Hasselblad / Zeiss Planar FE 110mm f/2

Wide open at f/2 this lens puts a thin slice in focus and throws everything behind it well out. On a 6x6 negative f/2 behaves like an absurdly shallow aperture, somewhere around an f/1.2 on full-frame in terms of depth, and the falloff into the background is smooth and gradual rather than abrupt. That look is the whole reason the 110 exists. People buy it for the way a sharp face sits in front of a backdrop that has dissolved to nothing, and almost nobody else in the Hasselblad V system can do it.

It is a Zeiss Planar, a double-Gauss-derived design (7 elements in 5 groups), and it shows the usual Planar virtues. Color is neutral and slightly cool, contrast is firm without going harsh, and the rendering is clean rather than vintage-glowy. Wide open there is a hint of softness and some field curvature at the edges, which on a square frame mostly hides in the corners you crop away anyway. Stop down to f/4 and it sharpens up evenly across the field. The bokeh stays round and quiet, with no busy outlining and no swirl.

The FE designation matters. These are the electronic-aperture lenses built for the 200-series bodies (the 202FA, 203FE, 205FCC), so unlike most Hasselblad glass there is no leaf shutter inside. The body's focal-plane shutter does the work, which is exactly why Zeiss could open the design up to f/2. The trade is that you lose the all-speed flash sync the leaf-shutter C and CF lenses give you. And because F and FE lenses carry no leaf shutter, they cannot be used on the leaf-shutter 500-series bodies in normal operation at all, only as a bulb-mode improvisation. Pair the 110 with a focal-plane-shutter 200- or 2000-series body and check that before you spend the money.

Portrait shooters and studio people are the core users, along with anyone shooting fashion or editorial on 120 who wants medium-format tonality with subject isolation. It rivals the 150mm f/4 Sonnar in the lineup, which is the traditional Hasselblad portrait length, but the 150 cannot touch the 110's speed or its background separation. The honest weakness is the price and scarcity. FE glass was always rarer than the CF line, the 110 commands a premium on the used market, and you are locked into the 200-series bodies to use it properly. That narrows the buyer pool and keeps values high.

One metering note. At f/2 in dim available light this lens does its best work, so meter at the open aperture and shoot from that reading. With the Bay 70 (B70) filter mount you can fit ND or a grad for outdoor work, using B70 filters or an adapter, and let Zone Light Meter fold the filter factor into the exposure rather than guessing. The focus throw is long and the plane is unforgiving wide open, so settle the meter before you commit a frame.