Introduction
The Hasselblad 907X and CFV 100C is a medium format digital camera physique / sensor pair. It’s one of many lightest medium format digital camera choices obtainable right this moment, weighing about 700 grams (1.5 kilos) with the battery included. Moreover, the digital camera is modular, with the choice to separate the 100-megapixel medium format digital again (the CFV 100C) from the 907X and fasten it to different digital camera techniques. This makes the 907X & 100C an especially versatile pair. That stated, at $8200, it’s nonetheless a distinct segment digital camera – even when the price is just not out of line for a Hasselblad.
On this evaluate, I’ll share my ideas and photographs from the Hasselblad 907X and CFV 100C, which I’ve been utilizing extensively in Yellowstone Nationwide Park and different landscapes in Wyoming.
What Are the Hasselblad 907X and CFV 100C?
The Hasselblad 907X and CFV 100C are offered as a single digital camera system, however they’re actually two separate components. The majority of the digital camera is the CFV 100C – this digital again is the place the medium format sensor resides, together with the digital camera’s processor, touchscreen, storage, battery, and most of the controls. In the meantime, the 907X is a comparatively slim body that goes in entrance of the digital again, offering a lens mount, shutter button, and some different controls for the digital camera.
To photographers who’re accustomed to typical digital cameras, it might appear unusual to “lower the digital camera in two” like this. Why would the CFV 100C have to be separate from the 907X? However this, in truth, is among the digital camera’s nice strengths. As a result of the 2 components are separate, the wonderful CFV 100C digital again could be eliminated and hooked up to all kinds of different cameras, together with Hasselblad V movie cameras, technical cameras from completely different producers, and even giant format tools.
For demanding photographers who work in industries like architectural or panorama pictures, the lenses – and particularly the digital camera and lens actions – provided by technical and enormous format cameras could be irreplaceable. It’s not that the 907X unit is an afterthought by any means, however I anticipate that many photographers will purchase this mixture for the CFV 100C digital again alone.
Hasselblad CFV 100C Defined
1. The Sensor
Earlier than diving into the digital camera’s options and controls, let me take a minute to explain the sensor. This, in any case, is why you’re spending $8200 on a digital camera.
The sensor discovered within the CFV 100C is among the most spectacular digital sensors obtainable right this moment. Not solely is it a 100-megapixel medium format sensor (with all of the detail-gathering capabilities that means) – it additionally reaches a base ISO of 64, with the choice of 16-bit colour depth for uncooked pictures.
In consequence, images taken with the CFV 100C obtain a few of the greatest picture high quality that’s potential right this moment in a single press of a shutter button. Solely the truth that the sensor dimension is “cropped” medium format (44 x 33 mm fairly than 54 x 40) separates it from right this moment’s $40,000+ digital backs.
Even so, the sensor is noticeably bigger than full-frame (36 x 24 mm); the crop issue of the CFV 100C is 0.79x. In different phrases, a 100mm lens on the CFV 100C provides you with the identical perspective as a 79mm lens on a full-frame digital camera, aside from the variations in facet ratio.
In contrast to medium format sensors of yore, the CFV 100C guarantees good excessive ISO efficiency and quick processing pace due to the BSI CMOS design. To that finish, the utmost ISO sensitivity is 25,600, and the sensor really performs properly at that setting (extra on that later). It additionally has 294 phase-detect autofocus factors which are fairly quick when paired with the correct lens.
In fact, it’s nonetheless not a digital camera that you just’d need for sports activities or wildlife pictures. Hasselblad even says as a lot of their promotional materials: “907X & CFV 100C is just not a digital camera for quick shooters, it’s for these with a deliberate and deliberate strategy. The target market is portrait and panorama photographers.”
And with that, I agree.
2. Different Options of the CFV 100C
There’s extra to the CFV 100C digital again than simply the sensor – the monitor, battery, USB port, storage, and most of the controls are additionally discovered right here.
One of the crucial notable is the monitor. The monitor’s 3×4 facet ratio matches the scale of the photographs you’re taking, making it really feel even bigger than it’s. It has a very nice touchscreen, extra much like an iPhone in its precision than to a typical digital camera touchscreen. It additionally tilts at three completely different positions: 0°, 40°, and 90°.
