Hasselblad C T * vs CF or CFI lens

[abhishek@1985]

Hi Friends,

I have been shooting with old beaten up 50mm C T* and 150 mm C T* lenses with my Hasselblad 500 cm. Needless to say I simply enjoy the whole process of shooting medium format film and has opposed moving to digital ever since I held a Hasselblad in my hands.
However, am thinking of upgrading my lenses to Cf or CFI . Mainly looking at 50 mm CF , 120 mm CFI and 180 mm CF ..
However, before I take any decisions I wanted to know what you experienced Hasselblad shooters think about the advantage of CF or CFI over C T * lenses .. Is it worth the expense of 2k by selling the existing C T * lenses ?

Regards,
Abhishek

 

[epatsellis]

To me, no. I have the 40,50,80,150,250 all C T*. All are more than adequate for my needs.

 

[minicoop1985]

If memory serves, the actual formula for the lenses is the same. Coatings vary between them, but the actual lenses are identical.

 

[epatsellis]

For some (most) lenses, yes. There were at least 4 versions of the 50, with varying optical formulas. The C version lacks (relatively) corner sharpness. Having said that the C T* version I prefer over later versions being a less clinical image than later ones with the floating elements


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Dave Colangelo]

I currently have the 80 C, and the 150 CF with a 50 C T* on its way. FWIW the are all great lenses.

As for the difference the C T* and the CF T* both carry the same coatings (the T* denotes the coating) but differ in operation. The C and later C T* lenses are functionally the same from a mechanical standpoint and have the locked EV style system you know. The later CF lenses have a free speed/aperture style adjustment system and are in a slightly different housing. The CF lenses also use the Prontor shutter over the classic compur shutter. You can read up more here.

On your C/M the CF lens will not really make a difference it was made so that it could also work with the later focal plane shutter cameras but on the C/M it will behave the same as its C era counter part.

In my humble opinion there is no reason to make a jump. Now if your lenses have functional issues and need to be replaced and you can find a nice CF example to replace it with, go for it. But if you have a fully working set of lenses there is no reason to sell them and get CF stuff in the same focal lengths. Ill come out and say that it makes very little difference from what I have seen so far but others may disagree with that.

With the Hasselblad stuff I always prefer to get clean stuff over newer stuff. If a really nice C were to come up for sale I would take it over a beaten up C T*, and even over a really junky CF lens. From my experience the older C lenses are even built a bit better.

Regards
Dave