For hobbyist photographers like myself, Hasselblad has always been the untouchable luxury brand reserved for high-end professionals.
To fill the gap between casual and intended photography, they released the X1D — a compact, mirrorless medium format. Last summer when Stefan Etienne reviewed[1] the newly released camera, I asked to take a picture.
After importing the raw file into Lightroom and flipping through a dozen presets, I joked that I would eat Ramen packets for the next year so I could buy this camera. It was that impressive.
XCD 3.5/30mm lens
Last month Hasselblad sent us the XCD 4/21mm (their latest ultra wide-angle lens) for a two-week review, along with the X1D body and XCD 3,2/90mm portrait lens for comparison. I wanted to see what I could do with the kit and had planned the following:
- Swipe right on everyone with an unflattering Tinder profile picture and offer to retake it for them
- Travel somewhere with spectacular landscapes
My schedule didn’t offer much time for either, so a weekend trip to the cabin would have to suffice.
[gallery type="slideshow" link="none" columns="1" size="full" ids="1722181,1722182,1722183,1722184,1722185,1722186,1722187,1722188,1722201"]As an everyday camera
The weekend upstate was rather quiet and uneventful, but it served to be the perfect setting to test out the camera kit because the X1D is slow A. F.
It takes approximately 8 seconds to turn on, with an additional 2-3 seconds of processing time after each shutter click — top that off with a slow autofocus, slow shutter release and short battery life (I went through a battery within a day, approximately 90 shots fired). Rather than reiterating Stefan’s review, I would recommend reading it here[2] for full specifications.
Coming from a Canon 5D...