After more than a year’s wait, the Hasselblad XCD 90mm f/2.5 V lens that was announced alongside the X2D 100C camera is finally available and the first reviews have begun rolling out.
Ted Forbes of The Art of Photography has gone hands-on with the new 90mm f/2.5, calling it the best XCD lens yet. “I’ve been shooting on the lens for about a month now. It’s everything that I hoped it would be, honestly,” Forbes explains.
Forbes also cites the lightweight design, compact form factor, impressive autofocus performance, and excellent optics as reasons why he loves Hasselblad’s new 90mm prime lens. It appears that the wait has paid off.
Digging into the specifications a bit more, the lens weighs just 19.43 ounces (551 grams), excluding the optional lens hood. Compared to the Hasselblad XCD 80mm f/1.9, which weighs 36.82 ounces (1,044g), the new 90mm is remarkably lighter. As Forbes shows in the video above, the new lens is also noticeably shorter and narrower.
He also demonstrates that thanks to the longer focal length, the f/2.5 aperture delivers a very similar depth of field as the 80mm f/1.9, enabling Hasselblad shooters to achieve impressive subject isolation.
New X2D 100C Firmware Adds Face-Detect Autofocus
In addition to finally launching its 90mm f/2.5 lens, Hasselblad released a firmware update (version 3.1.0) for the X2D 100C.
The most notable new feature is face detection in autofocus mode. The mode allows users to swap between automatic face detection and manual face selection, and despite not including a specific eye-detect mode, Forbes says that so far, it appears that when using face detection, the camera does a good job of focusing on a person’s eyes.
With the firmware update, the X2D 100C can also record HEIF format images with 10-bit color depth and shoot RAW+HEIF.
The camera offers live view support for tethered shooting when the camera is connected to the Phocus Mobile 2 app or Phocus for Mac. The camera also supports the Profoto A10 for Nikon in TTL mode, thanks to the update.
Hasselblad also states that version 3.1.0 introduces “optimized sensor calibration to improve image quality,” although it is unclear what this entails.
Image credits: Hasselblad