Представлена камера Hasselblad X1D

High tech and handmade

As a modest, but proud engraving states on the top of the camera, the X1D is handmade in Sweden. After seeing it in photos, we knew it looked stunning but weren’t sure how comfortable it would be in actual use. Our previous experience with medium-format cameras had left us with the impression that such machines are best used atop sturdy tripods. However, after spending some time with the X1D, we completely fell in love with the design. The grip feels excellent, and even though the camera is fairly large (compared to smaller-format mirrorless models) it is still quite easy to hold in one hand – nothing like the enormous, mirror-based medium-format models.

Beneath the H logo on the side of the camera you’ll find dual SD memory card slots. There’s also a unique battery that locks in place without a battery door. A switch on the bottom of the camera partially releases the battery and you give it a gentle push to unlock it and remove it the rest of the way. A rubber gasket encircling the battery itself allows the camera to be environmentally sealed despite the lack of a battery door. Hasselblad told us this was done to improve overall durability, as there’s no plastic door that can break off. We kind of think they did it just to be cool, but either way, we’ll take it.

The body also has a perfectly balanced weight when paired with one of the prime lenses (we tested the 45mm f/3.5 and 90mm f/3.2). This is still a fairly heavy camera, but every ounce of weight feels intentional. Hasselblad clearly put significant care into making the X1D feel good to use handheld, something that has not always been a priority for other medium-format cameras.

The X1D is a radical new direction for Hasselblad and the entire medium-format sector.

The 3-inch touchscreen LCD looks good, and the user interface is clear and simple. The camera is surprisingly easy to use thanks to that touchscreen, although the minimalistic control layout did leave us wishing for a few more physical buttons. In particular, a focus point selector would have been very welcome. (After our review, Hasselblad released a firmware update that added touch pad AF functionality, which lets you drag your finger on the screen while looking through the viewfinder to move the focus point.) There are also some design oddities in the interface; there is no immediate way, for example, to understand what the buttons to the side of screen do without pressing them to find out.

From a usability standpoint, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The compact size and easy-to-use touchscreen make this one of the most approachable medium-format cameras out there, but it’s hampered by a slow startup speed and an autofocus system that relies on slow (but accurate) contrast detection. With plenty of light, the focus speed is at least decent — it’s just not up to par with what we’ve come to expect from modern mirrorless cameras. Fortunately, focusing manually is great, with multiple focus peaking colors to help you out, and a quick double-tap on the screen will magnify the image to help you dial-in critical focus.

Our initial impressions with using the AF system were reserved, as we couldn’t resize them, making it difficult to dial in pinpoint accuracy. However, Hasselblad has since released a firmware update that enabled AF point resizing. You can now select point sizes of 4mm, 2.8mm, or 2mm. Each selection has a corresponding change in the total number of available points, as well: 35 at 4mm, 63 at 2.8mm, and 117 at 2mm. While Hasselblad isn’t advertising any increase in focus speed, at least the number and accuracy of focus points is now much closer to other mirrorless cameras.

We also really liked how big the electronic viewfinder is, but it suffers from a slow refresh rate. This probably won’t be a huge issue as this isn’t a camera that people will be using to shoot high-speed action, but it’s still an area with room for improvement.

Daven Mathies/Digital TrendsDaven Mathies/Digital Trends

There were also some occasional bugs, such as the ISO display “over-animating” as if it were shuffling through multiple stops when we only turned the wheel one click. Overall, these issues were minor and intermittent, but were enough to pull us out of the shooting experience when they occurred.

Using the Hasselblad Phocus Mobile app (still iOS-only as of January 2019), it’s also possible to control the X1D from an iPhone or iPad. This works either through a computer with a tethered camera, or to the X1D directly via its built-in Wi-Fi. Some aspects of the interface don’t make for the most refined user experience, but it worked well in our testing and performance was snappy (no pun intended). You can control virtually every aspect of the camera (even focus manually) and review, rate, and share photos from the app.

Image quality compared

Its color depth (Portrait score) of 26.2 points technically puts the X1D-50c in third place overall, but only fractionally behind the medium-format 80Mp Phase One IQ180 digital back, and Nikon’s latest full-frame sensor (the 45.7Mp Nikon D850) — indeed, we can say they offer effectively the same color at base ISO in terms of real-world results.

Similarly, the X1D-50c’s dynamic range (Landscape score) of 14.8 EV is comparable to the best-performing full-frame sensors we’ve tested — the Nikon D850 and D810, which achieve the same score at base ISO.

Where the X1D-50c truly excels is for Low-Light ISO (Sports score), however. Achieving a top score of ISO 4489, it’s the best-performing sensor in low light that we’ve tested. This is primarily due to the larger surface area the medium-format sensor offers, so it isn’t surprising the X1D-50c outperforms physically-smaller full-frame sensors such as the 42.4Mp Sony A7R II, as well as full frame sensors with a greater pixel pitch, such as the 12.2p Sony A7s.

