p.35 #1 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
philber wrote:
Congratulations, Steve! And I hope you didn't take my "guinea pig" comment in bad part. Only well after after I'd posted did I realised it could also be read that way, which wasn't intended.
Someone has to do it.. It's just the reality of low volume products.
I've been doing it with Leica for the last 5 years. I'm just not willing to do it with Hassy because I cannot convince myself the two lenses being released will be sufficient for my needs.
Steve, if everything works out alright and you stick with your decision then I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the system!
p.35 #2 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Steve Spencer wrote:
Well I put in a preorder today. I don't know if I will get in the first batch, but I figure I might as well get in line. So, this time I will be a guinea pig.
Hi Steve,
Congratulations on putting in your pre-order. I look forward to your assessment of the new camera and lenses and seeing images taken with the new camera and lenses. That is a substantial investment all at once. At this point I do not anticipate going with the new Hasselblad, but look to going a different way.
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p.35 #3 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
GMPhotography wrote:
Awesome Steve, looking forward to you getting it. I want it , I did the math and it's not great but I maybe able to do it in in October or something. I just need to decide if it's exactly what I want to do as I finally have a perfect Sony kit with all my glass being fantastic copies of each one. That in itself is not a easy task, I'll go through my dealer if I do so I won't have to pre-order from the standard shops
Hi Guy,
I imagine you will find a way to do it--you seem to be able to get the gear you want. A Sony/Hassy dual system would probably leave you without any holes. I imagine you will appreciate getting back to medium format. When I get It I will definitely share what I learn and I may even try to test the camera out with Jordan (who seemed a sceptic in comments earlier in the thread) and publish our results on his site (I haven't talked to him about that yet). I think testing the system out with someone who got it and is excited about it and a sceptic may prove for a more balanced assessment. I hope I get it in time and can provide some useful feedback for your decision.
Jul 02, 2016 at 08:11 AM
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p.35 #4 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
flash wrote:
I'm just a little bit jealous, Steve. If I didn't have the Pentax I might have as well. Who wants a wager Fred and Guy aren't close to pushing the button as well?
I'll be looking forward to your thoughts when you get yours.
Gordon
Hi Gordon,
I will certainly share whatever I learn. Given that you have the Pentax you already have the sensor and have been producing wonderful results. When it is time to upgrade that camera, you will have lots of time to evaluate the Hassy. If it pans out, then that may be the time to switch. I actually envy your position of being able to wait and not gamble. I had to roll the dice. In my situation, it just didn't make sense to go with the Pentax when the allure of the smaller Hassy was out there.
p.35 #5 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
I think you certainly made the better move going Hassy over Pentax. Not that the Pentax is bad it's not but its outdated already and it's not the smallest unit in place now. But I don't want to get into all that, I know I would get the Hassy over Pentax in a NY second if it presented itself to me.
Jul 02, 2016 at 08:22 AM
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p.35 #6 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
freaklikeme wrote:
I'm excited for you, Steve. I hope you do get in the first batch. The faster you get it, the faster some us get to live vicariously through you.
And if my long-ago experience in retail means anything, there's pre-order day, and then there's the day you let people know about the impending arrival of stock, which could also be called pre-order cancellation day. So you may well end up in the first batch.
Thanks, freaklike me. I have learned a lot from you over the years and hopefully I can pay back a bit this time. I hope you are right about getting the camera sooner rather than later, but I can wait. I will still have my Sony A7rII system.
Jul 02, 2016 at 08:23 AM
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p.35 #7 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
philber wrote:
Congratulations, Steve! And I hope you didn't take my "guinea pig" comment in bad part. Only well after after I'd posted did I realised it could also be read that way, which wasn't intended.
Hi Phillipe,
I never thought for a second that there was any ill intentions in your comment. You are one of the most consistently positive, polite, and just plain nice people on this forum. You have also made many wonderful contributions by testing out new gear early in the process, and the I love the Dear Susan site that you and Pascal have put together. It will be interesting to me to see how the Hassy with the three new lenses (the 30 f/3.5 that is supposed to be out at Photokina, the 45 f/3.5 and the 90 f/3.2) will do as a travel kit. It will be totally manageable in terms of size and will give you a 3 lens kit with the FF 35mm equivalent of a 24/35/75 trio of lenses. Not a bad set up. My guess is that I may find it a bit limiting and will tend to travel with a Sony A7rII kit, but we will see. The Hassy will be interesting in some areas I never would have guessed a MF camera could be.
