HASSELBLAD HC 120mm Macro II and LEICA S DSLR

A review and sample photos of the AF macro lens HASSELBLAD HC 120mm II used with a Leica S typ007 digital SLR camera.

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Gallery
Review
Specification and more
Reference links

Gallery

Review

For more details on the HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II, please see the link.

The link above is a review using the HASSELBLAD X2D-100C camera body, but this review will focus on its use with the LEICA S Typ007.

When using the HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II with the LEICA S Typ007, the 35mm equivalent focal length is 96mm.

The combined weight of the lens, camera, and mount adapter is just under 3kg, but the lens alone weighs approximately 1.5kg, making the lens itself heavier and creating a sense of poor balance when shooting.

The 120mm equivalent focal length is an easy-to-handle mid-telephoto lens, and it provides the compression effect of a 150mm actual focal length, making it ideal for portraits and other situations where the subject is centered. The lens also produces beautiful, smooth bokeh in the foreground and background, making it effective at highlighting the subject.

My HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II lens is the latest version of the orange dot, but the HASSELBLAD X2D-100C from the HASSELBLAD X series cannot be used with autofocus. This is a limitation of the camera. However, autofocus can be used with the LEICA S series lens by using the LEICA S-Adapter H.

When using autofocus with the HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II and the LEICA S typ007, the focusing speed is slow, but the LEICA S has a clean, single focus point in the center, and focusing accuracy is satisfactory up to a distance of about 1m when focusing at the center. This is difficult in scenes with little difference in subject contrast, but this is unavoidable, as this is a challenge for any autofocus camera.

Also, autofocus accuracy is more uncertain at macro distances of less than 1m. Furthermore, when moving the lens to change the focus position from the in-focus position to change the composition, the focus position changes sensitively at close distances, requiring the photographer to look through the viewfinder to make corrections. Unlike the latest multi-point focus points, you can’t expect the camera to automatically focus wherever you want. As such, you’ll mostly be using manual focus in the macro range. At full aperture of F4, the focusing plane is very thin, so it takes some practice to get it exactly where you want it.

Specifications, considerations, etc.

Here I will briefly consider three relatively new medium format macro lenses.

Carl Zeiss’ APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4 is small and light among macro lenses for medium-format cameras, due to its manual focus only design and lack of a shutter mechanism.

The APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4 uses the classic planar format with two additional lens elements to expand the focusing distance range. The lens movement to determine the focus position involves moving both the front and rear groups, and the lens extends as the focusing distance decreases from infinity. Using an AMP lens, you can see for yourself how difficult it would be to drive AF with this lens as is.

The HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II uses the front lens group to determine the focus position, and this lens moves back and forth using a motor during AF operation. This allows for a reduced number of lens elements, reducing the weight of the moving parts.

Thus, with 2020s technology, ignoring the cost, it may be possible to achieve AF on the APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4 by using engineering plastic for the lens barrel to make it lighter, using thin lenses, and driving them with an ultrasonic motor. I would love for Carl Zeiss to try making the APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4 autofocusable.

Leica’s APO MACRO SUMMARIT S 120mm has a bright maximum aperture of F2.5 and is equipped with an autofocus mechanism, yet is smaller and lighter than the APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4. This is because the lens is known as a “half macro lens,” with a maximum magnification of 0.5x (1:2), making its close-up shooting performance inferior to the APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4 and the HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II.

The APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4 and HASSELBLAD HC120mm Macro II are known as life-size macro lenses with a maximum magnification of 1.0x.

There’s a lot of information online about the difference between 1:1 macro and half macro. To summarize, when you photograph a subject and the image on the film or sensor appears the same size as the actual object, it’s called 1:1, while when it appears half the size, it’s called half 1:2.
With digital cameras, you view the image on the sensor on a monitor, so it’s difficult to compare the actual size of the subject when photographed, and so the terms 1:1 and half are difficult to understand with digital cameras.

Lens name	Carl Zeiss APO Makro Planar 120mm f/4	Hasselblad HC 120mm Macro II	Leica APO Macro Summarit S 120mm F2.5
Focal length(mm)	120	120	120
Max aperture	4	4	2.5
Min aperture	32	45	22
Lens Construction	8 elements in 5 groups	9 elements in 9 groups	9 elements in 7 groups
Min distance(m)	0.3	0.39	0.57
Lens length(mm) Mount frange to lens top	104	166	128
Max diameter(mm)	86	96	91
Filter Size(mm)	72	67	72
Weight(g)	796	1410	1135 1205(With lens shutter)
Release date	1999	–

Affiliate link

Please see the disclaimer regarding advertising here.
Italicized links in the text are advertisement links that take you to other sites.

Hasselblad HC 120mm Macro II・Ads by ebay
Carl Zeiss APO Makro Planar 120mm f/4・Ads by ebay
Leica APO Macro Summarit S 120mm F2.5・Ads by ebay

Reference links

HASSELBLAD HC MACRO 120mm official web site
CARL ZEISS APO MAKRO PLANAR 120mm F4・Official CARL ZEISS PDF
LEICA APO MACRO SUMMARIT 120mm F2.5 ・Leica official page

Update history

2025.8.12
2024.9.13
2023.06.27:First draft