Medium format for less

On the inside, the Hasselblad X1D-50c uses the same 51-megapixel sensor as the H6D-50c. This isn’t surprising — virtually every camera company tries to use the same sensor across multiple models — but while the H6D starts at a staggering $25,995, the X1D was just $8,995 (body only) at the time of its release. As of our most recent update to this review in January 2019, that price has dropped to just $6,495 thanks to a $2,500 instant rebate.

Focus speed is decent, but not up to par with what we expect from modern cameras.

While the pixel count alone isn’t uncontested by smaller-format cameras (the Canon EOS 5DSR also boasts a 50MP sensors), the X1D’s sensor is 70-percent larger than full frame (and a bit smaller than traditional medium format). That extra surface area means each pixel is bigger, helping to gather more light and improve resolution, high ISO performance, and dynamic range. In fact, Hasselblad claims 14 stops of dynamic range in total, making this a great sensor for landscape work.

Aside from the sensor, the rest of the camera’s specifications aren’t exactly earth-shattering. Continuous shooting speed tops out at 2.3 frames per second (fps), maximum mechanical shutter speed is 1/2,000 of a second (more on that below), and video is limited to 1080p at the European PAL standard of 25 fps. (Yeah, we get it, nobody’s buying this camera for video, but still.)

The mechanical shutter speed limitation may look like bad news for anyone coming from the APS-C or full frame world, but 1/2,000 of a second is actually quite good by medium-format standards. That’s because, traditionally, medium-format cameras have all used leaf shutters, and the X1D is no different. A leaf shutter is built into the lens, as opposed to the in-body focal plane shutters used in smaller-format DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. While focal plane shutters can be faster, usually topping out at 1/4,000 or 1/8,000 of a second, leaf shutters offer one unique advantage: they can sync with a flash at any shutter speed. Focal plane shutters, by contrast, can only sync up to 1/200 or 1/250 of a second, as at any speed faster than that they don’t expose the full sensor at the same moment.

Daven Mathies/Digital TrendsDaven Mathies/Digital Trends

The leaf shutter is also a key differentiator between the Hasselblad X1D and its closest competitor, the Fujifilm GFX, and for some users that alone may be worth the difference in price. A leaf shutter is particularly useful for location portrait photography, as you can balance the sun with a flash while leaving your aperture wide open for a shallow depth of field. With a focal plane shutter, you couldn’t do this without using a high-speed-sync flash or putting a neutral density (ND) filter on your lens, which then requires a more powerful flash and will likely slow down your autofocus.

Thanks to post-launch firmware updates, the X1D can now get beyond the shutter speed limitation, however. In the same firmware update that expanded autofocus control, Hasselblad also introduced an electronic shutter with a maximum shutter speed of 1/10,000 of a second. It can also stay open a bit longer, for a total exposure time of 68 minutes for ultra-long exposures (the mechanical shutter is limited to 60 minutes). Electronic shutters have the added benefit of being completely silent. This brings the X1D in line with Fujifilm and Phase One, both of which offer electronic shutters on the GFX-50s and XF IQ3 100, respectively, the only other medium-format cameras to do so.

As with any electronic shutter, Hasselblad warns that images will be subject to the distorting effects of rolling shutter, as the sensor reads out one line of pixels at a time. This can render vertical lines as diagonals if the subject or the camera is moving too quickly. So while the camera can now hit a fast shutter speed, it won’t be useful for shooting fast-moving subjects in most instances. If you plan to use the electronic shutter, Hasselblad recommends putting the camera on a tripod and shooting stationary subjects.

The other potential benefit of the electronic shutter is that it could open up the X1D to all sorts of legacy lenses. It wouldn’t be able to toggle the leaf shutters on such lenses, but thanks to the electronic shutter, it wouldn’t have to. Only older lenses with physical aperture controls would work, and this will likely depend on third-party adapters, but such products would not be difficult to manufacture as they could be simple “dumb” adapters without electronics.

Overall image sensor performance

The Hasselblad X1D-50c reaches new heights for image quality, achieving the highest DxOMark score of 102 points for any commercially-available sensor we’ve tested.

The X1D-50c excels in all three of our measurement categories, achieving either the top-ranked or a podium position result in each. At base ISO, the X1D-50c offers outstanding color depth (Portrait score) of 26.2 bits and a dynamic range (Landscape score) of 14.8 EV. In low light, the X1D-50c achieves the highest-ranked low-light ISO (Sports score) we’ve tested to date (4489 ISO).

It’s worth addressing at this stage what’s going on with the Hasselblad X1D-50c at high ISO settings. While the camera offers sensitivity settings as high as ISO 25,600, the top “true” ISO value the sensor offers is ISO 3200. To achieve pictures at higher ISO settings, the camera applies a “digital gain,” or amplification of the image signal, during RAW conversion to replicate the effect of shooting at higher ISOs. As such, ISO 6400, 12,800, and 25,600 can be seen as digital sensitivity values, and the measurements are exactly the same as at ISO 3200, and therefore not recorded.