Jul 02, 2016 at 08:33 AM
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p.35 #8 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
adamdewilde wrote:
Someone has to do it.. It's just the reality of low volume products.
I've been doing it with Leica for the last 5 years. I'm just not willing to do it with Hassy because I cannot convince myself the two lenses being released will be sufficient for my needs.
Steve, if everything works out alright and you stick with your decision then I look forward to hearing your thoughts on the system!
You have been doing it and your reports and thoughts are much appreciated. Your reports on the Leica S and SL were quite helpful to me as I made my decision. In reading what you wrote I realized that MF could have some advantages that I want and that although the Leica SL is a compelling product it might not add that much or at least not as much of what I wanted. Thanks for your assessment. I will do my best to pay back when I get the camera. By the way there should be three lenses soon. A 30 f/3.5 in addition to the 45 and 90.
I would think the 45 and 90 would satisfy your desire for a 35 and 75 in FF 35mm, but perhaps they are too slow for your needs. I also think some of the other HC Hassy lenses will fill in the lineup well.
Jul 02, 2016 at 09:32 AM
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p.35 #9 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
naturephoto1 wrote:
Hi Steve,
Congratulations on putting in your pre-order. I look forward to your assessment of the new camera and lenses and seeing images taken with the new camera and lenses. That is a substantial investment all at once. At this point I do not anticipate going with the new Hasselblad, but look to going a different way.
Rich
Hi Rich,
Yes it is a very substantial investment, but I have gotten nothing for 2 years and have been saving for a potential switch, and then I got basically a signing bonus for my new job and together I was able to do it. I feel quite fortunate to be able to. And although it is a lot of money, it isn't more than a typical sports and wildlife kit for Canon and Nikon, or a Leica M (or SL) kit.
I hope I like it, but I will have some Leica R lenses and a couple of M's that will be important for my Sony a7r II kit and those together with the Loxia lenses will be a very nice kit. So, I am doubly lucky. Thank you too for the testing you have done. It has helped my decision a lot too,
p.35 #10 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Actually, Steve, I went out today with Otus 28, Otus 55 and FE 85 GM. After using the 28, which is a bear of a lens, for quite a while, I switched to the 85, which felt so light and easy, and focused itself too. So the attraction of a relatively light kit with AF is not lost on me. My questions are not over the kit, even though it remains to be seen if Hassy can get everything right in time. Rather, it is with the company. But if the likes of you switch from Leica SLs to Hasselblad, things should be fine, at least for a couple of years. So, enjoy!
Jul 02, 2016 at 05:49 PM
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p.35 #11 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
philber wrote:
Actually, Steve, I went out today with Otus 28, Otus 55 and FE 85 GM. After using the 28, which is a bear of a lens, for quite a while, I switched to the 85, which felt so light and easy, and focused itself too. So the attraction of a relatively light kit with AF is not lost on me. My questions are not over the kit, even though it remains to be seen if Hassy can get everything right in time. Rather, it is with the company. But if the likes of you switch from Leica SLs to Hasselblad, things should be fine, at least for a couple of years. So, enjoy!...Show more →
Hi Phillipe,
I do plan to travel to Paris sometime this year and when I do I will bring along the X1D. Perhaps we can meet up and you can check it out for yourself. That Otus 28, Otus 55, GM 85 kit ought to be pretty awesome. I will look forward to your reports on the Otus 28. That is one of the lenses I had to forgo to get the Hassy. I might still have regrets if that looks really good. I think these are all good choices, however, so the trick is matching the gear to the way you shoot. I hope I have done that and you have too.
p.35 #12 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
GMPhotography wrote:
I think you certainly made the better move going Hassy over Pentax. Not that the Pentax is bad it's not but its outdated already and it's not the smallest unit in place now. But I don't want to get into all that, I know I would get the Hassy over Pentax in a NY second if it presented itself to me.
The body may be outdated and big but the sensor isn't. Still the same as in the Hasselblad. Curious to see if the Hasselblad " treats" this sensor as well as Pentax does.
Anyway it looks like a lovely camera, no doubt about it.
p.35 #13 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Steve Spencer wrote:
I might still have regrets if that looks really good.
