H5DC wifi vs. XF-IQ350C

[maxs]

There are people who use the XF and love it. Is it the perfect camera? I don't think so. Is it great? Yes. Is it the camera for me? Nope.

Then there are the people who use the Hasselblad's and love them. Are they the perfect camera? Nope. Is the Hasselblad great? Yes. Is it the camera for me? Yes

So each of us is entitled to his/her own opinion. At least the reviewer took his time and did a good comparison that at I happen to agree with.

If you disagree feel free to make corrections. No need to bring in the 'F' words into the conversation.

My 2 cents

[eronald]

Maxshafiq

I think we're now seeing the dead cat strategy at work - some people are trying to get the thread to implode. It's going to be all about everything -the reviewer, the corrections, the cursewords -  except the XF and the H5D.

Edmund

In 2013, Johnson wrote a piece in the Telegraph about campaign tactics he learned  from his “Australian friend”—Crosby. It’s worth reading the entire excerpt here: “Let us suppose you are losing an argument. The facts are overwhelmingly against you, and, the more people focus on the reality, the worse it is for you and your case. Your best bet in these circumstances is to perform a manoeuvre that a great campaigner describes as ‘throwing a dead cat on the table, mate.’

That is because there is one thing that is absolutely certain about throwing a dead cat on the dining room table—and I don’t mean that people will be outraged, alarmed, disgusted. That is true, but irrelevant. The key point, says my Australian friend, is that everyone will shout, ‘Jeez, mate, there’s a dead cat on the table!’; in other words, they will be talking about the dead cat, the thing you want them to talk about, and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.”


http://www.macleans.ca/news/canada/dead-cats-and-the-niqab/

Edmund

There are people who use the XF and love it. Is it the perfect camera? I don't think so. Is it great? Yes. Is it the camera for me? Nope.

Then there are the people who use the Hasselblad's and love them. Are they the perfect camera? Nope. Is the Hasselblad great? Yes. Is it the camera for me? Yes

So each of us is entitled to his/her own opinion. At least the reviewer took his time and did a good comparison that at I happen to agree with.

If you disagree feel free to make corrections. No need to bring in the 'F' words into the conversation.

My 2 cents

[maxs]

Edmund - got to hand it to you, you have your analogies taken care of!

LMAO

[mjrichardson]

Eronald, you do write some utter nonsense at times!

Bottom line with "reviews" like this is to be accurate and factual, how you interpret use and your own final decisions are unarguable, they relate directly to the individual, but if someone is going to write these things, the minimum the writer should aim for is accuracy in my opinion.

Being accurate does nothing detrimental to the final choice, it doesn't show the Hasselblad in a lesser light, it just shows integrity from the writer and ultimately lends weight to his final choice. The information about the XF isn't wrong because of his opinion, it's just plain wrong!

As he "tested" the XF with a representative, why did he not just say, I want to control these functions without taking my eye from the screen, to which the rep should have been able to say, no problem, give me 2 mins to set it all up. The fact is that ISO, aperture, shutter speed all have their own controls, all operable by the right hand holding the camera. Assigning mirror up to any button is possible, having it by the grip means it too is operable without moving your eye. He states that the mirror needs locking up for each shot with the XF and not with the 'blad, that's just wrong, hit the mirror up and it stays up until you press it again to bring it down.

AF performance is very good in my experience but that's not to say that others don't find it so, but 7 shots out of 200?! Who would sell a camera that performed like that? I certainly wouldn't buy it. Setting up a lens with focus trim takes very little time and once done, the camera remembers the setting for that lens so you never need to worry about it again. Focus and recompose, I do this all the time with all my cameras set to centre point, if you lose focus when you recompose, it's not the cameras fault, it just means you have to practice your technique more, it is focussing where you set it, if you move forward or back whilst swinging the camera then you need to practice that to get better.

Ultimately, it takes very little effort to present the facts, then present your choice and the reasons why it suits you, if you don't have enough time with the camera to form a decent opinion then why bother writing the review at all? Reading this is disappointing, the chap is obviously a good photographer, it may be best to stick with that!

Mat

[eronald]

Mjrichardson

 You don't like the review - good for you. There is a lot to like and dislike here.

 Now as you are hard intent on facts, I suggest you go back to your highschool geometry book where there is probably an erudite notation that as a consequence of the Pythagorean theorem, the hypothenuse of a right triangle is longer than either of the other sides. Yes, in a right triangle the long side is longer than any of the shorter sides . 

 This comes from the fact that in highschool the geometry is flat or euclidean, and distances are sums of squares so the square of the hypothenuse as the sum of the squares of the sides is larger than any of the squares of the sides. This reasoning is actually wrong in real-world spacetime physics but probably good enough an approximation for a photographer, and the reasonable and uncomplicated majority of humanity.

 Swing the camera to one side for focus, or up to the eyes, and you are measuring a long leg, swing it back straight ahead and the  end of that long leg is now somewhere behind your subject. Maybe only by a few inches. That is the problem with focus and recompose, there is no way around the fact that the measurement is bad *with any focus system, even a laser rangefinder*  because you are measuring the wrong distance.

 Hasselblad solved this factual issue by recalculating a distance correction according to how far you move the camera. Nikon and Canon just drop an off-center focus point and estimate accurate focus without moving the camera. Phase has neither of its competitor's features enabled for now, and so focus and recompose introduces an error - which may be slight, depending on the distance, aperture, and focus length involved.

 Some people can live with the error, others stop down the lens, others have some procedural trick for correcting for the error; the reviewer apparently prefers a camera which compensates for this error.

