The Hasselblad Experience (Part 2)
My Setup for the Studio:
Using the Hasselblad X1D in the studio I had the pleasure of shooting tethered to my 13” Macbook Pro pretty much the entire time. I used exclusively the XCD 120mm Macro Lens as the wider angle lens wasn’t well suited to my small studio. For lighting I had my Flashpoint/Godox strobes, since Hasselblad cameras use the Nikon standard for flashes I had ordered a Nikon trigger for my flash system, but unfortunately was not able to get it to work in the short time I had the camera, but I was able to control the lights using single pin mode and my Canon flash trigger.
A Ten Minute Fashion Shoot:
While I had the camera I wanted to take the opportunity to do some fashion photography, it isn’t a genre I normally dabble in, but since medium format cameras are frequently used for this type of work I wanted to give it a shot.
I borrowed some garments from a local clothing store, and had planned to have some time to experiment with different lighting setups and backgrounds, but ended up only having a very short window at the end of one of our days of shooting with which to take images. The clothing had to go back before the end of the day so I quickly through together a simple two light setup. The first light was my usual Godox/Flashpoint Explor 600 in a Glow Parapop while the background was lit with a standard flash in a softbox. I simply pushed background light until it clipped and then balanced the key for a bright, natural look on our skin. We grabbed a few quick images and then the clothes went back to the vendor. I did photograph a couple more looks as well, but given the time crunch the posing wasn’t ideal and the images ended up getting scrapped.
Bringing Flowers to Life:
The main goal of renting the Hasselblad was to photograph flowers, to take a series of images in high resolution with high contrast. I had spent hours finessing the look taking hundreds of test images with my A7SII and various lighting setups.
This meant that when it came time to take the images with the Hasselblad I knew exactly what I had to do. We went out to a multitude of shops to find the greatest variety of unblemished flowers, and carefully posed them to get these beautiful images. This is the place where I was most happy to have the Hasselblad, the incredible sharpness of the images and ability to push the saturation in post without getting any weird banding or fringing left me in awe. These images are the highlight of my photographic career thus far.
Medium Format Portraiture:
One of the things that photographers frequently talk about when it comes to the rational for using medium format camera systems is the performance in portraiture. Many people act like there is some sort of magic that takes place with the compression provided by the negative crop factor of the medium format sensor, or the improved color reproduction of the larger pixels and high bit depth. While I am overjoyed with the results I got taking photos of my grandmother I did not experience any of that magic, I feel completely confident that I could have achieved a very similar if not identical look with my Sony, while the additional resolution of the 50 megapixel sensor does provide greater detail, when viewed in even a large sized print or on the web a Sony A7RII could have performed just as well.
Taking Pet Photos with a Hasselblad:
Here is a place where the camera really struggled. Using the 120mm Macro lens the autofocus was barely usable. With subjects that were constantly moving and didn’t follow precise instructions I was left using manual focus and just hoping my images came out in focus. If you are looking to take some photos of your cat to post on facebook go with basically any other camera system.
My Final Thoughts:
My experience with the Hasselblad X1D was full of ups and downs. The highlights were especially bright, and there were many moments where I was blown away by the images coming out of the camera. However at the low points the camera was at best frustrating and at worst unusable. This is an amazing camera system, and for the right person with the right use cases it will be a pleasure to use. However it is not a go everywhere do everything camera, if you are looking for one camera system to fill all your needs look elsewhere, but if you want a camera that will deliver mind-blowing image quality and you have the ability to be patient and take your time with each shot, you won’t be disappointed.
