Grob is a master of striking portraits. Stars and celebrities are only too happy to be captured by his deep gaze – witness to his ability to create intense and intimate moments with his subjects.
Morten Harket, lead singer of the Norwegian synthpop band a-ha
“I love to push bounda ries. It’s part of my nature. I give everything and hope it’s enough – for my life and for my work.”
“You can leave your hat on ...”
Joe Cocker
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PORTFOLIO
Lucio Dalla, Italian “cantautore” (singer songwriter)
Reto Burrell, Swiss musician (above)Nigel Kennedy, British violinist
Michel Thompson, bandleader “The Buena Vista Social Club”
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Over the decades, Hasselblad has worked with a number of highly skilled partners for manufacturing lenses: Fujinon, Kodak, Rodenstock and Schneider. But if any lens manu-facturer is specifically associated with Hasselblad, it is certainly Carl Zeiss. The V System’s Zeiss lenses contrib-uted a great deal toward establishing Hasselblad’s fame and reputation.Indeed, they continue to be popular with many photographers today. In 2002, when Hasselblad launched the H System, it came with a new and growing set of lenses manufactured by Fujinon, a subsidiary of Fujifilm in Japan. While Fujinon is a respected lens manufacturer meeting the high-est standards, the brand name didn’t have quite the reputation as Carl Zeiss. Photographers who bought into the modern H System retained a preference for the tried and proven Zeiss lenses they had been using, and even some newcomers to Hasselblad cameras felt they had missed out by joining too late in the game.
Before we delve into the various issues around designing, manufactur-ing and evaluating lenses; it should be stressed that as far as Hasselblad is concerned, Zeiss lenses aren’t just a legacy of the past, but continue to be an asset today. Not only is the V System (for which Zeiss lenses were designed) still a viable camera system in its own right; these C-type lenses can also be used on the latest H Sys-tem cameras, thanks to the optional CF lens adapter. With the adapter fit-ting between the lens and the body, metering is done at full aperture and manual focusing is assisted by the camera’s AF system providing focus confirmation. Cocking the shutter takes a flick of the wrist, tossing a lever on the adapter. While we are going to show how the quality of the new HC
lenses is equal, if not superior to that of the C-type lenses; seeing is believ-ing – with an H System body, a pair of old and new lenses, and the CF adapter, anyone can copy the test.
THE DIVISION OF LABOR
With the current arrangement between Hasselblad and Fujinon, Hasselblad is much more in charge of lens design and manufacturing than they have ever been. The V System lenses were designed and manufac-
tured to Hasselblad’s specifications, but their engineers played no part in the actual lens development. While previously Carl Zeiss engineered everything including the shutter, lens design today is a collaborative effort between Hasselblad and Fuji-non, with Hasselblad gradually assuming a larger role. For example, work on the latest addition to the HC lens portfolio, the HCD 4/28, started out in Gothenburg, Sweden. Using powerful software for optical design, the characteristics of the new lens could be explored in great detail well before any glass was ground. Fujinon in Saitama City, Japan, then took up the task of refining the lens design and building a prototype series that was put through its paces at Fujinon’s and Hasselblad’s lab.
This division of labor also extends to the manufacturing stage. The cen-tral shutter and the iris diaphragm are built and assembled in Gothen-burg, then sent to Fujinon where the lenses are ground and the final assembly of the optical, mechanical, and electronic parts takes place.
WHAT’S IN A LENS
The C-type lenses are purely opto-mechanical devices made up of lenses, tubes, helical mounts, and a mechanical shutter. A modern HC lens is a more complex design: the mechanical shutter is replaced by an electronically controlled shutter for added precision and reproduc-tibility (see page 32). In a Zeiss lens, focusing is manual and it only con-cerns the lens itself – there is no communication between body and lens regarding the focus distance. The H System components, on the other hand, are tightly integrated, with lens and body exchanging data
electronically. HC lenses support automatic as well as manual focus: rather than transmitting the torque from a focusing motor in the body through to the lens using a clutch; the focusing motor is integrated into the lens itself. The interface between the focusing motor in the lens and the auto-focus system in the body is electrical, but a complex system of gears allows for a manual override – the photographer can intervene at any time without having to switch from auto-focus to manual focus mode first.
Auto-focus isn’t just a matter of convenience or focusing speed; with HC lenses it is a prerequisite for leveraging Hasselblad’s intimate knowledge about the performance of their lenses to achieve higher focusing accuracy than possible with either manual focus or auto-focus alone. The methods for improving auto-focus accuracy are subsumed under the label Ultra-Focus.
FOCUSING ACCURACY REVISITED
Photographers might wonder why Hasselblad is investing resources into achieving minute improvements in focusing accuracy. After all, there wasn’t anything wrong with focusing accuracy in the past – or was there? Auto-focus systems based on phase detection, the technology used in all current DSLRs, are working as well as ever; however, the change from sil-ver halide film to electronic sensors also changed the rules of the game.
When an image is opened in an image editing application such as Photoshop, the first preview is of the image displayed at 100 percent; each image pixel is mapped to exactly one display pixel, whatever the number of pixels. The greater the resolution, measured in megapixels, the greater the magnification at 100 percent – on a typical 96 ppi display, an image taken with an H3DII-39 would measure about 1.9 x 1.4 meters if one could see it in its entirety. The high magnification factors so read-ily available in digital image editing
THE EVOLUTION OF LENSES
C-type and HC lenses are separated by a turn of the millennium, changes in the way lenses are designed, and shifting requirements to comply with modern camera designs. Still, a great 20th century lens design makes for a fine lens even today, so what are the differences between C-type and HC lenses, and how do comparable lenses fare head-to-head?
