**A Review of the Hasselblad X1D and XF 45mm Lens**

I recently had the opportunity to review the Hasselblad X1D medium format camera system, specifically the XF 45mm lens. The X1D is a mirrorless camera that shoots medium format, and it's small and portable, making it easy to carry around.

The XF 45mm lens is a medium format lens with an f4 aperture, which may seem like a limiting factor at first glance. However, I found that the lens performs well, especially when you're not looking for complete sharpness. The lens has a close focusing distance of 0.35 meters or roughly 13 inches, which can be useful in certain situations.

The image quality of the XF 45mm lens is excellent, and it's particularly good at capturing high dynamic range images with lots of detail in both the shadows and highlights. I also appreciated the ability to blur out out-of-focus areas, as seen in this particular image where I've focused on a padlock and still managed to capture some interesting foreground and background details.

One of the most interesting aspects of the XF 45mm lens is its ability to handle high ISO performance. While it's not ideal for extreme low-light situations, it does manage to produce decent results even at higher ISOs. However, I did notice a bit of purple fringing on the extreme edges of this image, which can be easily fixed in post-processing.

Another benefit of the XF 45mm lens is its portability and versatility as a portrait lens. The focal length is a comfortable distance from my subject, and it's surprisingly good at capturing detail even when zoomed in. This makes it an excellent choice for portraits, especially when compared to other lenses that may require more effort to achieve similar results.

One of the standout features of the Hasselblad X1D system is its portability. The camera itself is small and lightweight, making it easy to carry around without sacrificing any quality. I've had the opportunity to use this lens in a variety of situations, including on a bridge where I was able to capture some beautiful spherical highlights in the cables.

To put the XF 45mm lens into perspective, I recently used it on a trip to Arizona and compared it to my friend's medium format Phase 1 system. The X1D performed flawlessly, even when set up on a tripod before sunrise. The ability to shoot medium format without sacrificing portability is a major advantage of this system.

**The X1D System: A Game-Changer for Medium Format Photography**

One of the most significant benefits of the Hasselblad X1D system is its affordability. With a price tag around $1000, it's significantly cheaper than many other medium format systems on the market. This makes it an attractive option for photographers who want to shoot medium format without breaking the bank.

**A Preview: First Impressions and Thoughts**

I recently had the chance to spend two weeks with the XF 45mm lens, and I've been impressed by its performance. However, I'd love to hear from you - what do you think about this lens? Is it a game-changer for medium format photography? Do you have any favorite features or concerns?

In conclusion, the Hasselblad X1D with the XF 45mm lens is an excellent system for photographers who want to shoot medium format without sacrificing portability. The lens performs well, especially when you're not looking for complete sharpness, and it's surprisingly good at capturing detail even when zoomed in. The camera itself is small and lightweight, making it easy to carry around without sacrificing any quality.

**Additional Resources**

If you're interested in learning more about the Hasselblad X1D system or want to see more content from this lens, be sure to follow my friends Maggie and Holly on Instagram. They're both excellent photographers who have a wealth of knowledge to share about medium format photography and the Hasselblad X1D system.

By following these links you will find their profiles, great to connect with them as well