So what you're saying is, you didn't see Phil Holland's thread on it. You need it. I cannot imagine these new X1D lenses are in the same stratosphere.
Jul 03, 2016 at 10:02 PM
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p.35 #14 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Lee Saxon wrote:
So what you're saying is, you didn't see Phil Holland's thread on it. You need it. I cannot imagine these new X1D lenses are in the same stratosphere.
Yes, I did see that thread and Phil had some gorgeous shots. And yes, although the XCD lenses look great for landscape use, that wide they have nowhere near the shallow depth of field of the Otus which opens up a lot of possibilities. So, yes that is giving up something quite significant. I do have a Zeiss C/Y 35 f/1.4, which is a more manageable size and has a very pleasant rendering, but it isn't really in the league of the Otus either. Oh well, I can't get everything and so there has to be trade offs. I don't need the smallest kit possible, but I did have worries that the Otus 28 was too big to be manageable so I don't mind letting that go for now. But talk to me in a year or two and I might well be pining for it.
p.35 #15 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Steve Spencer wrote:
You have been doing it and your reports and thoughts are much appreciated. Your reports on the Leica S and SL were quite helpful to me as I made my decision. In reading what you wrote I realized that MF could have some advantages that I want and that although the Leica SL is a compelling product it might not add that much or at least not as much of what I wanted. Thanks for your assessment. I will do my best to pay back when I get the camera. By the way there should be three lenses soon. A 30 f/3.5 in addition to the 45 and 90.
I would think the 45 and 90 would satisfy your desire for a 35 and 75 in FF 35mm, but perhaps they are too slow for your needs. I also think some of the other HC Hassy lenses will fill in the lineup well. ...Show more →
Steve, thanks for the kind words. I really wished Leica had released a few primes rather then the zooms. Even though I'm moving away from Leica I brought my SL+Zoom with me to shoot a wedding. Think of it as one last hurrah before selling the SL kit at a loss. Anyway, it made me more certain then ever that I need/want fast glass.
So although you are right that the FLs are PERFECT for my needs. The lenses just aren't fast enough. So there would have to be a significant rendering advantage in order for me to want to buy into the system as it is at launch.
p.35 #16 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Steve Spencer wrote:
...although the XCD lenses look great for landscape use, that wide they have nowhere near the shallow depth of field of the Otus which opens up a lot of possibilities. So, yes that is giving up something quite significant...but I did have worries that the Otus 28 was too big to be manageable...
See, it's more than the large aperture though. If the MTF charts aren't CaNikon-esque "theoretical" ones, the XCD lenses look to have a lot of resolution. But they also seem to have rather high distortion and vignetting, particularly for such small apertures. I'm not sure I agree they look great for landscape. I'm imagining this apparently-upcoming XCD 30 (which will be, what, f/4.8?!) being used more like the Zeiss 28/2 than the Zeiss 28/1.4 (yeah I know it's more like the 25/2 in actual angle of view, but since we're talking 28's...). The size of the 28 Otus is indeed a real concern, though; I think not including a tripod mount was a huge mistake and I'm working on a solution.
Jul 04, 2016 at 09:01 PM
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p.35 #17 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
Lee Saxon wrote:
See, it's more than the large aperture though. If the MTF charts aren't CaNikon-esque "theoretical" ones, the XCD lenses look to have a lot of resolution. But they also seem to have rather high distortion and vignetting, particularly for such small apertures. I'm not sure I agree they look great for landscape. I'm imagining this apparently-upcoming XCD 30 (which will be, what, f/4.8?!) being used more like the Zeiss 28/2 than the Zeiss 28/1.4 (yeah I know it's more like the 25/2 in actual angle of view, but since we're talking 28's...). The size of the 28 Otus is indeed a real concern, though; I think not including a tripod mount was a huge mistake and I'm working on a solution. ...Show more →
Lee I think if you look at the distortion figures again in Ming Thein's blog, you will see the XCD 45 f/3.5 has just over half a percent barrel distortion. That is a tiny amount especially compared to DSLR 35mm lenses. For example, the Zeiss Milvus 35 f/2 (a pretty good landscape lens) has about 2% barrel distortion. Some symmetrical rangefinder lenses have less than half a percent, but for landscape use you really aren't going to see that .6% barrel distortion. Maybe if you examine certain architecture shots very very closely you will see it, but I don't see it as a problem for landscapes. As a comparison the Otus 28 shows 1.25% barrel distortion, so the Hassy lens shows about half what the Otus does.