Introduction

The Hasselblad X1D-50c is a compact system camera with a 50 megapixel 43.8 x 32.9mm medium-format CMOS sensor that is smaller than most full-frame 35mm cameras. The X1D-50c also features Raw images with 16-bit color depth and 14 stops of dynamic range, ISO range of 100-25600, 1080p video with a frame rate of 30fps, 2.3fps continuous shooting, shutter speeds from 60 minutes to 1/2000th sec. with full flash synchronisation throughout the range, a 2.36MP XGA electronic viewfinder, a 3.0″ 920k-dot touchscreen LCD, dual SD card slots, built-in Wi-Fi for remote connection and file transfer and an external GPS unit that slots into the flash hotshoe, and a new line of XCD lenses with an integral central shutter. The recommended retail price of the Hasselblad X1D-50c is £7788 / $8995 body only.

Conclusion

Image quality on the Hasselblad X1D-50c is outstanding, crashing through the 100-point barrier to become the highest-scoring commercially-available sensor we’ve tested. At 102 points overall, it also achieves either the best, or very close to the best results for both color depth and dynamic range. Combine that with its 50Mp resolution and mirrorless design, all packaged at a more realistic price tag, and the X1D-50c starts to look like a tantalizing prospect.

That said, while its image quality is up there with the best, it’s not significantly better than other super high-resolution full-frame sensors, such as the Nikon D850 DSLR or the Sony A7R II, except in low light. So whether the X1D-50c is right for you may depend on your preference for shooting medium format, the flexibility of leaf shutter lenses for high speed flash sync, or other factors such as the range of available lenses and accessories. But for pure sensor performance, the Hasselblad X1D-50c delivers outstanding results and phenomenal image quality.

In this review we have compared the Hasselblad X1D-50c to its most direct rivals that we’ve tested. As usual, you can create your own comparisons and in-depth analyses using our interactive image sensor ranking tool.

The obligatory comparison to full frame

As a high-end mirrorless camera, people are naturally drawing comparisons between the Hasselblad X1D and Sony’s line of full-frame mirrorless models, namely the 42MP A7R Mark II. Sony did a fantastic job of democratizing 35mm sensors with its A7 series, but the X1D is not attempting to do quite the same thing. The price remains an issue: $9,000 might be “cheap” for medium format, but you could buy three A7R Mark IIs for that — and the A7R Mark II is no slouch. It’s an impressive still camera and a very capable 4K video camera rolled into one, with image quality that more-or-less rivals that of the X1D on every metric.

The X1D, therefore, is not the medium-format camera for the rest of us. It is still a medium-format camera for, well, medium-format photographers, those who have worked with leaf shutters, large RAW files, and similar frame sizes. It makes the most sense to existing Hasselblad H-system owners, who can adapt all of their existing lenses to the X1D. It is also a compelling choice for users of older Hasselblad systems who are looking to upgrade. In this case, they can potentially save thousands of dollars by going with the X1D over, say, an H6D.

But the X1D is unlikely to woo any full-frame shooters. It lacks the performance of modern mirrorless and DSLR cameras from the likes of Sony, Canon, and Nikon. Furthermore, the image quality difference simply won’t be appreciated by most. In general, people think of three things with regard to larger sensors: higher resolution, better low-light performance, and more depth-of-field control (meaning, a larger sensor can achieve a shallower depth of field at the same field-of-view and aperture). However, all of these things also depend on the lens that is in front of the sensor, and in the cases of low-light capability and depth of field, these depend on the maximum aperture of a lens.

Of the four native XCD lenses that Hasselblad had initially announced for the X1D, none have an aperture faster than f/3.2. That is roughly equivalent to f/2.5 on a full-frame camera, but much faster lenses are readily available for full-frame systems, which left the X1D lacking. That changed with the introduction of the XCD 80mm f/1.9 in 2018, which finally gave X1D the large-aperture portrait lens it deserved. Still, from the light-gathering standpoint, it doesn’t beat what’s available on full frame — and for the cost of an X1D and a single lens, you could build out a complete full-frame mirrorless kit.

That doesn’t mean the X1D is without benefits, but those benefits will be most appreciated by current medium-format shooters. Users of full-frame cameras looking for a dramatic jump in image quality or performance need not apply; pixel-peepers will spot the improvements, but the price difference just isn’t worth it.

Fortunately, Hasselblad has continued to add features to the X1D long into its life cycle that have made it more competitive. Firmware version 1.22, released in January 2019, added an option to set a shutter release delay when bracketing long exposures, in addition to several customization options and improved autofocus when using adapted H system lenses and accessories. Earlier firmware updates has also added an intervalometer function for shooting time-lapse sequences, exposure bracketing, and the ability to set a shutter speed limit when using automatic ISO, program, or full auto modes. All of these refinements help bring the X1D up to par, but its advantages won’t make up for its slow speed or high cost for many photographers.