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Hasselblad XPAN = MF?

Hasselblad XPAN = MF?


  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .

Jorgen Udvang

Subscriber Member
The X-Pan is what the Germans call a "kleinbildkamera", 35mm. The same way, the Fuji GX617 is medium format, even if the negatives are longer than a 4 x 5 negative.
 

Swissblad

Well-known member
Regardless of which way one views it as... I would have preferred a digital Xpan to the Looney solar mess.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
It is 35mm. Just like a Widelux. And there is a huge jump in quality from a 35mm panoramic camera to a medium-format one.
 

MaxKißler

New member
If we're talking film, my definition of medium format is anything that uses 120 or 220 film (of course there are other formats of equal size that have vanished long ago). If it's about digital photography, I'd say anything larger than 35mm digital counts as MF or MFD.
 

Jack

Sr. Administrator
Staff member
Agree it was (is) a wide 35. But then so was my 6x7 MF cam when I trimmed the images to 3:1 pano format!

IMHO, the format remains whatever format it is when you look at a 4:3 max crop from the image.
 

Ulfric Douglas

New member
Yup, 35mm ... just ...wider.
I met a very nice gent at Silloth, Cumbria the other year.
He had a nice (dark green?) x-pan with a 35mm lens on it.
I'd never seen one before and we got chatting about digital.
I advised him to wait a bit (I think it was M8 era) until it all matured and 'worked properly'
Somehow I doubt he got himself an M240 yet.
 

GrahamWelland

Subscriber & Workshop Member
I'd say it's a tweener. The glass is definitely designed as MF but the film format is 35mm vertically although wider. By contrast, my 6x17 really is MF and is noticeable as such as soon as I view a slide or scan an image.

As regards quality, I'd say that it's the same since film is film is film. The difference obviously is when you scan and print larger. As Jack mentioned, it really depends upon the printed/viewed size of the image.
 
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richardman

Well-known member
I have owned an XPanII since 2007 and a SWC since 2011, and used a Mamiya 7II. Now I use 4x5 (and the M9 since 2010).

In any case, as good as it is, the XPan's image quality cannot compare with the MF. I have made 20x52" canvas prints from XPan, but the MF would still be better. Bigger negative is better, image quality wise.
 

Lars

Active member
Obviously if all you do is shoot panoramic and crop a 6x7 to 24x65 mm then you get the same film area.

Lenses are certainly on par with MF, the 45 and 90 are very good. I haven't used the 30. Then again Xpan gets away with a slightly smaller image circle than 6x7 which should allow for higher resolving power.
 

ondebanks

Member
I voted "No", as it uses 35mm film and the frame height is the same 24mm as "small format".

However, let's turn this around. By that reckoning, to be consistent, we must conclude that the 24x36mm DBs of yesteryear are not Medium Format.

Ray
 
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