BY MICHAEL J. HUSSMANN
PHOTOS: JÜRGEN HOLZENLEUCHTER
TECHNOLOGY LENSES
The CF 3.5/100 by Carl Zeiss, used for the image shown on the left, had once set a standard for len-ses to be measured against. The image on the right was taken with the H-system’s HC 2.2/100 which not just meets and partly exceeds those standards, but offers all the amenities one has come to expect from a modern autofocus lens
SYNOPSIS
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Tangential contrast drops fast; only sagittal contrast profits from stopping down
Diverging values for sagittal and tangential contrast can create dis-tortions in the corners
At the very center of the image, the CF lens still performs great – even at short distances
CF 3.5/100 f8 1.2 m
The HC lens shows good con- trast over most of the image circle, slightly improved by DAC
The sagittal and tangential con-trast curves stay close together; only at 40 lp/mm do they diverge
At the center, contrast would drop due to focus shift, but Ultra-Focus compensates for this effect
HC 2.2/100 f8 1.2 m
At 1.2 m from the subject and fully open, the CF lens only shows good contrast near the center
The curves for sagittal and tan-gential contrast begin to diverge about 5 mm from the center
Within a small central area the CF lens shows excellent contrast even at 1.2 m from the subject
CF 3.5/100 f3.5 1.2 m
Even at f3.5, the sagittal con- trast of the HC lens shows next to no drop off towards the edges
At the corners, tangential con-trast drops, but rises again thanks to the digital correction
The octogonal blur disks of the HC 2.2/100 have a faint lining indi-cative of a slight over-correction
The five aperture blades of the CF 3.5/100 turn out-of-focus spe-cular highlights into pentagons
In the center part of the image, the HC lens performs almost as well as its CF counterpart
HC 2.2/100 f3.5 1.2 m
software have created a distorted perception of image quality. Previ-ously, photographers had to deal with constant magnification factors defined by the desired print size or the loupe magnification when view-ing slides or negatives. When a film vendor introduced a new product with finer grain, the improvement in image quality was immediately vis-ible. A higher resolution sensor, on the other hand, will produce images that will inevitably be viewed at 100 percent again, and thus at a higher magnification than a lower resolu-tion image. It’s like getting a more powerful loupe along with the fine grain film, so the apparent grain size stays the same. And the increased magnification magnifies any imper-fections in the image – if the focus
is slightly off, this previously went unnoticed, but it won’t escape the attention of a Photoshop user today.
And there’s another reason why focusing with digital cameras needs to meet tighter constraints: sensors are much less forgiving of small focusing errors than film, especially color film. The emulsion layers of color film can reach a thickness of 20 microns, implying that there can’t be optimum sharpness within all the layers. SLR auto-focus systems strive to optimize sharpness in the middle, green-sensitive layer, so sharpness in the blue- and red-sensitive layers on top and below is minimally compro-mised. Any small focusing errors will only shift the position of the sharpest image towards the red- or blue-sensi-tive layers, so that even then one of
the layers will show a sharp image. A superimposition of a sharp image in one layer and two slightly less sharp images in the other layers, does reduce the contrast of fine detail, but the general appearance of sharpness doesn’t suffer.
With CCD or CMOS sensors, sharpness degrades much less grace-fully, even when they too, exhibit a layered structure. At a certain depth into the sensor assembly, it is decided whether a ray of light will reach this
pixel or the next, and this depth defines the plane where the lens has to produce a sharp image. With regard to focusing, a sensor is like a film with an extremely thin emul-sion. There are several small effects that once went unnoticed, as the focusing errors they caused were well within the margin allowed for by the emulsion layers. Digital photography raises the bar for focusing accuracy, and meeting this challenge requires a detailed model of the lens so that its
At distances typical for studio work, the HC 2.2/100 comes into its own; here, the CF 3.5/100 suffers from an optimization strategy focused on performance at infinity. That the HC lens is more than one f-stop faster can come in handy, too
TECHNOLOGY LENSES
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A good bokeh, i.e. the pleas-ing rendition of out-of-focus detail can be just as important as sharpness and contrast. The CF 3.5/100 (left) and the HC 2.2/100 (right), both at f4, fare quite well in this respect
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focus shift, focusing would be slightly off at larger or smaller apertures. With small apertures, the increase in depth of field is sufficient to mask this effect, but with a fully open lens, a high-resolution CCD might reveal a discernible lack of sharp-ness. Since the offset between the optimum focus position for a given aperture and the position found by the AF sensor with the lens fully open is known, an H System camera can easily compensate for focus shift, ensuring maximally sharp images at any aperture setting.
Ultra-Focus, of which the com-pensation for focus shift is a part, shows how knowing your cam-era system inside out pays off with improvements in image quality. This principle extends to the post-exposure part of the workflow where Hasselblad’s Digital Auto Correction (DAC) takes care of fine honing the image quality in FlexColor or Pho-cus. DAC relies on the lens model for predicting residual imperfections, namely chromatic aberration (level I), distortion (level II), and vignetting (level III). Thus informed about what differentiates the image as it is from the image as it should have been, the raw converter can apply the appro-priate corrections, relocating pixels to their rightful place, either for all three color channels individually (DAC level I) or collectively (level II), and adjusting each pixel’s brightness (level III).
DAC level I, the correction of chromatic aberration, also removes a major cause for the loss of sharpness
TECHNOLOGY LENSES
source will propagate through the lens elements and the diaphragm, taking all the effects of refraction and diffraction into account. The result of a simulation can be presented in a multitude of ways; from a repre-sentation of the image formed in the image plane, to various diagrams showing MTF curves, or mapping contrast changes with the focus set-ting.
Apart from taking these results as tips for further improvements in lens design, the simulation models retain their usefulness long after the devel-opment is complete. When the lens prototype arrives from Japan, it is subject to Hasselblad lab tests on an optical bench; comparing its actual performance to the performance predicted by the simulation soft-ware. Discrepancies detected at this stage can either point to production
behavior can be accurately predicted under all possible circumstances.
REAL AND VIRTUAL LENSES
Well before Fujinon begins grinding glass into the desired lens shapes, the lens exists as a simulation model on a computer. This virtual lens depicts all the characteristics of the real thing, not just the desired ones. Performance parameters have been specified as goals for optimization and any residual aberrations, any compromises necessary for achiev-ing the design objectives are just as accurately modeled. The lens design software can, for example, probe the virtual lens with an equally virtual pin-hole light source, set at a certain distance and angle to calculate how the light rays emanating from this
issues to be resolved by Fujinon, or to a substandard choice of optimiza-tion compromises that needs to be adjusted. After the simulation model has fulfilled its role in improving the design and the lens goes into pro-duction, the model assumes a new role informing the camera electron-ics and the raw conversion software about the peculiarities inherent in that particular lens.