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ennice little surprise from Hasselblad today they announced a new lens that was not on any roadmap we now have the Hasselblad xcd 445 P the P stands for portable and this lens will actually replace the previous 45 millimeter which was the F 3.5 lens this lens is outstanding I've actually had the opportunity to be using it under non-disclosure for the last couple weeks and so I want to share some of my images with you today this lens is quite compact it is smaller than the previous 45 millimeter it's also sharper it's got better bouquet it's got nearly silent operation in both autofocus and the actual shutter sound there is no focus by wire it's an actual focus ring and best of all it's affordable I think this is a massive step forward in the xcd system because it makes it more accessible and it's really a much better lens so I want to dive down and look at some images I want to discuss it a little bit but first only give a quick shout-out to our sponsor today who are the awesome folks over at Skillshare so it's a whole new year and it's time to explore new skills and get lost in creativity well skill shares online courses are here for you what you find might just surprise and inspire you skill share is an online learning community that offers membership with meaning with so much to explore real projects to create and so the support of fellow creatives Skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth Skillshare offers classes designed for real life so that you can move your creative journey forward without putting your life on hold you can learn and grow with short classes that fit your busy routine whether it's video photography or any other creative fields Skillshare have classes for everyone give an example here this is a class that I've been looking at called outdoor photography shooting it's sunset sunrise and night which is taught by Chris Burkhart who is pretty much an Instagram rockstar incredible lifestyle landscape photographer this has a really awesome way of breaking it down and showing you all the basics of landscape photography Skillshare is also incredibly affordable especially when compared to pricy in-person classes and workshops an annual subscription is less than ten dollars a month so click the link in the description and get to three months of premium membership and explore your creativity go get inspired and I want to give a special shout out and thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this episode of the art of photography the xcd for 45p is actually a redesign not only optically but also mechanically from the original the original was an F 3.5 lens I liked that lens quite a bit it's been kind of my go-to on the x1d I like the fact that it's a 35 millimeter equivalent so it's a really nice carry around lens it's really versatile but we got a major optic upgrade in the new lens now you can see that the original lens had 9 elements and 7 groups we have a slight redesign with that but we have added to a spherical elements and the upgrade in quality is massive so if we look at the MTF charts if you don't know how to read MTF charts I have a whole video on that I will put a link in the description as well as in the corner above but basically what we're looking at is three different readings on each lens the original 3.5 is on the left the f4 lens is on the right these line pairs are taken at 10 millimeters 20 millimeters and 30 millimeter line pairs and so you can see that in the original ends there's a little bit of a stigmatism at the corners it's really not that bad that was a really good lens but everything is much tighter in the new 445 P and of course Hasselblad provides MTF stakin at f/8 as well and you can see that this lens is very sharp with very outstanding performance there's also been quite a few physical upgrades to this lens as well as I mentioned this lens is not focused by wire so if you liked a critical focus and you like the feel of a manual focus ring you can do that on this lens the autofocus is actually very fast it's actually way better than the original version of this lens and it's also quiet if you've ever used the original 45 millimeter lens that was the first lens that hustle blot did for the xcd system it's kind of noisy there's a lot of shutter sounds because the shutters inside the lens this one is pretty quiet in fact it's just near silent of course all this stuff is really awesome but more importantly I want to look at some images so if we go over to Lightroom here I'm going to open up a few to show you first of all let's just pick a landscape here of downtown Fort Worth this was shot with the new 45p and you can see that if we zoom in which is very sharp so we retain all the detail you would expect out of medium format but most importantly especially out of a compact lens is if we go over to the corners and you can see that edge to edge sharpness there's still an enormous amount of detail here there really is no fall-off there is a little bit of light fall-off on the lens and that's to be expected but of course that's all corrected with Lightroom or focus or whatever software you're using but anyway we have outstanding edge to edge sharpness and detail another thing that is important is the bouquet rendering normally you wouldn't think of an f4 lens as being a bouquet machine and it's really not it's not designed to do that and that's really not how salons aesthetic with a lot of these lenses however the out-of-focus areas do render quite beautifully it's never distracting it's always very pleasing it's kind of an understated subtle lens and I actually really like that and a lot of these were shot wide open so you can kind of see what it does is it drifts off into the back and of course I like to shoot this way because I kind of feel like especially with modern lenses that have really shallow razor-thin depth of field it's really easy to use bouquet as a crutch and actually just starting to use that as a compositional technique because of their and it's easy and what I like is when it's just kind of a subtle effect on your overall image and so a lot of these images are really fun to do now the big sacrifice that you will have with this lens is shooting in low-light it is only an f4 so you're gonna have to use higher ISO settings if that's what you want to do or go with a different lens it's not horrible and it is medium format so you get a little bit better high ISO performance but that still can be an issue now this is kind of an interesting image if you want to talk about out-of-focus areas and what you can do with blurring stuff out because this lens even though it's an f4 you do have a close focusing distance of 0.35 meters or roughly 13 inches and you can see that when i zoom away in on this padlock where the Sun was hitting it and this images really unedited you can see there's a little bit of purple fringing on the extreme edges and I don't consider this to be a big deal because this is a really easy thing to fix in post processing and whether you're using focus or using Lightroom and so in its preparing minut even as that the other thing that's interesting is this image because I have my focus point