tashley
Subscriber Member
First thoughts: this thing is amazing. The lenses are amazing too; really amazing. I have the 30mm and the 90mm. It's a lot of fun. It's like a 50mp Leica Q. It's a bit buggy. But I am really pleased, so far, that I waited for it.
More detail:
Love shooting with it though there are quite a lot of little issues. Even though the SD card has now been formatted in camera, I have still had the No Card error and I also sometimes find the camera locks and won't let you change aperture or exp comp via the dials, though using the touch screen lets you do it and also returns control to the wheels.
You can shoot it at 1x Focal Length easily and get the shot pretty much every time.
The focus points are too big and tend to concentrate on high frequency detail rather than the totally obvious - so for example, shooting a building facade and focussing on the cross bars of a sash window will result in it reliably going after the reflections in the glass instead.
MF is really nicely done and very useful. Moving focus points is a PITA and I think one should be able to move them by touching the screen. I agree with the opinion that zoom and peaking should be selectable together when using MF.
The files have loads of DR and loads of latitude though I suspect very slightly less than a D810 @ ISO 64. However, they look much less digital than Sony a7RII files. The camera tends to underexpose for evenly lit landscape scenes because it is protecting against blowing highlights.
Phocus mobile app (iPhone) hasn't been updated for the X1D yet so some of the features don't work, but you can focus and you can fire the shutter.
The lenses are beyond my expectations. They are sharp from wide open, best at 5.6 but still really good at F8 and even F11. Also, both mine seem to be good copies, which is a rarity. The only fly I have found in the ointment is that the 30mm has some purple fringing on tree twigs against bright sky at the edge of the frame (see file #40).
I didn't use any lens corrections because LR doesn't have them yet, but it looks as if the HC 35mm F3.5 profile works quite well.
I provided a link to an initial sample gallery below. All shots can be downloaded as full-res JPEGs though they were all shot RAW and developed in LR with sharpening at 60/0.7/70/20 which is my go-to until I figure out a camera's exact sweet spot. Also a tiny touch of clarity and a bit of exposure adjustment. All files hand-held, since that's my use-case for the camera.
Exposure compensation behaviour feels odd: the back dial way of doing it resets all the time, and the back dial is too easy to jog accidentally. Also, EXIF seems not to report +/- EV in LR at least. I will explore these issues further because it might well be me doing something wrong...
Files here: nothing exciting but many useful shots when it comes to looking at lens performance in particular.
Tim Ashley Photography | Hasselblad X1D
More detail:
Love shooting with it though there are quite a lot of little issues. Even though the SD card has now been formatted in camera, I have still had the No Card error and I also sometimes find the camera locks and won't let you change aperture or exp comp via the dials, though using the touch screen lets you do it and also returns control to the wheels.
You can shoot it at 1x Focal Length easily and get the shot pretty much every time.
The focus points are too big and tend to concentrate on high frequency detail rather than the totally obvious - so for example, shooting a building facade and focussing on the cross bars of a sash window will result in it reliably going after the reflections in the glass instead.
MF is really nicely done and very useful. Moving focus points is a PITA and I think one should be able to move them by touching the screen. I agree with the opinion that zoom and peaking should be selectable together when using MF.
The files have loads of DR and loads of latitude though I suspect very slightly less than a D810 @ ISO 64. However, they look much less digital than Sony a7RII files. The camera tends to underexpose for evenly lit landscape scenes because it is protecting against blowing highlights.
Phocus mobile app (iPhone) hasn't been updated for the X1D yet so some of the features don't work, but you can focus and you can fire the shutter.
The lenses are beyond my expectations. They are sharp from wide open, best at 5.6 but still really good at F8 and even F11. Also, both mine seem to be good copies, which is a rarity. The only fly I have found in the ointment is that the 30mm has some purple fringing on tree twigs against bright sky at the edge of the frame (see file #40).
I didn't use any lens corrections because LR doesn't have them yet, but it looks as if the HC 35mm F3.5 profile works quite well.
I provided a link to an initial sample gallery below. All shots can be downloaded as full-res JPEGs though they were all shot RAW and developed in LR with sharpening at 60/0.7/70/20 which is my go-to until I figure out a camera's exact sweet spot. Also a tiny touch of clarity and a bit of exposure adjustment. All files hand-held, since that's my use-case for the camera.
Exposure compensation behaviour feels odd: the back dial way of doing it resets all the time, and the back dial is too easy to jog accidentally. Also, EXIF seems not to report +/- EV in LR at least. I will explore these issues further because it might well be me doing something wrong...
Files here: nothing exciting but many useful shots when it comes to looking at lens performance in particular.
Tim Ashley Photography | Hasselblad X1D