For fine detail of a given orienta-tion, spatial frequency, and distance; the software can predict the contrast levels produced by the lens at any focus position and aperture setting. From these data points, tables of cor-rection coefficients are calculated that allow the auto-focus system to compensate for aperture-dependent focus shift. An ideal lens would con-centrate parallel rays of light to an incredibly small focus point, but in reality, spherical aberration turns this point into a fuzzy blob. Light rays entering a spherical lens far from the optical axis are refracted more strongly than those entering near the axis, so there is no common focal point. Even when spherical aberra-tion is corrected for, this correction will never be perfect; actual lenses will be either under- or over-corrected and modern lens designs will tend to over-correct. When stopping down, rays far from the optical axis are excluded and the point of optimum contrast will shift, resulting in back-focus with under-corrected lenses and front-focus with over-corrected ones. The TTL auto-focus sensor uses f6.7, so without compensating for
Being optimized for infinity, the stopped down CF lens shows no weaknesses whatsoever
The CF 3.5/100 makes a good land-scape lens with excellent resolution across the whole image
CF 3.5/100 f8 infinity
The HC lens shows good results; tangential contrast drops a little from 10 mm onwards
Tangential resolution is improved by the digital correction of chromatic aberration (DAC)
HC 2.2/100 f8 infinity
Even fully open, the CF lens produces good contrast; excellent from the center to 20 mm
Again the optimization for infinity results in outstanding perfor-mance at long distance settings
CF 3.5/100 f3.5 infinity
Up to 20 lp/mm, the HC lens per-forms nearly as well; at 40 lp/mm, contrast drops a little faster
Despite its different optimization goals, the performance is still quite good even near infinity
HC 2.2/100 f3.5 infinity
Near infinity, the CF 3.5/100 has a slight edge, performance-wise, but the HC 2.2/100 can hold its own
A view of Gothenburg’s harbor, not far from the Hasselblad building, provided the near infinity detail for a comparison between the CF 3.5/100 (left) and the HC 2.2/100 (right)
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and resolution towards the edges of the image. After the correction, the resolution of the digital image can be even better than that of the optical image in the sensor plane. With silver-halide photography, the performance of the lens defined an upper limit of image quality one could attain; with digital photogra-phy, it is just the starting point.
WHAT MAKES A FINE LENS
Unless a camera is used for repro-duction, photographic subjects will generally be three-dimensional. The plane of focus cuts out a slice of the scene that will be rendered sharp, so there is a contrast between sharpness and unsharpness at different depths into the scene that can be used to good effect. The requirements for a good lens are thus twofold: within the depth of field, subjects should be rendered sharp, i.e. with a maximum of contrast even in the finest detail. Subjects out of focus should appear unsharp, but in an aesthetically pleasing way, a quality that is much harder to pin down exactly. Still, you recognize it when you see it, and it can make a real difference between lenses of comparable sharpness.
For each CCD pixel, there is a cone of light converging on it, and from the pixel’s point of view, the differ-ence between sharpness and blur hinges on the origin of those light rays. If the image is in focus at this
point, all the rays hitting the pixel originate from the same point in the scene; if the image is out of focus, the rays originate from different sources. The mixture of light from different sources in the scene introduces blur. Even for the in-focus case, the perfect double cone of light – all the light emanating from a point that reaches lens converges in the same point in the image plane – is an idealization.
With an uncorrected lens, aberra-tions such as astigmatism, spherical aberration, or chromatic aberration would contribute to turn the ideal point into a fuzzy blob spreading over several pixels, reducing the contrast at the edges between areas of different brightness or color. The effect of aberrations increases with the distance from the image center, resulting in a gradual loss of contrast, sharpness, and resolution towards the corners. It is the task of the lens designer to guarantee a high degree of correction for all kinds of aber-rations to maintain good contrast across all of the image area, and for all or at least most relevant focusing distances. Quite often, lens designs have been optimized for infinity, whereas in a typical studio setting, subjects are just a few meters away. Another aspect to keep in mind is the repercussions lens corrections have for the imaging of out-of-focus detail.
The characteristic way in which a lens renders out-of-focus subjects is called “bokeh”, an English spelling
approximating the Japanese ぼけ meaning, among other things, “blur”. What constitutes “good” or “bad” bokeh – the terms “pleas-ant” or “unpleasant” might be more appropriate – is open to debate, as are the main factors influencing bokeh.
When specular highlights in the out-of-focus background appear as blur disks, these disks are images of the aperture and their shape cor-responds to that of the diaphragm. From polygon shaped rather than round blur disks one can easily deter-mine the number of aperture blades. These shapes are rarely distracting, though, and increasing the number of blades doesn’t improve bokeh as much to be worth bothering. Still, in extreme cases the aperture can be a factor: catadioptric (mirror) lenses that enjoyed a short-lived popular-ity during the 1980s had an annular opening due to their secondary mir-ror, rendering unsharp highlights as bright rings and creating double images of out-of-focus lines. Both kinds of optical artifacts were highly distracting.
