I finally posted an article to my blog about my experiences using the X1D in the Great Smoky Mountains in late April:
http://www.joecolsonphotography.com/2017/08/01/photographing-the-great-smoky-mountains-with-the-hasselblad-x1d/The X1D performed well and didn’t surprise me. After using the X1D for this trip, I’d summarize its positives and negatives this way:
Positives
- Ease of use either from a tripod or hand-held
- Outstanding image quality and tonal range
- Excellent performance across a wide ISO range
- Easy to focus using either AF or MF (focus peaking or auto magnification)
- Lightweight body and lenses making for a lightweight pack
Negatives
- No live histogram
- Few and large AF points, resulting in mis-focus on more than one occasion
- No image review in EVF; reviewing images on the rear LCD in bright sunlight is difficult or impossible
- No distance scale on lenses or in EVF or Live View display
- Glitches (“No Card” error, unresponsive touch screen, erratic control/scroll wheels)
Startup time was slow compared to my Sony a7RII. That didn’t annoy me since my subjects were landscapes and didn’t move. I turned the camera off between locations and turned it on as I was setting up the tripod.
As I described in my “First Impressions” blog post, the X1D is very easy and fun to use. It’s solid but doesn’t feel heavy. The lenses are well matched in size and heft to the camera body. I found, while the camera was mounted on the tripod, changing settings using the rear touch screen was so simple that it quickly became second nature. During the variety of weather conditions I experienced, I didn’t fret once about the vulnerability of the camera to dust, fog, mist or rain. The weather sealing is superb, and so good that mounting and removing lenses takes considerable effort. By the way, I usually pack a rubber jar lid gripper, available at most hardware stores, to remove stubborn filters, and now lenses.
During this trip, I was curious to see how the camera would handle long exposure situations and triggering exposure without the use of a cable release. With other cameras (Pentax 645Z, Sony a7RII, Nikon D810) I had abandoned the use of a cable release in favor of the self-timer feature. Setting the self-timer to a sufficient interval to allow dampening of vibrations caused by manually pressing the shutter release button has usually worked a treat and has allowed me to forego packing another accessory. The self-timer feature of the X1D can be set to be “sticky” and applied to every exposure until deactivated, or set to be activated for the next exposure only. For both the self-timer and long exposures, a countdown clock is shown on the rear LCD, giving me a visual gauge of time remaining. As with the other rear LCD settings displays, this is presbyopia-friendly. No reading glasses necessary!
Since the trip, Hasselblad released firmware update v1.17 that improved overall stability, fixed a focus error problem that had been reported with the XCD 90mm lens, and fixed the incorrect “No Card” indication. The erratic control/scroll wheel problem that I encountered required a repair by Hasselblad US. The repair process was smooth and transparent and took a total of 10 days from start to finish.
I now have the Hasselblad X-H Adapter and will be experimenting with one or two HC lenses (HC 210mm and possibly HC 300mm).
Joe
