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Hasselblad

A big dumb button

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My wife Sara and I used to have this running joke leading up to her birthday each year.  Each year I’d say “Honey!  What would you like for your birthday?”

and she would reply “I’d like a Hasselblad”.  Usually with a big smile on her face, in a wink-wink-nudge-nudge kind of way.

Then I’d say “Ha ha, no, seriously, what would you like?” and we’d both laugh and move on to more serious things.

Hasselblad.  The 500c/m.  Man.  That camera.  It’s like the Rolls Royce of cameras.  It would send shivers down our spines and we’d get all giggly any time we’d talk about it.

Hasselblad.  We both wanted one.  For me, the Hasselblad 500c/m is the perfect camera.  It’s this beautiful, perfect melding of function and art mixed together.  It really is a work of art; this little square box and can come all apart and attach to other things to make other types of cameras.  If he was a Transformer he’d be the classiest one.  He’d probably have a swirly moustache and wear a top hat and speak in an elegant accent.

Adventures in Scotland with a Hasselblad XPan and Kodak Portra

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There’s something very special about Scotland’s wilderness. It has a landscape like few other places in the world. Dutch photographer Tom Kluyver decided to visit Scotland for himself recently, along with his friend designer, Matthijs van Leeuwen. The pair spent a week exploring some of what Scotland has to offer, and decided to document the trip with film.

Specifically, Tom chose a Hasselblad XPan 35mm panoramic camera loaded with Kodak Portra film. Tom admits they weren’t fully prepared for what lay ahead of them, but that’s what makes trips like these so great. You never really know where you’re going to end up, or what you’re going to see.

Calibrating your Epson v700 workflow with a $16,000 Hasselblad Flextight

I recently had a few prints made from some medium format negatives. The prints are for a specific purpose so I wanted them to be of the highest quality possible, this meant taking them to a local specialist where the film was scanned with a Hasselblad Flextight X1. The Flextight is about the best quality scan you can get, before moving up to dedicated drum scans that can be messy, time consuming, and expensive.

I realised I could use this as an opportunity to compare how good my Epson v700 scanner is to the Flextight scans, and also to try to improve the scans from my v700 by calibrating the workflow. You could also apply this to the v800 models of this scanner as they are effectively the same. Note that I’m not considering wet scanning, as I’m dealing with medium format film.

DJI and Hasselblad’s “new” aerial photography platform is a flying 100MP medium format camera

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DJI have just announced the “World’s First 100-Megapixel Integrated Aerial Photography Platform”. And it’s a beast of a rig. Made with a DJI Matrice 600 with Ronin-MX gimbal and Hasselblad H6D-100c, it’s definitely a force to be reckoned with. But it’s not really a “World’s First” anything, or even all that new. It uses a drone that you can already buy, a gimbal you can already buy, and a camera you can already buy.

It’s essentially a 100MP upgrade to their previous medium format drone which houses the Hasselblad A5D. I am a little surprised it’s using the same Ronin-MX as the previous drone, given the recent Ronin 2 announcement. Although the Ronin-MX is no slouch, either.

The next mirrorless medium format cameras may have 100MP sensors and great low light performance

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Recently, Charbax at ArmDevices visited the Sony stand at CeBIT when he noticed a couple of large sensors on display. Also on the wall behind them he spotted Sony’s medium format sensor roadmap. This roadmap shows two very promising sensors on the way for 2018.

The first is the IMX461, a 100MP upgrade to the current 50MP IMX161 sensor which resides inside the Hasselblad X1D-50c and Fuji GFX 50S cameras. It would have the same physical size with double the resolution. This could hint at a pretty substantial upgrade in the next X1D and GFX models from Hasselblad and Fuji, respectively. The second is a new 150MP sensor to replace the IMX 211, as used inside the Phase One XF 100MP.

10 Things I’ve Learned from 10 Years Shooting with a Hasselblad

This year marks the point at which I have been using Hasselblad cameras for over a decade. My first was a 201F in 2007, before moving to a 203FE in 2011 and adding a 202FA in 2015. They’re the classic 6×6 V series models, although have some additions on the more familiar 500 series that I will get into later. Over the years I’ve put several hundred rolls of film through the various cameras, not a great deal but enough to appreciate the idiosyncrasies inherent in shooting with medium format.

Hasselblad are introducing four new XCD lenses for the X1D medium format mirrorless camera

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Hasselblad’s X1D camera was announced last year with much fanfare. The world’s first mirrorless medium format camera. It’s been out for a little while now, and seem to have received nothing but praise. Now, Hasselblad are introducing four new lenses to the XCD lineup designed specifically for the X1D system.

The first new lens is the Hasselblad XCD 120mm f/3.5 Macro. This expands the X1D lens lineup which currently includes the XCD 30mm f/3.5, 45mm f/3.5 and 90mm f/3.2 lenses. The XCD 120mm f/3.5 is slated for release in June. Like the other XCD lenses, the XCD 120mm features an integral shutter offering full flash sync up to 1/2000th of a second.

Fujifilm announce new X-T20 and X100F bodies and a $6,499 price tag on the medium format GFX

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Fujifilm have today announced two new X-Series cameras, the X100F and X-T20, along with a new XF 50mm f/2 R WR lens. The X100F represents the fourth generation in the X100 series and comes with the 24.3MP sensor found in the higher end X-Pro2 and X-T2 cameras. The X-T20 also comes with the 24.3MP sensor and shoots 4K video. The X100, however, is limited to only 1080p.

Fuji have also given up the price for their new medium format GFX camera. At $6,499 for the body alone, it’s certainly not a cheap camera. Compared to its nearest neighbour, though, the Hasselblad X1D, there’s a rather substantial difference. On paper, there’s very little difference between the two, although there are a couple of big ones for some potential buyers.

DJI acquires Hasselblad, report says

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Hasselblad owners, are you ready to own a Chinese camera? If this report from Luminous Landscape is correct, you already are. and no this is not April’s fools.

According to Luminous Landscape DJI has increased their shares part in Swedish camera maker Hasselblad and are now the majority share holders. This practically makes them the owners of the company.

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