The biggest factor influencing bokeh is the amount of spherical aberration. A perfectly corrected lens would have blur disks with uniform brightness and sharp edges. When some of the spherical aberration stays uncorrected, the edge of the disk gets fuzzy, but the bokeh would still be pleasant, maybe even more so than with a perfectly corrected lens. An over-corrected lens would create blur
Stopping down improves sagit- tal contrast, but this doesn’t do as much for tangential contrast
CF 5.6/250 SA f8 near
Sagittal contrast is excellent at 10 to 40 lp/mm; tangential contrast is improved by DAC level I
HC 2.2/100 f8 near
At infinity, this fine lens doesn’t need help from stopping down, as there is little to improve
CF 5.6/250 SA f8 infinity
At f8, the HC lens performs almost as well as the CF lens that is three times more expensive
HC 4/210 f8 infinity
The curves for the resolution of sagittal and tangential line patterns quickly diverge
Even fully open, the CF lens shows exceptionally high contrast across the whole image
CF 5.6/250 SA f5.6 infinity
Sagittal contrast is comparable; tangential contrast drops slightly beyond 20 mm
HC 4/210 f5.6 infinity
CF 5.6/250 SA f5.6 near
Contrast remains high for all spatial frequencies; only tangen-tial contrast for 40 lp/mm suffers
HC 4/210 f5.6 near
Pitching the HC 4/210 against the CF 5.6/250 SA yields surprising results, given the price differential
disks with sharply defined bright edges, even to the point of causing double images, and thus an unpleas-ant and distracting kind of bokeh. Modern lens designs typically favor a slight over-correction of spheri-cal aberration to improve sharpness for subjects in the plane of focus, so the lens designer has to be careful in keeping a pleasant bokeh while at the same time optimizing contrast.
APPRAISING AND COMPARING LENSES
The prime gauge for appraising the quality of lenses are the so-called MTF (short for modulation transfer function) charts. Short of painstak-ingly comparing a variety of images taken with different aperture set-tings, an MTF chart is the best way to get an impression of the strengths and weaknesses of a lens, though only with regard to its sharpness – there is no way to predict bokeh from an MTF chart. For realistic lens design tasks, it is actually the only way, due to the impossibility of con-trolling every factor to the necessary precision required for making image comparisons a viable alternative.
The modulation transfer function indicates how the contrast (and thus the sharpness) of alternating black and white lines vary from the center of the image to its edges. Ideally, the contrast should start out as high as possible at the center, sloping gen-tly towards an inevitably somewhat
lower, but still quite high contrast at the edge. Huge drops in contrast pointing to an uneven distribution of sharpness in the image area are to be avoided. Interpreting an MTF chart may seem like a daunting task at first, as a multitude of curves are crammed into a single chart, but it takes more than a single curve to paint a com-plete picture. For one thing, MTF charts differentiate between the contrast of patterns in different ori-entations – sagittal patterns of lines running from the center towards the edges, and tangential patterns of lines running perpendicular to the former: the MTF curve for sagittal patterns is generally represented by a solid line, the curve for tangential patterns by a dashed line.
Corresponding curves for tangen-tial and sagittal patterns should be as close as possible or at least run in par-allel. MTF curves are also measured for different spatial frequencies: pat-terns of fine lines have a high spatial frequency, whereas the spatial fre-quency of patterns of thick lines is low. The contrast of high frequency patterns corresponds to the ability of resolving fine detail, the contrast of low frequency patterns to the over-all contrast in the image. Generally, high contrast across all spatial fre-quencies is desirable, but some loss in high frequency contrast towards the edges is acceptable as long as low frequency contrast stays high. Soft-focus lenses with their deliberately under-corrected spherical aberrations
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exhibit reduced contrast for low spa-tial frequencies while retaining some contrast with high frequency detail.
Stopping down reduces some aberrations and improves contrast by cutting out peripheral rays, so an analysis of lens performance needs to take the aperture into account. Typically, MTF measurements will be made with the aperture fully open (or, if two lenses are to be com-pared, the largest aperture common to both) and after stopping down to the optimum aperture before diffrac-tion kicks in. Many lenses perform reasonably when stopped down, but the difference between a good and a mediocre lens often lies in the con-trast delivered when fully open.
MTF charts were originally invented for 35 mm cameras, so contrast is measured from the center of the image to about 21.6 mm, the radius of the image circle. Medium-format cameras have larger image circles and their radius ranges from 27.6 mm for the H3DII-31 to 30.5 mm for the H3DII-39 and -50. For purposes of comparison, it is not the absolute value of the distance from the image center that is rel-evant, but its relative value as a percentage of the radius of the image circle. Spatial frequencies are generally specified in line pairs per millimeter, referring the resolution of lines in the focal plane.
But the image in the focal plane, well hidden within the camera, isn’t what is relevant here; it’s the resolution in the eventual print that counts. For the sensor sizes of H or V System cameras, 10, 20, and 40 line pairs per millimeter (lp/mm) would be appropriate – the measurements at 10 lp/mm are indicative of overall contrast while 40 lp/mm measure-ments reveal the resolving power for fine detail. For lenses from 35 mm systems, the spatial frequencies need to be higher, due to the higher magnification requirements: start-ing from a 36 x 24 mm in the focal plane, the image needs to be magni-fied by another 50 percent to reach the same final print size, compared to a medium-format camera, so the spatial frequencies used for compari-son have to be raised by 50 percent as well, i.e. to 15, 30, and 60 lp/mm. Furthermore, different sensor sizes also translate to different depths of field; at the same aperture setting, the depth of field of a medium-for-mat lens is more shallow than that of a 35 mm lens. The medium-format lens should be stopped down by one f-stop to account for this difference.
In the following, we are going to compare two HC lenses, the HC
2.2/100 and the HC 4/210, with their CF counterparts. These are the CF 3.5/100 and the CF 5.6/250 Super Achromat, two of the finest lenses made by Carl Zeiss and thus provid-ing an adequate frame of reference. The MTF curves used for illustration were derived mathematically from simulation models of these lenses.
CF 3.5/100 AND HC 2.2/100
With the focus set to infinity, the distance for which the CF 3.5/100 was optimized, the Zeiss lens proves its excellence even fully open. Up to 20 mm from the image center, there is only a negligible drop in contrast across the whole range of spatial fre-quencies, and still good contrast at 30 mm. At the same aperture (f3.5), the HC 2.2/100 performs just as good for 10 and 20 lp/mm; only at 40 lp/mm and outside the central part of the image does the CF lens have a small edge. The HC 2.2/100, on the other hand, is about one f-stop faster and gives good results even at f2.2.
When the lenses are stopped down to f8, sagittal contrast evens out, with both lenses showing excel-lent results across the whole image circle. Tangential resolution of the HC 2.2/100 drops a little from 10 mm onwards towards the edges, but DAC level I, i.e. the digital correction of chromatical aberration, partly com-pensates for this; as indicated in the MTF diagrams by the red curves.
Focused at 1.2 m, the HC 2.2/100, a typical portrait lens really comes into its own. Even at f3.5, its sagittal contrast shows next to no drop off towards the edges, and just a slight decrease in tangental contrast that, again, gets improved by DAC. The CF 3.5/100 can still excel at the image center, but sagittal and tangential contrast begins to drop off quickly, so from 10 mm onwards the HC lens is clearly superior. Stopping down to f8 doesn’t do much to change this.
The CF 3.5/100 shows good contrast with sagittal lines, but for tangential lines, the results show lit-tle improvement, if at all. Moreover, the increasing difference in sagittal and tangential contrast introduces distortions near the edges – point-like detail is spread out into short radial lines. At the image center, the CF lens still bests its HC counterpart, but this is due to a slight focus shift that is resolved by the auto-focus; thanks to Ultra-Focus, it doesn’t show up in practice. At 10 mm the HC lens breaks even and takes the lead at greater distances from the center. The comparison between
these two lenses illustrates how shift-ing optimization goals can make a big difference. The CF 3.5/100 holds the crown at infinity, but contrast at shorter focus settings is heavily compromised. Designing the HC 2.2/100 for optimal performance at shorter distances corresponding more closely with how the lens will actually be used, did result in a better performance overall.
CF 5.6/250 SUPER ACH-ROMAT AND HC 4/210
The general philosophy behind HC lens design has been to forego excep-tional peak performance at a certain setting if it comes at the expense of severe compromises at other set-tings. Rather, the aim was a more even high performance level giv-ing consistently good results at any focus setting. When comparing the CF 5.6/250 Super Achromat to the HC 4/210, another factor comes into play, namely price: in its day, the CF 5.6/250 SA did cost three times the price the HC 4/210 does today; even compared to the ordinary CF 5.6/250 it was twice as expensive. How does the relatively affordable HC lens fare against the high-priced CF lens rep-resenting the best of Carl Zeiss’ lens design, especially since the former is one f-stop faster?
At f5.6 and focused at infinity, the Super Achromat maintains excep-tionally high contrast across the whole image. But the HC 4/210 isn’t far behind; actually sagittal resolu-tion is quite comparable with only tangential contrast dropping slightly beyond 20 mm. Stopped down to f8 the performance levels become even closer. At a shorter range, the image changes dramatically. The HC 4/210 maintains an even level of sharp-ness from the image center right to the edges, still improved by DAC, whereas the Super Achromat per-forms worse practically everywhere outside the very center. The contrast of lines in the sagittal and tangential orientation diverges, introducing distortions near the edges. Stopping down to f8 improves sagittal contrast with the Zeiss lens, but doesn’t do as much for tangential contrast. The HC 4/210, while already superior on its own, performs even better if DAC is applied, improving the resolution of fine detail considerably.
Again, the HC lens shows a better performance overall, with the added benefits of a faster lens that is also more reasonably priced.
LENSES – AT A GLANCE
2 FOCUS SHIFT
With over- or under-corrected spherical aberration (the latter is illustrated here), rays entering the lens at different distances from the center don’t con-verge at the same point. Optimum focus shifts as the lens is stopped down
4 READING MTF CHARTS
MTF curves for sagittal patterns are represented by a solid line, the curves for tangential patterns by a dashed line. For preventing distor-tions, both lines should be close or at least run in parallel
5 OPTIMIZATION GOALS
CF lenses (green) are optimized for infinity, HC lenses (blue) for more typical distances, resulting in a better correction overall and still good results at infinity
For further information please visit www.hasselblad.com
On a computer, the image opens at 100 percent, with each image pixel mapped to a display pixel. The higher the pixel count, the higher the magnification and the smaller the part of the image visible at any one time
3 GOOD BOKEH, BAD BOKEH
Unsharp specular highlights should get rendered as disks; under-corrected spherical aberrations create still quite appealing fuzzy blobs, while over-correction yields bright rings that might give rise to double contours
2 meters Distance Infinity
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Taking Photography Further
18 ONLINE 3/2009
In September 2007, Hasselblad appointed an exclusive contact per-son in charge of professional photographers: Christian Nørgaard (1962) from Denmark, is the Photo-grapher Relations Manager and your key contact. After completing his photographic training, Christian Nørgaard worked as a photographer for ten years and became co-propri-etor of the travel magazine Vagabond. During this time he commissioned images from fashion, wildlife and travel photographers.
Since autumn 2007, one of his main functions has been to supervise the Hasselblad Master Awards. In the 2007 competition year, around 2000 photographers submitted their work; the independent jury – made up of
Guillaume Cuvillier (Le Photogra-phe, France), Christopher Robinson (Digital Photo Pro, USA), Thomas Gerwers (Profifoto, Germany), Ian Farrel (Professional Photographer, England) and Wen Dan Qing (Chi-nese Photography, China) – was assigned to elect the 2008 Hasselblad Master in each of the ten photo-graphic categories.
VICTOR: How would you describe great photography?CHRISTIAN NØRGAARD: Great photography requires a photogra-pher who can create pictures which, in some way, transcend contempo-rary standards. The photographer has to surprise his audience. Powerful pictures are a testimony to a photogra-
pher’s exceptional technical skills and creative capacitiy. Take, for example, Mario Testino and his portrait of Lady Diana, which reveals a real passion for style; or Sebastião Salgado and his fantastic wildlife pictures from Africa; or Erwin Olaf, who has the ability to make the audience feel as though it were sitting right up there with the models. Next-generation photogra-phers like Joachim Ladefoged, Julie Blackmon and Lane Coder are also expected to serve up a profusion of exceptional material.VICTOR: Your title is Photographer Relations Manager at Hasselblad. What exactly does this job entail?NØRGAARD: I’m working closely with leading photographers around the world, like for example, Joel
Meyerowitz who, for his new book, is currently scanning a vast num-ber of negatives and slides using a Hasselblad Flextight scanner. One of my favorite film makers, David Lynch, has been working on an artis-tic photo project for us which the audience had the chance to see at the recent Photokina. And of course working with promising newcomers is just as important to me and I’m in the privileged position of passing on the knowledge we have acquired at Hasselblad. We also have a loan spon-sorship scheme (Hasselblad VIP). For example, we closed a deal with for-mer Hasselblad Masters Marco Grob and David Trood.VICTOR: The Hasselblad Master Awards was your first large-scale assign ment. Each year, since the inception of the competition, twelve Hasselblad photographers have been deemed Masters. The 2008 con-test, however, was special in that it opened entry to users of all medium and large format cameras. How do you feel about the new rules?