Images taken with the CFV 100C are saved in one among two methods – both through a CFExpress reminiscence card, or the inner SSD. This SSD is not any gimmick – it’s quick and 1TB in dimension, so it features as a really efficient backup (or major storage) when taking photographs. Regardless of the massive recordsdata that the Hasselblad CFV 100C sensor generates, the SSD can match roughly 4700 uncooked photographs earlier than it turns into full.
The remainder of the CFV 100C is fairly simple. There are a number of menu and playback-related controls alongside the underside of the tilting display. There’s a button on the high of the digital camera for attaching or detaching the digital again to a digital camera unit just like the 907X. There’s a row of hidden ports below a rubber cowl beneath the monitor (used for flash, cable launch, and ELX output). And there’s a USB-C port on the left-hand facet for information switch or charging.
Hasselblad 907X Defined
The 907X is the body that attaches to the entrance of the CFV 100C digital again. (Alternatively, you may have the choice to connect the CFV 100C to sure technical cameras or Hasselblad movie cameras, nevertheless it ships with the 907X).
The Hasselblad 907X is fairly simple in its options and capabilities. That is the portion of the digital camera the place you mount and unmount varied lenses. There are additionally some necessary controls, together with the shutter button, a command wheel, and a button for shutter pace/publicity compensation. Lastly, alongside the underside, there’s a tripod socket and connection pins that will let you connect the 907X Management Grip.
This provides the 907X & 100C the shape issue of a extra typical digital camera, and it additionally provides an additional vary of controls. That stated, I discovered myself leaving the 907X Management Grip at dwelling more often than not. The naked digital camera already has all of the controls you want, particularly for those who’re keen to make use of the touchscreen, and it’s a extra streamlined kind issue.
It’s also possible to connect an optical viewfinder to the 907X (merely referred to as the 907X Optical Viewfinder) which presents body line guides for varied focal lengths. One in every of Hasselblad’s optical viewfinders is devoted to 21mm, 30mm, and 45mm lenses – the opposite is supposed for 28mm, 38mm, and 55mm lenses. Should you use completely different focal lengths than that, you’ll need to depend on the rear monitor as a substitute.
I’ll point out as soon as extra that the 907X must be eliminated for those who intend to make use of the CFV 100C digital again with a special digital camera, like one among Hasselblad’s movie cameras or a technical digital camera. Nevertheless, if you would like probably the most compact potential kind issue when taking photos with the CFV 100C, the 907X is the best way to go. It’s additionally presently not potential to purchase the CFV 100C by itself, so that you’ll find yourself getting the 907X no matter which digital camera you finally need to use with the CFV 100C.
Menu, Specs, and Options
Most cameras today have numerous of pages of menus that strive (with combined outcomes) to prepare all of the options that have been crammed in. For higher or worse, Hasselblad takes issues in a special course with the 907X and 100C. That is the menu:
That’s it. Tapping any of those icons (utilizing the extremely responsive touchscreen) opens a sub-menu, however even probably the most advanced sub-menus – Publicity, Focus, and Normal – have fewer than a dozen choices inside. It’s simply one of the crucial streamlined menus of any digital digital camera right this moment.
For reference, right here’s an summary of the specs and options discovered on the Hasselblad 907X & CFV 100C:
Specs
- Digital camera Sensor Dimension: Medium format (43.8 x 32.9 mm)
- Crop Issue: 0.787x relative to full body
- Sensor Kind: BSI CMOS
- Decision: 100 megapixels (11,656 x 8742)
- Pixel Pitch: 3.76μm
- File Codecs: 3FR (uncooked), JPEG, HEIF
- Coloration Depth: 14-bit, 16-bit
- ISO Vary: 64-25,600
- Body Fee: 3.3 FPS (14-bit colour solely)
- Quickest Shutter Velocity (digital): 1/6000 second
- Quickest Shutter Velocity (mechanical): Varies by lens; wherever from 1/800 to 1/4000
- Longest Publicity: 68 minutes
- Flash Sync: Mechanical shutter solely, all obtainable shutter speeds
- Metering Vary: -3 EV
- Autofocus: PDAF and CDAF, single-servo solely, face detect capabilities, 294 factors
- Monitor: 3.2-inch TFT, 2.36 million dots, tilting touchscreen (0°, 40°, and 90°)
- Storage: CFExpress and Inner 1TB SSD
- Battery Life: 420 pictures (CIPA)
- CFV 100C weight (excl. battery): 460 g
- CFV 100C weight (incl. battery): about 540 g
- 907X weight: 160 g
- Complete weight (incl. battery): about 700 g / 1.54 lbs