on the padlock we can see foreground bouquet as well as background this is on a bridge so the background is a little ways away but it has a nice blur out but you also see these cool spherical highlights and the way they kind of come across in these cables that go across to add to the guarding on this bridge but anyway kind of an interesting image to show you what the optical qualities are on this lens when you're not going for something that's just completely sharp but what does it say one of these other images where you do have a lot of sharpness and the other thing too is even in these clouds and this is a pretty high dynamic range image you still retain a lot of detail in the highlight areas and a lot of detail in the shadow areas so it's got an excellent micro contrast to it this lens is also surprisingly good as a portrait lens it's a little closer to your subject then I like to be I prefer more of an 80 millimeter type focal length but at 45 it's still a comfortable distance and it does really well and again when you zoom in and you look at the detail this is kind of what medium format is all about in terms of rendering detail this is my friend Maggie you should follow her on Instagram I will put a link to her Instagram in the show description and this is my friend Holly who also is an excellent photographer you should follow her as well but anyway this is some really quite a nice portrait lens we just did these kind of really quickly in natural light one last image that I want to show you and I think this is just kind of personifies for me what's important about the x1d in the whole xcd system is that it's small and it's portable so this is a couple seconds long and exposure I literally just set the camera on a rock I didn't have a tripod or anything I use the self-timer to fire the shutter and you can get really nice motion blur and it's super portable you don't have to lug a lot of stuff around and this to me is one of the most important arguments for the Hasselblad xcd systems so the x1d the xcd lenses is that it's portable it's small it's a mirrorless camera that shoots medium format that's really easy to carry around and now that we have the super portable compact lens to go with it that sacrifices nothing in terms of optical performance in fact it's way better than its predecessor this makes the whole system really start to come into play I think now one of the first experiences I had with the x1d was a couple years ago when I went out to Arizona and I got up one morning went out with a friend of mine to shoot the Grand Canyon and he brought his medium format phase 1 system which is an excellent system as well I brought the original x1d and nothing but the 45 millimeter lens and Here I am with this small camera bag I packed nothing we've just throw it in the car we get up we go before sunrise I set it up on a tripod and before I know it I'm photographing and just made everything so easy without sacrificing any quality it's portable it's really easy to manage I would love to know what you guys think because any also significant about this lens is that it is affordable and so add $1,000 give or take actually it's a little more than $1000 is this make the x1d a more appealing system for you I would love to know this is sort of a first preview I want to do a full more in-depth review later on when I've had more time with the lens I just had it for two weeks on this go around and just got the images that I got but I would love to know what you guys think so anyway share a comment below remember to like this video and if you want to see more subscribe we'll see you guys in the next one until then laternice little surprise from Hasselblad today they announced a new lens that was not on any roadmap we now have the Hasselblad xcd 445 P the P stands for portable and this lens will actually replace the previous 45 millimeter which was the F 3.5 lens this lens is outstanding I've actually had the opportunity to be using it under non-disclosure for the last couple weeks and so I want to share some of my images with you today this lens is quite compact it is smaller than the previous 45 millimeter it's also sharper it's got better bouquet it's got nearly silent operation in both autofocus and the actual shutter sound there is no focus by wire it's an actual focus ring and best of all it's affordable I think this is a massive step forward in the xcd system because it makes it more accessible and it's really a much better lens so I want to dive down and look at some images I want to discuss it a little bit but first only give a quick shout-out to our sponsor today who are the awesome folks over at Skillshare so it's a whole new year and it's time to explore new skills and get lost in creativity well skill shares online courses are here for you what you find might just surprise and inspire you skill share is an online learning community that offers membership with meaning with so much to explore real projects to create and so the support of fellow creatives Skillshare empowers you to accomplish real growth Skillshare offers classes designed for real life so that you can move your creative journey forward without putting your life on hold you can learn and grow with short classes that fit your busy routine whether it's video photography or any other creative fields Skillshare have classes for everyone give an example here this is a class that I've been looking at called outdoor photography shooting it's sunset sunrise and night which is taught by Chris Burkhart who is pretty much an Instagram rockstar incredible lifestyle landscape photographer this has a really awesome way of breaking it down and showing you all the basics of landscape photography Skillshare is also incredibly affordable especially when compared to pricy in-person classes and workshops an annual subscription is less than ten dollars a month so click the link in the description and get to three months of premium membership and explore your creativity go get inspired and I want to give a special shout out and thanks to Skillshare for sponsoring this episode of the art of photography the xcd for 45p is actually a redesign not only optically but also mechanically from the original the original was an F 3.5 lens I liked that lens quite a bit it's been kind of my go-to on the x1d I like the fact that it's a 35 millimeter equivalent so it's a really nice carry around lens it's really versatile but we got a major optic upgrade in the new lens now you can see that the original lens had 9 elements and 7 groups we have a slight redesign with that but we have added to a spherical elements and the upgrade in quality is massive so if we look at the MTF charts if you don't know how to read MTF charts I have a whole video on that I will put a link in the description as well as in the corner above but basically what we're looking at is three different readings on each lens the original 3.5 is on the left the f4 lens is on the right these line pairs are taken at 10 millimeters 20 millimeters and 30 millimeter line pairs and so you can see that in the original ends there's a little bit of a stigmatism at the corners it's really not that bad that was a really good lens but everything is much