The hunt for the 2009 Hasselblad Master Awards is soon coming to an end. Since 2008, the competition is open to photographers using all brands of medium or large format cameras. Christian Nørgaard – the Photographer Relations Manager at Hasselblad – is there to help.
MASTERS WANTED
19 ONLINE 3/2009
NØRGAARD: I think it’s great. Now, all professionals can apply – even if they don’t work with Hasselblad gear. In other words, it’s only now that we can really determine the ten overall best Masters. This is what the com-petition is all about: to pinpoint the best photographers; those who take the best and most original pictures.VICTOR: Another key improvement is that the award winners are elected by an independent jury. Are you happy with the choice of jurors?NØRGAARD: I believe we have chosen the best of the best. The jury has done an excellent job. For the 2009 awards we also intend to invite a number of photographers and perhaps art directors into the jury – in addition to our notable publishers and chief editors.VICTOR: The winners were in troduced in a specially produced Masters book, released at Photokina. What’s the guiding theme for 2008?NØRGAARD: It’s all about passion. The book is essentially about the love the photographer feels for his
subjects and pictures. If you’re a land-scape photographer and you feel a deep connection with water, then go ahead and take pictures of waterfalls. It doesn’t matter what the subject is as long as the result screams passion.VICTOR: Will the previous year’s rules remain in place for the 2009 Hasselblad Master Awards?NØRGAARD: We’ll stick to the 2008 concept. But instead of send-ing in a maximum of ten pictures, photo graphers are asked to reduce their input to five. We’re expecting far more submissions this year and in order to assess the vast number of photographs adequately we are asking participants to send in less.VICTOR: What are your plans for the future of the Master Awards?NØRGAARD: It’s our big secret, but I can assure you that becoming a Hasselblad Master will continue to represent a milestone in the career of any photographer.
For further information contact:[email protected]
SOCIAL/WEDDINGPhotos of everyday scenes or human behaviour, including weddings.
FINE ARTPictures that realize a photographer’s creative vision.
PORTRAITImages of the human body – from full body to close-up.
PRODUCTAssignments where a physical product is presented.
NATURE/LANDSCAPEPhotographs of flora, fauna and other forms that are found in nature.
ARCHITECTUREPictures that show the physical form of buildings – interiors or exteriors.
FASHIONPictures where clothes, make-up or perfumes are the focus.
EDITORIALPhotographs that illustrate a newspaper or magazine story.
GENERALPictures that do not obviously fall into any of the above eight categories.
UP-AND-COMINGPictures by young photographers on their way to professional careers.
MASTERS 2009:THE CATEGORIES
Please go to www.hasselblad.com/masters where you can submit works for the Hasselblad Master 2009 Awards, by following four easy steps. The deadline is April 1st, 2009.
First of all, enter a personal profile where you submit your contact details and mark the category or categories in which you wish to register as a Master. For the second step, fill in details of the equipment you use.
Now you can upload a maximum of five of your photographs in digital format. Once you have read and agreed to the conditions of entry, you will have completed your registration for the Hasselblad Masters Awards. Good luck!
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20 ONLINE 3/2009
Four priests, Salzburg, Austria, 1967: “Like so many moments in life this one started simply enough, a tram ride up to a high castle overlook on a rainy sum-mer day. No expectations, just an adventure out into the world. We were alone there for a while just taking it in and feeling the sweet-ness of that moody day, then, just before we left, the tram deposited four priests, one of them popped his umbrella and together they walked to the parapet and stood there, in the company of the tram machinery, making an odd but charming group.” Joel Meyerowitz
JOEL MEYEROWITZ Beauty exists in any given moment. How to reveal that beauty, and how to unveil the poetry of everyday life, is the concern of renowned American photographer Joel Meyerowitz. Starting out as a black&white photographer, Meyerowitz chose a new direction in the mid sixties, becoming a pioneer of fine art color photography.
21 ONLINE 3/2009
22 ONLINE 3/2009
PORTFOLIO
Semana Santa, Malaga, Spain, 1967 (left): Little girls cradling their dolls and grown men caring for theirs. Man carrying poodle, New York City, 1965 (above)
Boys playing, Barrio Veintiséis de Febrero, Malaga, Spain, 1966: Natural grace and elegance in this place of hard poverty
23 ONLINE 3/2009
Fallen man, Paris, 1967: Which is the greater drama of life in the city – the fictitious clash between two figures that is implied, or the indifference of the one toward the other that is actual?
Paris, 1967: High-kicking girls, the majestic towers of Sacré- Cœur and the world’s only three armed cameraman
24 ONLINE 3/2009
Ground Zero, September, 2001: Searchers in the ruins of the North
Tower. Joel Meyerowitz care-fully documented the clean-up
work following the attacks on the World Trade Center
PORTFOLIO
25 ONLINE 3/2009
26 ONLINE 3/2009
ed images. Even though it’s an RGB image and they’re printing CMYK, we do a conversion to CMYK for them. So I feel as if quality starts here and goes out into the world in a way that it couldn’t before.”
