Hasselblad HTS 1.5Hasselblad's inventive tilt shift lens adapter proves that what's old can be made new again.June 2, 2009 By Dan Havlik 
DIGITAL INTEGRATION We also liked how Hasselblad has been able to integrate the HTS 1.5 into the H3D's menu system and its new Phocus imaging software. When the HTS 1.5 is attached, the camera grip menu screen will give you a live read-out of tilt (measured in degrees) and shift (measured in millimeters). This is not just a nod to the anal-retentive; it's a good way to keep track of those settings for future reference. As I said, blending the right amount of tilt and shift to achieve a desired look takes some practice so being able to see those settings digitally on the screen is a big plus. "When I'm working with the Canon tilt-shift lens, I'm always eyeballing it," Root noted. "With the HTS 1.5, I don't need to. I can see exactly where I'm at on the screen." Along with the 90 degrees of rotation, the adapter allows 18mm either upwards or downwards shift, and 10 degrees of up and down tilt. Adjustments to tilt and shift can be combined, and all the final settings are embedded as metadata in the digital image file. In Phocus, which is a vastly improved program over Hasselblad's earlier FlexColor software, you can easily access that data. When shooting tethered via Firewire to a computer running Phocus, you can use the software to automatically trigger the shutter and change some basic camera settings. There's also a grainy, jittery, black-and-white Live Video feed—which is pulled directly from the camera's sensor—that's nice in concept, but difficult to use. What we'd really like to see in Phocus though is the ability to track any tilt and shift adjustments on the HTS 1.5 in real time. Even better would be to be able to actually remotely control those tilt and shift adjustments in the HTS 1.5 via Phocus. Obviously, that's a difficult prospect since it would require embedding some kind of motor in the adapter but I wouldn't be surprised if Hasselblad considered that. Also on our wish list would be Live View. Though the H3DII-31 camera system we tested in conjunction with the HTS 1.5 has a much improved, 3-inch LCD screen compared to the initial iteration of the H3D series, it'd be even better if we could track the effect of our tilt and shift adjustments live on the rear display. (This is something I'm sure digital back manufacturers are working on.) As it is now, the best way to see these changes before you capture your image is through the H3DII-31's big and bright viewfinder which is a clear advantage medium-format cameras have over digital SLRs when shooting with a tilt-shift lens. TILT, SHIFT, REPEAT; TILT, SHIFT, REPEAT While testing the HTS 1.5 in Root's studio we quickly learned there's no magic formula for getting the right combination of tilt and shift. Exploring different adjustments is part of the fun but can also be frustrating at first. Most photographers are likely already very familiar with the extremely shallow depth of field/narrow region of focus you can create using the tilt feature. This effect, which can make a large scene such as a beach or an airport look "miniaturized" when shot from above, has become so commonplace lately it's now a cliché. The less "glamorous" but more practical effect of these lenses is to use the tilt to increase the depth of field and broaden the area of focus on your subject. Using the HTS 1.5, we were able to group three pieces of jewelry into one shot with consistent sharpness from right to left at f/29. Though this may not sound particularly exciting, it allowed Root to split up that shot into three sections in post-processing and use each piece for a stand-alone advertisement while maintaining great sharpness throughout. In the past, he would have had to shoot each item separately, which can be very time-consuming when you're photographing hundreds of pieces a day. For larger decorative arts such as antique vases and lamps, the broad depth of field gave Root good sharpness in one shot, eliminating the need for retakes or layering in Photoshop. Meanwhile the HTS 1.5's shift function was a real boon for photographing furniture since it allowed him to maintain parallel vertical lines without any "convergence," i.e., that look which can make a chair or a desk appear squeezed. The other clear benefit of using the shift function is when photographing buildings. We got nearly perfect parallel lines in test shots we captured of apartment buildings in upper Manhattan. Wide images we captured of a sloping street using shift on the HTS 1.5 also showed no signs for converging parallel lines from building to building. As a coup-de-grace we used the anti-distortion lens correction tool in the Phocus software to even the shot out completely. Again, these may not be the sorts of things that help you win that next photo contest but as a practical feature for professional architecture photographers it can be invaluable. THE BOTTOM LINE You've got to hand it to Hasselblad for coming up with the HTS 1.5 tilt shift lens adapter, one of the most unexpectedly great accessories to hit the medium-format market in some time. While most of the headlines for medium-format cameras concern the whopping size of the imaging sensors and the pre-Recession pricing of the digital backs, Hasselblad's created a very simple but beneficial tool to give you more perspective control on your images. And because the HTS 1.5 works with five different Hasselblad lenses, it's like getting five different looks with one accessory. Though we missed being able to shoot wide with a 28mm lens because of the adapter's 1.5x magnification and were sorry to lose more than a stop of aperture, the flexibility and ease of use of the HTS 1.5 should make it an essential tool in any product, architectural, or landscape photographers' bag.
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