tighter in the new 445 P and of course Hasselblad provides MTF stakin at f/8 as well and you can see that this lens is very sharp with very outstanding performance there's also been quite a few physical upgrades to this lens as well as I mentioned this lens is not focused by wire so if you liked a critical focus and you like the feel of a manual focus ring you can do that on this lens the autofocus is actually very fast it's actually way better than the original version of this lens and it's also quiet if you've ever used the original 45 millimeter lens that was the first lens that hustle blot did for the xcd system it's kind of noisy there's a lot of shutter sounds because the shutters inside the lens this one is pretty quiet in fact it's just near silent of course all this stuff is really awesome but more importantly I want to look at some images so if we go over to Lightroom here I'm going to open up a few to show you first of all let's just pick a landscape here of downtown Fort Worth this was shot with the new 45p and you can see that if we zoom in which is very sharp so we retain all the detail you would expect out of medium format but most importantly especially out of a compact lens is if we go over to the corners and you can see that edge to edge sharpness there's still an enormous amount of detail here there really is no fall-off there is a little bit of light fall-off on the lens and that's to be expected but of course that's all corrected with Lightroom or focus or whatever software you're using but anyway we have outstanding edge to edge sharpness and detail another thing that is important is the bouquet rendering normally you wouldn't think of an f4 lens as being a bouquet machine and it's really not it's not designed to do that and that's really not how salons aesthetic with a lot of these lenses however the out-of-focus areas do render quite beautifully it's never distracting it's always very pleasing it's kind of an understated subtle lens and I actually really like that and a lot of these were shot wide open so you can kind of see what it does is it drifts off into the back and of course I like to shoot this way because I kind of feel like especially with modern lenses that have really shallow razor-thin depth of field it's really easy to use bouquet as a crutch and actually just starting to use that as a compositional technique because of their and it's easy and what I like is when it's just kind of a subtle effect on your overall image and so a lot of these images are really fun to do now the big sacrifice that you will have with this lens is shooting in low-light it is only an f4 so you're gonna have to use higher ISO settings if that's what you want to do or go with a different lens it's not horrible and it is medium format so you get a little bit better high ISO performance but that still can be an issue now this is kind of an interesting image if you want to talk about out-of-focus areas and what you can do with blurring stuff out because this lens even though it's an f4 you do have a close focusing distance of 0.35 meters or roughly 13 inches and you can see that when i zoom away in on this padlock where the Sun was hitting it and this images really unedited you can see there's a little bit of purple fringing on the extreme edges and I don't consider this to be a big deal because this is a really easy thing to fix in post processing and whether you're using focus or using Lightroom and so in its preparing minut even as that the other thing that's interesting is this image because I have my focus point on the padlock we can see foreground bouquet as well as background this is on a bridge so the background is a little ways away but it has a nice blur out but you also see these cool spherical highlights and the way they kind of come across in these cables that go across to add to the guarding on this bridge but anyway kind of an interesting image to show you what the optical qualities are on this lens when you're not going for something that's just completely sharp but what does it say one of these other images where you do have a lot of sharpness and the other thing too is even in these clouds and this is a pretty high dynamic range image you still retain a lot of detail in the highlight areas and a lot of detail in the shadow areas so it's got an excellent micro contrast to it this lens is also surprisingly good as a portrait lens it's a little closer to your subject then I like to be I prefer more of an 80 millimeter type focal length but at 45 it's still a comfortable distance and it does really well and again when you zoom in and you look at the detail this is kind of what medium format is all about in terms of rendering detail this is my friend Maggie you should follow her on Instagram I will put a link to her Instagram in the show description and this is my friend Holly who also is an excellent photographer you should follow her as well but anyway this is some really quite a nice portrait lens we just did these kind of really quickly in natural light one last image that I want to show you and I think this is just kind of personifies for me what's important about the x1d in the whole xcd system is that it's small and it's portable so this is a couple seconds long and exposure I literally just set the camera on a rock I didn't have a tripod or anything I use the self-timer to fire the shutter and you can get really nice motion blur and it's super portable you don't have to lug a lot of stuff around and this to me is one of the most important arguments for the Hasselblad xcd systems so the x1d the xcd lenses is that it's portable it's small it's a mirrorless camera that shoots medium format that's really easy to carry around and now that we have the super portable compact lens to go with it that sacrifices nothing in terms of optical performance in fact it's way better than its predecessor this makes the whole system really start to come into play I think now one of the first experiences I had with the x1d was a couple years ago when I went out to Arizona and I got up one morning went out with a friend of mine to shoot the Grand Canyon and he brought his medium format phase 1 system which is an excellent system as well I brought the original x1d and nothing but the 45 millimeter lens and Here I am with this small camera bag I packed nothing we've just throw it in the car we get up we go before sunrise I set it up on a tripod and before I know it I'm photographing and just made everything so easy without sacrificing any quality it's portable it's really easy to manage I would love to know what you guys think because any also significant about this lens is that it is affordable and so add $1,000 give or take actually it's a little more than $1000 is this make the x1d a more appealing system for you I would love to know this is sort of a first preview I want to do a full more in-depth review later on when I've had more time with the lens I just had it for two weeks on this go around and just got the images that I got but I would love to know what you guys think so anyway share a comment below remember to like this video and if you want to see more subscribe we'll see you guys in the next one until then later\n"