[Reinier]

Nice!

 

Some predicted the demise of medium and large format about 10-15 years ago, but it is good to see these people were wrong.

 

 

Kind regards,


Reinier

[Rover]

Another thought has crossed my mind (yeah, well...) On Photorumors, Hasselblad has won the "worst camera of the year" honor (?) two years in a row - you all must know why. Now, they have the chance to redeem themselves in a practical way, and get the distinction of the "best camera".

[Brightcolours]

What is all best about it then, to be voted best camera?

[Rover]

I think it is in itself a groundbreaking unit, similar to the first Sony A7/A7R. I mean, what were the other new cameras introduced in 2016: Canon 1D X II, Nikon D5? They're awesome - and yes, if I had the money and the itch to buy, I would've bought the 1D X II not the Hasselblad, because I'm a Canon shooter through and through - but they're just incremental upgrades to what was already out there. The X1D, on the other side, creates and defines a new category. If there's going to be more of the MF mirrorless cameras, they'll be judged against this Hasselblad.

That, and it looks like a very sleek, enjoyable tool per se.

[Brightcolours]

And how is the Hasselblad not an incremental "upgrade" to for instance the Pentax 50mp MF with the same sensor? Only the size is smaller.. And the lens line up is smaller, and crazy expensive. Hmm... Not seeing why it is an attractive camera, especially.

[Guest]

Des the pentax have the same sensor ? Anyways the lenses have leaf shutters and the +/- of leaf shutters. Can't really comment on the optics. An otius lens is pretty pricey. Are these lenses as good - probably not but if they are near the quality point of the old mamiya 7ii lenses then they are pretty nice (though about 2x what they should cost). The problem with judging price is the system is new and volume will be limited. In addition we don't know anything about the quality point of either the lens or camera.

 

 

And how is the Hasselblad not an incremental "upgrade" to for instance the Pentax 50mp MF with the same sensor? Only the size is smaller.. And the lens line up is smaller, and crazy expensive. Hmm... Not seeing why it is an attractive camera, especially.

[Rover]

And how is the Hasselblad not an incremental "upgrade" to for instance the Pentax 50mp MF with the same sensor? Only the size is smaller.. And the lens line up is smaller, and crazy expensive. Hmm... Not seeing why it is an attractive camera, especially.

Sorry, I don't see your point. Your comparison to the Pentax is similar to saying the Sony A7R is just an incremental upgrade to a Nikon D800. Now I don't have a horse in this race - never bought into the DMF, never will - but even from the visual standpoint the Hasselblad is remarkable (and I'm not going to reiterate the points I made before - if they're highly subjective, so be it). If I had been choosing a camera based on its look and feel ONLY, I would've chosen the X1D over Sony A7R II and certainly over the awful Leica SL.

[obican]

Would I use it and love it if someone gave me one for free? Absolutely! 

 

Would it be the camera I'd dream about? Absolutely not!

 

Medium format made a lot of sense in the past. Practically almost every film stock was essentially the same, so a larger film area would give you a lot of benefits, like going from a Nikon D7000 to a D800. And you could design a camera to use a larger are of the film stock since the films were not manufacturer specific. That's how we ended up with magnificent cameras such as XPan, various 6x6 beauties and fixed lens 6x9 Fuji rangefinders aka Texas Leicas.

 

Still, apart from some extreme examples, you did not gain any shallower DOF just by making the film area larger. the 80/2.8 lens on my 500C/M is equivalent to a square crop from a 35/1.2 lens on a 35mm film/sensor. That's not an everyday lens for sure but hey, it exists. It's not like you bought into medium format and instantly you had 50/0.7 DOF. What you gained was that you could enlarge more, grain size was smaller when enlarged to same size (but also lenses were slower too so you took a step back there), lens tolerances and aberrations were less important since a larger format compensated for most of them.

 

On digital, it's a bit different though. We no longer cut our sensors from the same silicon wafer (Except when we do) so we can have the same resolution on a cell phone, m4/3, aps-c and FF sensors. So going medium format does not give you extra resolution automatically, as it did in film.

 

Of course putting more pixels on a smaller format decreases the light gathering ability too. But if you actually want to build a good system around it, you can have faster lenses. Have a look at Fuji X system. They do have the APS-C sensor but almost all of their lenses are at least 1 stop faster than equivalent (price and size) FF lenses, thus compensating for the 1-stop ISO performance loss commonly associated with the APS-C sensors (compared to FF). Almost all FF lenses are at least 1-stop, most of the time even more faster than these new Hasselblad X1D lenses. So you actually gain nothing there.

 

Color depth? Dynamic range? Yep, there are probably some gains there but I'd like to compare them to existing batch of (already very good) FF and APS-C sensors. I won't be surprised if the differences are less than significant. Reduced diffraction effects are another strong point of larger sensors but for the same DOF, you have to stop the aperture down even more so you'll end up with diffraction anyway.

 

So, do I care about having a larger sensor on digital? Not really!

 

So, why do I like this camera? Because it has a leaf shutter!

 

Then why don't we put those leaf shuttered lenses and put them on FF and APS-C cameras? I have no idea!

 

I'd rather have Fuji develop a batch of leaf shuttered lenses for the existing X System (Like the Leica S System). Sell them at a price premium (Like the Leica S System) to people who want them. Keep the focal plane shutter too for other lenses and faster shutter speeds (Like the Leica S System). That'd be what I really dream about. 

 

Oh, also put a square sensor in it. I'm too lazy to rotate the camera.

[JJ_SO]

First: Fuji will come up with a new MF between now and photokina. ^_^

 

Second: Leaf shuttered lenses for X-Trans? Nothing else?  To read again "if someone would gave me one for free, I'd use it"? Probably use it... because the people using cameras given for free very often continue to complain and it would be "too big, too heavy, too expensive" or whatever.

 

I agree with the square sensor, that'd be cool. B)

[obican]

Yeah, everyone has been saying Fuji will come up with a MF solution. We'll see. Again, I'm not that much interested in digital MF because it does not provide a significant advantage over digital FF, even without factoring in the price difference.

 

Also, yeah, I'd gladly use the X1D as there seems nothing wrong with it. If you gave me a Canon or Nikon DSLR for free, I'd sell it instantly for the reasons you already provided .