- 7 weeks ago
Despite gadgets getting more expensive, Hasselblad surprised us when they said their new flagship digital medium format camera will cost $7,399 which is $800 cheaper than its predecessor. The camera also comes with industry-first HDR photos, 10-stop in-body stabilization and LiDAR focusing. The 100MP photos are rated for 15.3 stops of dynamic range and look absolutely stunning, but the camera, just like most medium format cameras, feels lethargic at times. Are you ready to sacrifice it for better photos?
Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00okay i'm gonna take this slowly these are some of my favorite photos taken with the Hasselblad
00:10x2d 100c mark ii it is Hasselblad's first update to its flagship digital media format camera in
00:18about three years and it comes with some pretty exciting new features so for one it has lighter
00:24auto focusing it is also the first media format camera capable of taking hdr photos and it has
00:29a 10 stop in-body stabilization and also it just looks stunning
00:40but in many ways it is also similar to the xd2 mark ii it has the exact same shape there are a few more
00:47buttons and a joystick now and that makes operating this camera a lot easier and faster but one other
00:53big change is the price the Hasselblad xd2 mark ii is 800 cheaper than its predecessor it is 7400
01:03and for a Hasselblad medium format camera that is not that bad it's still a lot but not that bad
01:10it's starting to feel like this is a genuine attempt by Hasselblad to put medium format in the hands of a
01:15much wider audience but comparing to something like a fuji or a leica medium format camera this camera
01:23does not shoot video so did Hasselblad do enough to convince you to buy one
01:35one two three okay hello so here's my stance about just image quality in general
01:43it's almost a non-issue anymore basically any camera that you have can take great photos whether
01:48it's this drone up there or your phone or a crop sensor or even action cameras they can all get
01:56really decent results but yeah when it comes to medium format cameras the image quality is
02:01always going to be levels beyond anything else and we will talk about image quality a little bit later
02:07i do want to start off with the lighter autofocus system because that's the thing that it's actually
02:12new here and i guess it makes sense to record this with a drone because this is sort of the first
02:18time that you can sense dji's influence over Hasselblad and not the other way around i hope i'm still in
02:25frame i am not similarly to image quality autofocus is one area where camera companies are trying to battle
02:34it out and show us what they can do by adding more autofocus points by adding subject detection by
02:40doing focus tracking and those things are all good and do improve your experience but for an
02:45everyday user autofocus has been very good for a number of years now but when it comes to medium
02:51format it always felt like medium format cameras are just slower so in order to fix that Hasselblad is
02:57adding a lighter sensor that works in tandem with contour detection and phase detection autofocus to
03:03improve your experience is lighter focusing good it is good is it impressive not quite is it bad far
03:14from it it's pretty good and it's pretty reliable it is pinpoint accurate but there are some flaws with
03:21it it's good at many things but you do notice some points where it just falls behind and i found there
03:28are moments where the lighter would kind of question itself it often felt like it would try to
03:33focus beyond the subject and kind of work its way towards back especially when it comes to continuous
03:39autofocus things were better with the new lens that Hasselblad is also releasing which is a 35 to 100
03:45millimeter lens for the most part in this review you'll see a lot of examples where i was sticking to
03:50the 25 millimeter lens which is just lovely when it comes to subject detection it also felt like the
03:57system would often rely on focusing on a subject entirely and not necessarily an eye unless that
04:04subject is really kind of looking in the direction of the camera has it actually made me miss out on
04:11any potential shots maybe a few but it was pretty rare it just felt a little less confident in its
04:18decisions but don't expect that focusing is going to be able to track a subject running towards you in
04:23continuous burst mode or something like that on the other hand lidar works really well in low light
04:29but when it comes to astrophotography i would still just rely on manual focusing and with this camera
04:36and with this lens astrophotography was a blast
04:51this Hasselblad just like its predecessor has a built-in one terabyte ssd which makes processing
04:56these photos fairly fast it's not blazingly instant or anything like that but at no point did i feel like
05:03it was drastically slowing me down and as you saw i was doing a lot of astrophoto time lapses and for
05:09that you do have to set the delay to be a couple of seconds just to be sure that you get all those
05:14photos done and if you need to expand that storage there's still a cf express type b slot there as
05:20well as far as the other non-astrophoto goes the photos look crisp and beautiful just like you'd expect
05:26from a 100 megapixel back illuminated sensor the details are sharp the edges are razor thin and the
05:33bokeh from the 25 millimeter prime lens is beautiful and it's always nice when you get that signature
05:38has about eight point starburst effect the x2 mark ii is rated for 15.3 stops of dynamic range and the
05:4616-bit photos just look very real and lifelike pair that with the incredibly accurate color and you'll be
05:55amazed at the result and they also look really nice on this hdr display on the camera too and speaking of
06:02hdr photos they look pretty nice in general i'm not a massive fan of hdr but they look decent also
