Hasselblad / Zeiss Sonnar C 150mm f/4

If you have seen a square portrait shot on a Hasselblad and the face just sits there, round and solid against a soft background, there is a good chance it was this lens. The 150mm Sonnar was the V system's portrait length, and it held that job across the whole chrome-and-black C era, then carried on for decades more in CF and CFi forms. On 6x6 a 150mm gives you the working distance and the perspective that suit faces, close enough to fill the frame without the flattening you get from a much longer lens. Think of it as the medium-format answer to the 85 or 90 you would reach for on 35mm.

The Sonnar design is why it draws the way it does. Wide open at f/4 the center is sharp with moderate contrast, and the field falls off gently into the corners. Out-of-focus areas stay calm rather than busy, and skin and hair separate from the background without a hard edge. That transition is the whole reason people buy this lens; few of them are chasing edge-to-edge resolution. Stop down to f/5.6 or f/8 and the frame tightens up evenly. Coating matters here: early chrome C lenses were single-coated, and Zeiss T* multicoating arrived on the later C lenses in the mid-1970s before continuing into the CF and CFi. The single-coated copies still hold flare well in normal light, but a strong source just outside the frame will lift the shadows, so a hood is not optional.

Every C lens carries a Synchro-Compur leaf shutter built into the barrel, and that is what set the V system apart for studio and wedding work. The shutter syncs flash at every speed up to its 1/500 maximum, which gives you a wide range of shutter speeds to balance ambient against strobe. You can drag a bright sky down with fill flash at 1/500 in a way a focal-plane camera cannot touch. Meter the ambient first, then set your strobe against it; Zone Light Meter handles that ambient read cleanly. The tradeoff is the same 1/500 ceiling. In bright sun with fast film you will be at f/16 or f/22 to stay there.

The honest weakness is speed. f/4 is not fast, and at 150mm on a focusing screen the finder is dim, which makes critical focus harder in low light than it should be. The later CF and CFi 150mm f/4 versions kept the same aperture but added T* coating from the start and improved the ergonomics and shutter cocking, so the early single-coated C trails them on handling. If you genuinely want a faster portrait lens, that is a different lens entirely, the 110mm f/2 Planar in the F and FE series, not anything in the 150 line.

Today the chrome C is the cheapest way into Hasselblad portrait glass. People cross-shop it against the CF version, which costs more for the T* coating and the smoother shutter, and against the 180mm CF for a touch more reach. Buy the C if you want the Sonnar look without paying CF money and you are willing to check the shutter, since the old Synchro-Compur units can get sticky at slow speeds after sixty years. A serviced copy stays reliable for a long time.