- CFV 100C dimensions: 91 × 92 × 61mm
- Complete dimensions: 102 × 92 × 84mm
- Working Situations: Below 85% humidity, -10° to 45° C (14° to 113° F)
- MSRP: $8199 (verify present value)
Characteristic Set
- Inner SSD (1 terabyte) and CFExpress card help, with backup or overflow choices
- Shutter pace, aperture, ISO, and publicity compensation controls
- Intensive Auto ISO controls, together with “minimal shutter pace” selectable to actual shutter speeds or varied multiples of your focal size
- Shutter pace manually or routinely selectable as much as 1 hour 8 minutes
- P/S/A/M and full auto modes
- Metering strategies (middle weighted, spot, or middle spot)
- Drive mode (single, 3.3 FPS steady, self-timer (selectable as much as 60 seconds), interval, publicity bracketing, focus bracketing)
- Intensive focus bracketing choices, together with the variety of pictures, tempo, and course of focus stack
- Digital and leaf shutter
- Shutter launch cable help
- USB-C help
- Handbook focus and single-servo autofocus
- AF level dimension controls
- AF face detection on or off
- Focus peaking, together with colour choices
- Touchscreen on or off (can transfer the main focus level, enlarge the picture, and choose digital camera settings through touchscreen, amongst different issues)
- RAW (14 or 16 bit), JPEG, and HEIF. You’ll be able to individually load JPEG colour profiles if desired.
- RAW+JPEG, and RAW+HEIF
- Numerous crop modes
- Flash: rear sync and regular (works with exterior Nikon flashes and triggers utilizing scorching shoe adapter)
- Flash sync pace as much as the pace of lens’s leaf shutter
- Shutter launch cable help
- Tilting display (three angles)
- Overexposure “blinkies”
- Non-compulsory histogram, grid line, distance scale, spirit degree overlays
- Show sleep / energy off timers
- WiFi
- Customized buttons – though the choices listed here are fairly restricted, solely permitting customization of controls on the lens or the exterior grip
Lacking Options?
Hasselblad actually took the 907X & 100C within the course of minimalism. The advantages of that strategy are self-explanatory – it’s a streamlined, simple digital camera. You don’t want to fret that it’ll cease working correctly due to some long-forgotten setting in Menu Financial institution 3, Part 4, Sub-Part 4.15.
Certainly, inside a number of weeks of utilizing this digital camera, you’ll most likely have many of the menu memorized and know precisely what to alter if one thing is just not set accurately. There merely isn’t plenty of junk to take care of. In sure methods, I think about this a superb factor – it focuses the photographer on the basics, fairly than escalating technical options of the digital camera.
In fact, the associated draw back is that this digital camera is lacking some trendy options that you might have grown to anticipate, particularly for those who’re coming from one among right this moment’s newer mirrorless cameras. For the target market of this digital camera – slower-paced, deliberate photographers – most of the lacking options gained’t matter. Nevertheless, a few of the omissions might pose an issue relying upon the kind of pictures that you just do.
Most noteworthy are the shortage of picture stabilization, steady autofocus, or any sort of video on the Hasselblad 907X & 100C. Let me elaborate on these three lacking options specifically.
1. No Picture Stabilization
Maybe the largest characteristic lacking from the 907X & CFV 100C is picture stabilization. This digital camera is so transportable and light-weight that it virtually begs to be shot handheld. However with out picture stabilization, you’ll usually run into points with movement blur – particularly as a result of the CFV 100C’s 100-megapixel sensor could be very unforgiving if you would like pixel-level sharpness. In consequence, in my time with the digital camera, I discovered myself largely sticking to a tripod.
For what it’s price, the closest various to this digital camera (the Hasselblad X2D, a extra conventional digital camera with an built-in sensor) does have in-body picture stabilization. It additionally sports activities the identical sensor because the CFV 100C, and it even prices the identical because the 907X & 100C at $8200. This doesn’t imply the X2D is essentially the higher digital camera – I’ll get to that later on this evaluate – nevertheless it’s actually some extent in its favor.
Granted, a part of why the 907X & 100C is so small and light-weight is as a result of Hasselblad eschewed options like picture stabilization within the first place. Should you have been already planning to shoot from a tripod (actually commonplace with a medium format digital camera), you’ll almost certainly respect the digital camera’s gentle weight with out fretting over the lacking stabilization.
