Is a Hasselblad H3DII-31 good enough?

[pjtn]

I'm looking at second hand Hasselblad H3DII-31 cameras for doing long exposure black and white landscape photographs. The exposures last for around 2 to 10 minutes. I want to print these files up to 40x40" square and I'm wondering whether this camera would be able to do that and still retain sharp and fine detail upon reasonably close inspection.

I'm not really in an area where I can get hold of one to test it out. I have though demoed a Pentax 645D recently and found it quite adequate for the task.

[pjtn]

Also, I've been told that the H3DII-31 can't do exposures over 32 seconds, is this true? Doesn't it have a bulb mode so that a remote shutter release can be used for long exposures?

[jonathan.lipkin]

I just looked on my h3d 39 and could set the esposire to one minute, but didnt see any setting for bulb ot t. from what ive heard, digital capptures get very noisy when long exposures used. If you want me to check a setting for you, let me know.

Ive made forty two by six prints from mine and they were quite sharp.

[Jeff]

An H3D II 39 at 64 second is noiseless for all practical purposes. I don't know about the 31 but expect that it would be the same. An H4D 40 is also noiseless at 256 seconds. This is premised on the use of Phocus. I have no idea how LR or ACR would go.

[jonathan.lipkin]

Jeff - how did you get your camera to make long exposures? I didn't see anything in the manual about it, and couldn't find a bulb or long exposure setting. Are you controlling the camera through Phocus.

And Phocus is  a much better choice for _any_ conversion from raw using the Hasselblad, no matter what the situation.

[Jeff]

Jonathan, there is a Custom Option that hides B and T mode. It pops up between 1 and 1.4 seconds for some reason. I always use Aperture Priority so the camera sorts it out for me. The light meter is pretty flakey once you start using multiple second exposures. Actually my old PME45 did a better job. It can be a few stops out so you will need to experiment a bit to get it right.