In addition to HP’s 12-ink sys-tem of pigmented inks, Meyerowitz appreciates consistency from print to print thanks to the embedded spectrophotometer and the HP cali-bration technologies built into the HP Color Center software. HP Vivera Pigment Inks, with their 200 year
permanence, also offer some solid benefits on the business side. In the not-too-distant past, there was great resistance to collecting and showing color photographs. Meyerowitz re-calls, “Back in the ‘70s when I first started showing them, everyone said, ‘Oh, but they’re going to fade and why should I buy it. I’ll spend $300 on a print and it’s going to be gone in a few years.’ And museums felt the same way.” Now collectors, galleries and museums are all willing to take photos into their collections. Every time he signs a print, he writes on the back, “HP archival pigment print” because more institutions and more collectors are willing to pay $10,000 to $20,000 more for a print that is made with HP materials. “It gives collectors a great sense of secu-rity,” says Meyerowitz. He’s a big fan of HP Professional Satin paper. The Designjet Z3200 also prints on other fine-art papers, canvases and a vari-ety of photo papers.
Meyerowitz says. “We make the scan here. We tweak it in Photoshop. We make a quick test-print on the Z- series. We make an adjustment. We color-correct under the lights and, boom, it’s done. I don’t have to leave the studio at all.”
The real test for Meyerowitz’s HP Designjet/Hasselblad Flextight X5 system came when an exhibition of his Ground Zero prints arrived at its destination, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg in Austria, dam-aged and unfit for public display.
With the opening of the show just days away, there was no time to panic. Meyerowitz and his team spun into action. They calculated file sizes and the time it would take to print them. “We literally left the studio at night with five or six prints in the queue, came back in the morning, and there they were: all rolled up, waiting, cut and sitting in rolls in the basket,” re-calls Meyerowitz. Using the Z3100 we printed out the entire exhibition in less than three days and shipped it over to them. I just feel like it would have been impossible if I had to go to the lab. We could not have done that show.”
Currently underway is a 400-image retrospective book of Meyerowitz’s work. Every photo is scanned at his studio. The resulting file is shipped to the publisher Phaidon with a refe-rence print generated by the Z3200. “As a pre-press tool, this has turned out to be an extraordinary help. It gives them incredible color-correct-
Flextight X5 we thought we had landed in photographers’ heaven.” The difference? According to Mey-erowitz, “It’s clean. It’s almost dust free. It has incredible software for us to make a file.” The scanned image can be opened on any computer and – using the Hasselblad software – can be eloquently manipulated. For the Paris exhibition, Meyerowitz and his team merged the Hasselblad Flextight X5 scanner with the HP Designjet Z3100 printer, which features the latest HP inkjet technology. In the
past, if he wanted to put together an exhibition of this importance and scope, he would have to send the original negatives to the lab. “It would take weeks of my time going back and forth to the lab – unpro-ductive time sitting on the subway or driving in the car or waiting in the lab – and all that is finished now,”
he recalls being wowed by the results. “You would put in either one slide at a time or take a strip maybe of five and make an 18-megabyte scan.”
He generated photos with a Fujix printer, and was similarly impressed. “It used a ribbon of three colors and produced really beautiful little prints. I actually made the very first muse-um show of digital prints ever done, at the Art Institute of Chicago back in the ‘90s. I printed out a 50-print show, and nobody could believe that they were digital prints.”
An enormous step forward came three years ago with the introduction of the HP Designjet 130 printer. “The first print that came off the 130 was, for me, a revelation because I saw that all these years I wasn’t getting the full fidelity of the negative," says the American photographer.
Meyerowitz’s work process further evolved when, in preparation for a major exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris, he was introduced to the Hassel blad Flextight X5 scanner. “We had one of those jolts that sud-denly makes you realize that even though you thought you had a really good scanner, it had by comparison so many flaws and workflow difficul-ties that once we had the Hasselblad
Beginning his career as a street photographer in the early 1960s, Joel Meyerowitz has since amassed a huge backlog of photos. Today, with the help of technology from HP and Hasselblad, Meyerowitz is able to explore and display the vibrancy of his earliest work. “In recent years, the ability to scan these old originals from the ‘60s and print them with the kind of authority, beauty and clarity they had when I made them has given them a new life,” says Meyerowitz. In a way, the resources
of the Hasselblad Flewtight X5 scan-ner and the HP Z3100 Series printers have allowed this work to come out into the world. So for that I’m incred-ibly grateful.”
Finding and rescuing the invi-sible moment, Meyerowitz says that he sort of came into photography in 1962. His initial interest and fas-cination was with the immediacy of events, the way things happened and then disappeared forever. In the mid-70s, as he continued to photo-graph people on the street, striving to capture what he calls the invisible moment, he switched from 35mm to a larger format camera. It amplified the powers of description that the medium could afford me, and it am-plified my own curiosity about how to describe the world I lived in.”
Flash forward to 1991, the year he decided to transfer his entire per-sonal archive to a digital format that would allow him to access all his photographs. “I have tens of thou-sands of pictures, rolls of film and sheets of film. And although I knew where everything was, it was always a pain in the neck to get up on a lad-der, climb into the top of the loft, get the box out and find the picture. So I thought, ‘Hey, I can make a database and put all this stuff here.’”
Although scanning technology was primitive by today’s standards,
PORTFOLIO
Ground Zero, 2001: Grapplers working the debris in a
bizarre dream landscape bathed in golden light
The Ghost Train, 2002: When the rubble was finally cleared away down to bedrock this train was discovered in the PATH station. They dragged it out and affection-ately called it the Ghost Train
28 ONLINE 3/2009
HIGH5LEO BURNETT: MARK ZIBERT
“The first time I worked with Mark Zibert he was 23 years old. Even back then, his pictures had a quality and rare maturity. He consistently delivers images that are compelling, emotive and highly effective. His approach to commercial photography is always centred around the brand: every choice founded in his understanding of that particular brand. His work is precise and well executed, carefully straddling the fine line between art and commerc.” Israel Diaz, Creative Group Head and Head of Art, Leo Burnett Canada, Toronto Mark Zibert: Born in Toronto, Canada in 1977; 1998-1999 photo assistant; freelance photographer since 2000. Campaigns include: Nike 2006 for WK Amsterdam, Adidas 2006 for TBWA Toronto. Awards include: Communication Arts 2001-2006, Silver National Magazine Award 2005.