06:09heads up it's kind of weird to talk about hdr photos in an sdr video so i'll include a download link below
06:16so you can look at them by yourself wherever you want hey edit v over here just want to point out a
06:22couple of things you also might see edit v hop in in this video more often because i keep finding out
06:27more little things about this camera that i feel like i should mention so first thing with hdr it
06:33is not always available in every mode basically it's not available in manual mode or exposure
06:39bracketing or focus bracketing or things like that second thing when you're shooting in continuous drive
06:44those photos are not going to be 16-bit they're going to be 14-bit but it's not that big of a deal
06:50anyways that's it in some extreme cases you'll see a lot of changes particularly in the shadows where those
06:56get boosted up and the noise starts creeping in but in exposures that are a little bit more even
07:02the hdr processing also looks pretty good edit v is back again because there's one more thing that i
07:08want to add when it comes to hdr specifically so there's one good thing about it and that is the new
07:14focus 2 app that you use to connect to the hasma one deep app is really good it looks nice and it's
07:22pretty functional which is sometimes a rarity with camera apps they're getting better but this one was
07:29really nice but more importantly the thing that you can do with this app is just control how much of
07:34that hdr processing you actually want in there and for the last few days i feel like it has given my hdr
07:42photos a second life i feel like i'm getting the results that i'm pleased with that i would usually just
07:48do in lightroom with a regular raw file but now i can kind of do it within the app and
07:53yeah it looks really neat if you're into this sort of look i think you'll be happy and i think this is
07:57the way to go when it comes to the hdr photos on the hasma lab um all right back to indoors v
08:05the noise in general in hdr and non-hdr photos it looks really good and well maintained anything
08:11around 6400 or higher you'll see more noise that starts really degrading the overall image quality
08:17and the lowest iso on this camera is now 50 which is the native iso which is down from 65 on the
08:23predecessor another big update here is the in-body stabilization which is five axis and it's 10 stops
08:33up from seven on its predecessor hasselbot says that you can get handheld exposures up to several
08:39seconds without a use of tripod i don't know what several seconds means but i was able to get
08:44really good long exposures during a bright and sunny day to get some of that silky waterfall
08:51images and it looks really good although i was leaning against the railing just in case
08:56i do wish there was video mode because i feel like 10 stop ibis on media format and video would look
09:01really nice but here we are so i mentioned this earlier the top of the video but it seems like
09:07camera specs are kind of fading away everyone is capable of getting great photos everyone has great
09:13autofocus and color science is really pinpoint accurate so it really comes down to how a camera
09:20makes you feel when you're using it
09:29this house of blood is gorgeous and it is bold the dark gray matte material really stands out
09:36the grip on his side has this new rubberized texture that again looks really good but it also
09:42feels very nice to hold it feels like a luxury supercar you feel like you're in a driver's seat
09:49buckled up and ready for a very smooth ride the three level tilting screen the buttons the joystick
09:55the dials they all feel extremely well made but it is also a medium format camera which means it is
10:02pretty heavy and it will tire you out by the end of the day and i've spent some long days with this camera
10:08speaking of which the battery life probably could be a little bit better but i was using it a lot it
10:13mostly survived throughout the day but i had to turn it on and off a lot just to save up any battery
10:19but anyways all of it is worth it once you see the results and if that is your priority you will fall in
10:25love with this camera but for me also the novelty wore off this camera is big and it is heavy and i
10:32really just wanted to go back to some of my more compact less noticeable cameras that i can carry
10:38around everywhere with me i don't do massive prints i mostly post photos on social media and for that i just
10:44need something more compact and something that it's easier to bring around and lastly we do get to
10:49that price 7 400 is not that bad for this camera because i really thought we were looking at eight
10:55or nine or even more for this camera but don't get me wrong spending more than seven pounds of dollars for
11:02just a body is a lot but some of the memories that you can make with this camera are truly priceless
11:19hey one more thing before we wrap up this video um as you might have noticed in the lower third at
11:23the beginning of this video it said that this is my final video for the verge and after 10 wonderful
11:29years i am moving on and i just want to take a very quick moment to acknowledge that and acknowledge
11:35all of you who've been there watching the videos liking commenting and even disliking it's all
11:40it's all it's all part of it it's all good um but yeah for a lot of the 10 years that i've been here
11:44i've been behind the scenes and whenever i had an opportunity to be on camera it was always a lot
11:50of fun so i do want to thank you for watching not only the videos that i'm hosting but every video
11:56that i worked on uh it means a whole lot to me and to the entire staff i do mean it so
12:04yeah that's basically all i wanted to say um thank you for being there and thank you for giving me a
12:11platform to talk about things that i love cameras drones laptops phones all things tech um anyways
12:21v out thank you
Recommended
6:01
|
Up next
8:44
11:13
8:52
4:07
10:31
4:19
10:16
8:17
11:44
3:25
9:41
9:45
6:40
Be the first to comment