2. No Steady Autofocus
The dearth of steady autofocus isn’t simply one thing that sports activities and wildlife photographers might care about. Some portrait photographers additionally like steady autofocus, particularly when their topic isn’t standing completely nonetheless. The distinction between somebody’s eye being in focus, fairly than their nostril, might rely on it!
To be on the protected facet for portraiture, you might need to take 2-3 photographs at a time of the identical topic when utilizing this digital camera. That’s very true for those who’re using a shallow depth of discipline with a lens just like the XCD 80mm f/1.9, XCD 90mm f/2.5 V, or XCD 135mm f/2.8. It’s simply the worth to pay for having solely single-servo autofocus.
That stated, a minimum of the digital camera has the power to detect individuals’s faces within the body. Whereas this characteristic doesn’t repeatedly re-focus on a transferring face, it does reposition your autofocus level over the individual’s face in actual time. Mix that with the reasonably quick single-servo focusing pace of the 907X & 100C, and you must be capable to get sharp photographs even with a little bit of topic motion.
(The digital camera can’t detect animal eyes/faces, nevertheless it nonetheless focuses shortly sufficient to permit occasional wildlife photographs in case your topic isn’t transferring an excessive amount of.)
3. No Video
As for video, I really respect that Hasselblad didn’t overload the 907X & CFV 100C and saved it video-free, however different photographers might disagree. Actually the prospect of medium format video is attractive in some methods (and it’s potential with another medium format cameras). As you’ll see later on this evaluate, the picture high quality of Hasselblad’s sensor is actually wonderful, and I’m positive it might have been good for video in addition to stills.
However one of many good advantages of the CFV 100C is how simple and streamlined it’s. Video probably would have required the CFV 100C to be bigger and costlier, in addition to including complexity to the menu and/or management structure. It merely isn’t a digital camera that Hasselblad designed with such a philosophy in thoughts. That’s all proper with me – I’ve different cameras for video as a substitute.
Accessible Lenses
All of Hasselblad’s XCD lenses are natively suitable with the 907X & 100C, and so are their basic HC/HCD, V System, and XPAN lenses utilizing the suitable adapter. To make clear:
- XCD Lenses: Hasselblad’s latest lenses, with the XCD V lenses specifically being probably the most superior, and the quickest to autofocus. No adapters wanted with a view to use these lenses with the 907X & 100C. Leaf shutters on XCD lenses go as much as 1/2000 second, whereas leaf shutters on XCD V lenses attain a blazing-fast 1/4000 second. Flash sync works in any respect these shutter speeds, too. Whereas testing this digital camera, I used two XCD V lenses – the 38mm f/2.5 V and 90mm f/2.5 V – and each have been glorious, with my favourite being the 90V. You’ll discover that about two thirds of the panorama photographs on this evaluate have been taken with the 90V, although it’s supposedly extra of a portrait lens!
- HC/HCD Lenses: Initially designed for a bigger lens mount and movie dimension, however could be tailored to the 907X & 100C. Use the Hasselblad XH Adapter to take action. Or, use the Hasselblad 0.8x XH Converter to make use of the identical lenses, however with extra optical components to widen the lens’s focal size and enhance its most aperture by 0.8x. Full digital connections and leaf shutters supported, however autofocus is simply supported on newer HC/HCD lenses that may be up to date to Firmware Model 18.0.0 or later.
- V System Lenses: Older lenses for Hasselblad’s V System cameras, together with the 200-, 500-, and 2000-series cameras. You’ll be able to adapt them utilizing the Hasselblad XV Adapter. These lenses solely work with the digital shutter of the CFV 100C, not a leaf shutter. It’s suitable with C, CB, CF, CFE, CFI, F, and FE lenses. No electronics on this adapter; focus and aperture have to be set straight on the lens.
- XPan Lenses: Three discontinued lenses (a 30mm f/5.6, 45mm f/4, and 90mm f/4) could be tailored to the 907X & 100C through the Hasselblad XPan Adapter. Digital shutter solely. Aperture and focusing managed straight on the lens. These film-designed lenses might exhibit some sharpness loss within the corners on the CFV 100C on account of its IR filter and sensor cowl glass altering the sunshine path.
I hope that serves as a superb introduction to the Hasselblad 907X and CFV 100C. On the next pages of this evaluate, I’ll dive into the digital camera’s dealing with, construct high quality, and picture high quality in additional element. Click on the menu beneath to go to the following pages.