www.leoburnett.ca, www.markzibert.com
CARMICHAEL LYNCH: RAINER STRATMANN
“We just finished working with Rainer Stratmann on four ads for our 2007 Harley Davidson campaign. It was a dream collaboration. He’s a real team player who understands what the brand is all about. He’s relaxed, yet works incredibly hard to capture every possible type of shot.” Bonnie Brown, Art Producer, Carmichael Lynch, Minneapolis Rainer Stratmann: born in Gütersloh, Germany in 1956; 1977-1983 photo-graphy and film studies; freelance photographer since 1986. Campaigns include: Harley Davidson National Ads campaign USA, 2006; Lexus GS 350 presentation, 2006. Prizes include: the silver medal at New York Festival 2000.
www.clynch.com, www.rainerstratmann.com
SCHOLZ & FRIENDS: EMIR HAVERIC
“Emir Haveric’s uncomplicated and spontaneous manner make him a pleasure to work with and what’s more, he produces very beautiful photos. Having spe-cialized in car and landscape photography, he has recently done many projects for DaimlerChrysler – one of our clients. As he once said to me, he is fascinated by light, ‘to be able to divert it, to stop it, to wait for it and to enjoy it!’.” Adriana Meneses von Arnim, Art Service, Scholz & Friends, Berlin Emir Haveric: Born in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1973; 1994-1997 photo-graphic studies; 1997-2001 photo assistant; freelance photographer since 2002. Campaigns include: VW Passat “Highly developed”, Opel Corsa “c’mon”.
www.s-f.com, www.emirhaveric.de
ATLETICO INTERNATIONAL: JOHN CLANG
“John Clang’s outstanding technical dexterity enables him to merge highly improbable, almost fantastical compositions with crystal-clear, photographic realism. John Clang focuses on experiences that most are quick to label everyday city life, but he weaves them into visually stunning compositions.” Jason Bramley, Creative Director, Atletico International Advertising, Barcelona John Clang: Born in Singapore, Republic of Singapore in 1972; 1990-1992 photo assistant; freelance photographer since 1992 – located in New York since 1999. Campaigns include: IBM “Take Back Control” 2005-2007, Sprite “Freedom From Thirst” 2006, Sony Cybershot “Unusually Thin” 2005/2006.
www.atleticointernational.com, www.johnclang.com
CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY: SIMON STOCK
“Simon Stock has an excellent eye and understands how to capture the moment, producing pictures that hold the viewer’s interest. He manages to convey true emotions, so that the viewer experiences rather than just sees the picture. Simon Stock’s photos are impeccable, bold and real. He prefers taking pictures in un-usual locations; places like the Arctic Circle or Mount Everest.” Jessica Hoffman, Senior Integrated Art Producer, Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Miami Simon Stock: Born in Portsmouth, England in 1965; studied in Blackpool 1993- 1995; freelance photographer since 1995; first exhibition at Blink Gallery, Lon don in 2005. Campaigns include: Landrover for Y&R London, Dodge for BBDO Detroit.
www.cpbgroup.com, www.simonstock.com
Look who made it to the top! These are the best photogra- phers – exclusively in VICTOR: creative heads of internationally acclaimed advertising companies present their favorite five.
TOP FIVE PHOTOGRAPHER
Mark Zibert: Nike Battlegrounds Campaign, 2005, for Taxi Advertising (Studio: Toronto)
Rainer Stratmann: Campaign for Knauf Insulation, 2003, taken in Morocco
29 ONLINE 3/2009
THE TOP PHOTOGRAPHERS
Emir Haveric: San Francisco by Night, taken during the shooting for the VW Touareg-campaign of Grabarz & Partner, 2006
John Clang: Ogilvy&Mather’s IBM “Take Back Control”-Campaign, Los Angeles 2006
Simon Stock: BMW, 2005, for Publicis Mid-America in Dallas
30 ONLINE 3/2009
NEXT VICTOR ONLINE: 1 APRIL 2009
Items and topics in the next issue of VICTOR online may be changed or post-poned due to editorial or other reasons.
CLAUS-PETER DUDEK >> he transforms cars into stars
MANUEL PANDALIS >> immerses us in the glitzy
glamor world of the seventies
THE MASTERS 2008 >> We proudly present all winners of the Hasselblad Master Award 2008
Be surprised by inspiring portfolios, keep up-to-date with the most significant photographic trends, read in-depth articles on technical developments. On April 1st, 2009, check your monitor for the next issue of VICTOR online.
Realization: IDC Corporate Publishing GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
All articles and illustrations contained in the online magazine are subject to the laws of copyright. Any form of utilisation beyond the narrow limits imposed by the laws of copyright and without the expressed permis-sion of the publisher is forbidden and will be prosecuted. We accept no respon sibility for unsolicited material and this will only be returned if appropriate postage is included.
Hasselblad is a registered trademark of Victor Hasselblad A/S, Denmark. Place of jurisdiction and execution: Hamburg, Germany
VICTOR online | 3/[email protected]
Publisher: Stephan Bittner, Center of Service GmbH
Publishing House/Advertising:Center of Service GmbHHammerbrookstr. 9320097 Hamburg, GermanyTel.: +49.40.25 40 48-69 (Fax: -40)E-mail: [email protected]
Photographer Relations Manager Hasselblad: Christian Nø[email protected]
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Boasting sensors twice the size of most 35mm digital solutions and a range of unrivalled professional features and finesses, it’s no
wonder that the Hasselblad H3DII line of cameras are hailed as the most advanced and most complete professional camera system
on the market today.
And the price of shooting with a Hasselblad system is now a lot lower than you might have
thought. In fact, for a little more than high-end 35mm solutions and much less than many compet-
ing medium format solutions, all the benefits of the Hasselblad system can be yours.
The Hasselblad H3DII-31 (at only €11,995 for camera, viewfinder, and 80mm lens) provides an
accessible entry into the Hasselblad system, without sacrificing the benefits of our larger models.
Or if its more megapixels you need, the H3DII-39, at a new low price of €14,995 (at only €14,995 for
camera, viewfinder, and 80mm lens), makes high-end shooting more affordable then ever before.
H3DII-31 kit:(body and 80mm lens) €11,995
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Taking Photography Further
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