Similarly the Hassy 90 f/3.2 has just under 1% barrel distortion, but it is not even barrel distortion but rather has close to zero across the frame but pretty quick dive in distortion in the corners. The overall number is not bad at all and you typically wouldn't be able to see it, but the quick dive in the corners you might be able to see. The overall number is better than the Zeiss C/Y 85 f/2.8 which has just over 1% pin cushion distortion (and I prefer barrel to pin cushion), and even the 85 Otus shows about the same distortion (but again pin cushion rather than barrel) as the Hassy 90 f/3.2. Personally I am not that bother by that level of distortion in the corners and I don't think it will be typically be noticeable and if it is noticeable it is easily corrected in post processing and correcting these levels of distortion will have almost no effect on the image quality. Personally, I would leave it uncorrected at these levels in almost all images.
The 30 from a couple of reports looks also to be an f/3.5 lens, so the equivalent of a 24 f/2.8 in FF 35mm equivalence and because the Hassy is mirrorless the lens won't have to get bigger as you go wider. I expect they can keep the f/3.5 aperture and stick to a lens that is about 475g like the 45. One drawback of the design of the Hassy is that with a central shutter and AF motor in every lens really small lenses (anything much smaller than the 45) aren't really going to be possible.
With regard to vignetting, the 45 shows about 2 stops wide open and about 1 stop when the lens is stopped down. The 90 shows about a stop and a quarter or a half wide open and about 3 quarters of a stop when stopped down. I am not bothered by vignetting so I find those levels quite acceptable and would not fix it in almost all of my images, but if one needed to do so with the high dynamic range of this camera fixing that level of vignetting should be trivial in post (after all fixing vignetting is basically bringing up the exposure in the vignetted area to match the curve). It is true that the vignetting on the Hassy lenses doesn't go away as much as one would hope when they are stopped down. In this way they look a bit like rangefinder lenses, but for me these levels won't be a concern, YMMV.
So, yeah I think these lenses will do very well for landscapes, but that is just a preliminary judgement. In particular, we don't know about field curvature yet. Nothing in the MTFs suggest field curvature, but you can't always see it in the MTFs. So everything looks good now (from my perspective, but perhaps not yours), but we won't know for sure until someone gets the camera and the lenses and tries them out. I suppose I might be the first person to do that.
I am glad you are working on a tripod mount for the Otus 28. IMO, both 28 and the 85 could really use a tripod mount. Please keep us informed out what you work out.
p.35 #18 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
adamdewilde wrote:
So although you are right that the FLs are PERFECT for my needs. The lenses just aren't fast enough. So there would have to be a significant rendering advantage in order for me to want to buy into the system as it is at launch.
Looking forward to your findings!!
My thoughts exactly. I now have a f:1.4 trilogy and, while not on a dedicated landscape traipse, shoot mostly f:2.0, with side orders of f:1.4 and f:2.8.
So, in essence, the Hassy kit, if I did buy it, would not replace the Sony/Otus, but complement it.
p.35 #19 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
I don't need the smallest kit possible, but I did have worries that the Otus 28 was too big to be manageable so I don't mind letting that go for now. But talk to me in a year or two and I might well be pining for it.
I was shooting with the Otus 28mm f1.4 on the D810 this weekend and the size and weight is indeed a bit of an issue. The combo weights 2.3 kg and is in fact within 300 gr. of a H6D-100c with the 50mm f3.5 HCII (which is closer to a 32mm in 35mm terms, but still is the closest in the Hassy world I guess).
The results with the Otus are magic though. It makes my excellent Sigma 20mm f1.4 and 35mm f1.4 look... very average.
The combination of aberration free super sharp images and a butter smooth bokeh in a wide focal length is pretty unique.
Focusing it accurately at f1.4 on slightly moving subjects is another challenge with the D810, this would be fine with the a7rII I guess.
Cheers,
Bernard
Jul 05, 2016 at 04:59 AM
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p.35 #20 · Official: Hasselblad X1D-50c Medium Format Mirrorless