 Instead of wasting more of your time on my nonsense and embarassing yourself even more in public, I suggest you go get your camera, try an experiment with a wide-open fast lens and a couple of marks on a whiteboard.

 And you know what? I agree with many of your remarks re this review,  But any reader has issues with any review, they're all subjective.

Edmund

Eronald, you do write some utter nonsense at times!

 Focus and recompose, I do this all the time with all my cameras set to centre point, if you lose focus when you recompose, it's not the cameras fault, it just means you have to practice your technique more, it is focussing where you set it, if you move forward or back whilst swinging the camera then you need to practice that to get better.

 Ultimately, it takes very little effort to present the facts, then present your choice and the reasons why it suits you, if you don't have enough time with the camera to form a decent opinion then why bother writing the review at all? Reading this is disappointing, the chap is obviously a good photographer, it may be best to stick with that!

Mat

[mjrichardson]

Urgh, at what point does anyone, lets say handholding a camera, move exactly when swinging the camera, I would suggest that you may move back and forwards a little just standing still without even holding a camera! The process of focussing with a single centre point and moving yourself correctly to maintain focus is not rocket science and doesn't need pythagorus to explain it, it's about knowing how to move, knowing your equipment and practice, nothing more, people have been doing it for years. I make a living shooting business portraits wide open with a single focus point camera, not once have I had to measure the distance, even the wrong one.

Maybe this is down to people relying more and more on the technology in their cameras rather than actually developing any skill.

We do agree on one thing though, your nonsense is a waste of my time.

Have a nice afternoon!

Mat

I should add that I have absolutely no issue with the review from the subjective side, the reasons he chose the Hasselblad are of no consequence to me, his preference is his own, I only take issue with the nonsubjective stuff, the things that are just wrong.

[eronald]

Maybe this is down to people relying more and more on the technology in their cameras rather than actually developing any skill.

Mat

Yes. And I think the automation is taking the fun out of the game.

Edmund

[michaelclark]

Thank you Edmund. I appreciate that.

I have a feeling that later tonight my review is going to become irrelevant anyway with the announcement that Hasselblad is going to announce.

Cheers, Michael

Michael,

 I worked for 20 years as a journo, writing both in french and in english. I used to be paid as a columnist to do pro photo stuff reviews for Ziff Davis. I am a National Union of Journalists member. That doesn't mean I know everything about photography, but I do know what counts as a review.

 By modern web standards, your review is a review. It is not a "review" as some here contend. You didn't read a press release, you looked at the products, tried them out, and gave your personal opinion.

 There is no reason you should feel obligated to update *your* review with anyone else's later input. If you elect to do so, it is correct and conventional to add such material in a box, distinctively separated from the original text, with a clear indication that the new material is an addendum, and does not reflect your own observations.

 When you write, the aggregate quality of your own opinions and writing form your own brand. I once had an email exchange about some fractal compression software with Michael Reichmann, the original founder of this site. He said it was pretty much useless, I'd used it, and thought it was pretty useful for enlarging box shots with printed lettering and the like. As I remember, he replied "I don't do box shots, I'm a landscape photographer". Even though I can be quite argumentative , I shut up — he was right. His working style, his observations, his opinion, his review.

Edmund

[michaelclark]

I just want the comparison to be as accurate as possible. In the post I asked for feedback on several things as I didn't have time to figure everything out. Heck, I am still figuring out stuff on my Hasselblad H5D a few months after I got it. Thanks again for the feedback everyone. I have updated the review.

Tonight, we will find out what Hasselblad announces and that will, hopefully, be very exciting.

Cheers, Michael

Me and Michael just had an honest and open exchange of good energy. But for some dark reason you choose to see things in a negative point of view.  That's really sad.  When I put "review" in quotes I meant it to only as a reference that I was not questioning his art.  In a sense I gave my review of his review.  He's a hardworking photographer trying to make a living in a world that doesn't value "print" as much as it should we are both as are many of our colleagues swimming against the same tide. The last Hasselblad equipment I owned was the H1/H2 platform.  I don't have the experience with the latest Hassy offerings so therefore I would never feel qualified to write a review based upon a one day test.  My approach would have been to call a notable Hassy user and ask them to shoot alongside me with my PHASE ONE system.  Michael choose a different path.

Now regarding your simply rude and uncalled for introjection....

As my fifth grade daughter would say.  This is an "A" "B" conversation so kindly "C" yourself out of it.

Thank you.

[eronald]

I'm waiting for Doug's post concerning new firmware that speeds up the blinkenlight of the self-timer on the XF - and incidentally adds some minor fixes to AF.

Edmund

Thank you Edmund. I appreciate that.

I have a feeling that later tonight my review is going to become irrelevant anyway with the announcement that Hasselblad is going to announce.

Cheers, Michael

[Doug Peterson]

In this thread and in the original article there was some confusion over sync speeds of the Schneider / Team Phase One LS lenses.

For absolute clarity:
- the 240LS syncs at 1/1,000
- ALL other Schneider LS lenses sync at 1/1,600

Your flash transmitter needs to be capable of communicating at 1/1600th if you want to go that fast.
- An example of a transmitter not capable of this is the standard PocketWizard which can only fully sync up to 1/500th.
- An example of a transmitter capable of this is a Profoto Air transmitter.

Notably a Profoto Air transmitter is built into the Phase One XF. That allows you to trigger (at up to 1/1600th) any Profoto Air light without any separate transmitters/receivers/cables/batteries or with any other kind of light (e.g. Broncolor) by attaching a Profoto Air receiver to it. You, of course, can also put any transmitter (e.g. a Broncolor RFS) you want on the XF.

We have the full tech specs of all Schneider LS lenses on our website.