A Very Careful Hands-On With Hasselblad’s New $26,000 Medium-Format Camera

MOST DIGITAL CAMERAS have an LCD screen that measures three inches on the diagonal. The 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D‘s sensor is about that big. That gives it more than twice the surface area of a 35mm full-frame sensor—and a tremendous amount of photographic power.

The H6D, available in 100- and 50-megapixel variations, marks a renaissance of sorts for the venerable Swedish firm. Although Hasselblad remains synonymous with medium-format cameras (astronauts used them during the Apollo missions, and the cover of Abbey Road was shot with one), it has recently experimented with funky rebranded Sony cameras in a bid to tap the consumer market. That didn’t work, prompting a return to the good stuff with a $33,000 medium-format camera to celebrate its 75th anniversary.

Pocket Change

Hasselblad’s latest model shows how medium-format cameras are getting smarter and easier to use. Beyond the gargantuan sensors, the most notable thing about Hasselblad’s latest flagships is the tech inside. These are strictly pro-level machines, but the company co-opted some user-friendly features from smartphones and compact cameras. 

For instance, the H6D sports a touchscreen interface, remote control via Wi-Fi, dual SD and CFast card slots, and USB-C for offloading its huge images. Making the camera more modern and easier to use won’t change the fact medium-format cameras are strictly for professionals, but it may broaden their appeal.

“We want to attract new customers,” says company CEO Perry Oosting. “Since the mobile phone came out, it seems like the whole industry is starting to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. The compact camera went away, and now people are moving up to a DSLR. Now they are going to full frame and medium format. That process is quite interesting, because there is a lot more interest in medium format.”

Pixel Pusher

The camera’s huge, high-resolution CMOS sensor does things that would make some professional full-frame DSLRs cower in a corner. Image quality is astounding, with impossibly fine detail and texture, incredibly shallow depth of field, beautiful 16-bit color, and a wide swath of dynamic range. The combination of sharpness and resolution are ideal for making huge prints, or cropping and enlarging portions of a frame.

Of course, massive sensors beget massive cameras, which explains why you don’t see many medium-format cameras in the wild. Massive sensors also beget massive price tags, which is the other major reason medium format is a niche market: The 100-megapixel Hasselblad H6D-100c will set you back $33,000, while the 50-megapixel H6D-50c runs $26,000. You may occasionally see one in the hands of a professional wedding or landscape photographer, but they’re generally studio cameras. Hasselblad’s leaf shutter system syncs well with high-speed flashes, an ideal trait for controlled settings.

Beyond its size, unique design, and superpowered sensor, the H6D handles like any modern DSLR. During a midday shoot with the H6D-50c, the autofocus system responded quickly in outdoor light, and the results were predictably beautiful. You could enlarge and inspect tack-sharp details on objects far in the distance, and the colors it captured were vibrant but realistic. Shooting with one of Hasselblad’s new 100mm f/2.2 lenses, I was astounded at how deep into the aperture range you could go while still capturing shallow depth-of-field.

The leaf shutter housed in the lens produces the most beautiful shutter sound you’ve ever heard, a loud, mechanical, hearty KLA-CHING. Every time you hit that bright orange shutter button, it sounds like you’ve nailed a drive off the sweet spot of the golf club.

The camera is a beast. With a lens and battery grip, the camera tops 4.5 pounds—more than a pound heavier than full-frame pro models like the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II and Nikon D5. Still, it’s well-balanced and surprisingly comfortable to hold. Hasselblad’s unique design puts the pistol-style grip on the right, with buttons and scroll wheels for dialing everything in just a finger- or thumb-stretch away.

You also can use the 3-inch touchscreen, and intuitive menus make using a camera that costs as much as a BMW 228i much less intimidating. While viewing exposure settings on the screen, you simply tap the current aperture value, ISO setting, shutter speed, or focus mode to make adjustments. You can swipe side to side and use pinch-to-zoom to review photos, and swiping up opens a deeper menu of options. It’ll do live view too, although the screen is fixed. Forget about adjusting the display to shoot from the hip.

Medium-format cameras typically don’t have the continuous-shooting speeds, ISO ranges, or video features to match more portable models, but the H6D makes some steps forward. The 50-megapixel model shoots at a faster 2.3 frames per second, while the 100-megapixel camera captures a shot every second. That’s glacial compared to some full-frame cameras, but we’re talking about a steady stream of 120MB RAW files here.

It’s the Little Things

Helping speed things up is a newly designed shutter mechanism. Hasselblad’s leaf shutter design is part of the lens, not the body, so you’ll need the company’s new lenses to achieve the top shutter and flash-sync speed of 1/2000 of a second. Using legacy lenses caps the shutter speed at around half that.

You do find some key differences between the 100- and 50-megapixel models beyond resolution and price. The H6D-100c is the only one that shoots 4K video, capturing 3840×2160 footage in Hasselblad RAW format at 30fps. The 50-megapixel model tops out at HD resolution. The sensor in the 100-megapixel camera measures 53x40mm compared to the 50-megapixel camera’s 44x33mm sensor. The 100-megapixel H6D has an extra ISO stop at the high end (12,800).

There’s also a crop factor to consider with the H6D-50c. The focal length multiplier is about 1.3x, while the H6D-100c acts more like a full-frame camera.

While the H6D-100c arrives in June, you can get a the H6D-50c by the end of April. Owners of other medium-format cameras can trade their old kit in for up to $11,500 of credit toward a new H6D. And according to Oosting, Hasselblad isn’t done with the announcements. He hinted that the Photokina show in September may provide another relaunching pad for the company.