For hobbyist photographers like myself, Hasselblad has all the time been the untouchable luxurious model reserved for high-end professionals.
To fill the hole between informal and supposed images, they launched the X1D — a compact, mirrorless medium format. Final summer time when Stefan Etienne reviewed the newly launched digicam, I requested to take an image.
After importing the uncooked file into Lightroom and flipping by a dozen presets, I joked that I might eat Ramen packets for the subsequent yr so I may purchase this digicam. It was that spectacular.
XCD Three.5/30mm lens
Final month Hasselblad despatched us the XCD four/21mm (their newest extremely wide-angle lens) for a two-week overview, together with the X1D physique and XCD Three,2/90mm portrait lens for comparability. I wished to see what I may do with the package and had deliberate the next:
- Swipe proper on everybody with an unflattering Tinder profile image and supply to retake it for them
- Journey someplace with spectacular landscapes
My schedule didn’t supply a lot time for both, so a weekend journey to the cabin must suffice.
As an on a regular basis digicam
The weekend upstate was fairly quiet and uneventful, but it surely served to be the right setting to check out the digicam package as a result of the X1D is sluggish A. F.
It takes roughly eight seconds to activate, with an extra 2-Three seconds of processing time after every shutter click on — prime that off with a sluggish autofocus, sluggish shutter launch and quick battery life (I went by a battery inside a day, roughly 90 pictures fired). Somewhat than reiterating Stefan’s overview, I might advocate studying it here for full specs.
Coming from a Canon 5D Mark IV, I’m used to immediacy and an honest hit price. The primary day with the Hasselblad was crammed with fixed frustration from missed moments, missed alternatives. It felt impractical as an on a regular basis digicam till I shifted towards a extra deliberate method — reverting again to highschool SLR days when a roll of movie held a restricted 24 exposures.
After I took pause, I started to understand the digicam’s particulars: a quiet shutter, a compact however sturdy physique and an intuitive interface, together with a touchscreen LCD show/viewfinder.
Nothing appears to be like or feels low cost in regards to the Swiss-designed, aluminum building of each the physique and lenses. It’s heavy for a mirrorless digicam, but it surely feels rattling good to carry.
XCD four/21mm lens
Dramatic landscapes and cityscapes with out a very exaggerated perspective — that is the place the XCD four/21mm outperforms different tremendous wide-angle lenses.
With a 105° angle of view and 17mm area of view equal on a full-framed DSLR, I used to be anticipating much more distortion and vignetting, however the picture routinely corrected itself and flattened out when imported into Lightroom. The newest deployment of Inventive Cloud has the Hasselblad (digicam and lens) profile built-in into Lightroom, so there’s no want for downloading and importing profiles.
Oily NYC actual property brokers ought to actually think about using this lens to shoot their dinky 250 sq. ft. studio residences to really feel grand with out trying comically fish-eyed.
XCD Three,2/90mm lens
The gallery under was shot utilizing solely the mirror’s vainness lights as practicals. It was additionally shot underexposed to see how a lot element I may pull in submit. Here are the downsized, unedited versions, so that you don’t have to attend for every 110mb file to load.
I’d wish to assume that if I had time and was feeling philanthropic, I may repair lots of love lives on Tinder with this lens.
The place it shines
Usually, photos posted in opinions are unedited, however I imagine the true check of uncooked photos lies in post-production. That is the place the X1D’s sluggish processing time and fast battery drainage pays off. With the digicam’s big 50 MP 44 x 33mm CMOS sensor, every uncooked file was roughly 110mb (in comparison with my Mark IV’s 20-30mb) — that’s a considerable quantity of data packed into 8272 x 6200 pixels.
Resized to 2000 x 1500 pixels and cropped to 2000 x 1500 pixels:
Whereas different digicam producers are inclined to favor sure colours and pores and skin tones, Dan Wang, a Hasselblad rep, informed me, “We imagine in seeing a really pure and even palette with little or no affect. We’re not right here to gatekeep what coloration must be. We’re right here to present you as a lot knowledge as doable, offering as a lot uncooked element, uncooked coloration data that lets you interpret it to your extent.”
As somebody who enjoys numerous hours tweaking colours, shifting pixels and making issues fairly, I’m appreciative of this. It permits for much less fixing, extra inventive freedom.
Who is that this digicam for?
My good friend Peter, a vogue photographer (he’s executed editorial options for Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan and the likes), is the one individual I do know who shoots on Hasselblad, so it felt applicable to ask his opinion. “It’s for pretentious wealthy assholes with cash to burn,” he snarked. I disagree. The X1D is a stable step for Hasselblad to get off heavy-duty tripods and out of the studio.
At this value level although, one would possibly anticipate the digicam to do all the pieces, but it surely’s geared toward a slim demographic: a photographer who’s prepared to miss speediness for high quality and compactibility.
With smartphone firms like Apple and Samsung stepping up their digicam sport over the previous few years, the images world feels inundated with inconsequential, throw-away photos (self-indulgent selfies, “look what I had for lunch,” OOTD…).
My two weeks with the Hasselblad was a sort reminder of images as a methodical artwork kind, fairly than a twig and pray passion.
Reviewed package runs $15,940, pre-taxed: