Hasselblad 907X CFV I00C with XCD2,5/38V Review – The Artful camera of Inspiration.

* Sincere appreciation to the great team at CLES Distribution Pte Ltd, authorized distributor of Hasselblad equipment in Singapore for providing the unit for review.

Introduction and tl:dr

We have all seen a lot of cameras, but few are so unique in design that they haunt us in our minds, and the Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C is one such camera.

In a world where camera designs are 90% similar rectangular blocks, designed with a focus on ergonomics and a beautiful innovative design probably as an afterthought for most brands, the Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C takes the latter to the extreme, creating a camera more based on the art of photography and design over plain-old practicality.

Look forward to Part II where I will share more portrait samples.

And the bonus is that this object of beauty takes stunningly beautiful pictures with incredible color depth on its medium format sensor through Hasselblad’s natural color system (HNCS), as long as you are willing to work with the camera’s limitations and design intents.

This is not a camera suitable for everyone, but a camera that almost everyone wants to own.

Every camera brand sells itself as innovative, but few indeed are. Let us take a deeper look at how this innovative camera design works in real life.

Technicalities: Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C & XCD2,5/38V

As most of us know, the Hasselblad 907X camera system is a modular-type design that comes in three parts, the lens, the 907X body (yes, that thin metallic slice is the whole camera body), and the digital back CFV 100C holding the sensor and most of the controls.

Hasselblad 907X

The 907X is Hasselblad’s petite medium format camera body at 160g (In comparison, the average weight of an egg is around 50 to 70 grams)

The 907X is exceptionally lightweight, sturdy, and built to work with the CFV 100C, giving the compact 907X CFV 100C digital mirrorless medium format camera. Connecting the 907X with the CFV 100C enables shooting with a wide range of Hasselblad optics, including all XCD Lenses and all HC/HCD, V System lenses all the way from the 1950s, and even XPan lenses via adapters.

Hasselblad CFV I00C

The CFV I00C digital back is currently Hasselblad’s most powerful camera in its V system and comes with a 100-megapixel medium format BSI CMOS sensor. The CFV 100C is also updated with phase detection autofocus and face detection, which the previous 50-megapixel CFV II 50C lacked.

• 100 megapixels BSI CMOS medium-format sensor (11656 × 8742 pixels, pixel size 3.76μm)
• Sensor dimensions 43.8 x 32.9mm, Crop factor of 0.78x
• Phase detection AF and Contrast Detection AF with 294 PDAF Zones and face detection
• Hasselblad Natural Colour Solution (HNCS), 16-bit color definition with 15 stops dynamic range
• ISO Auto, from 64 to 25600
• Metering: Spot, Center-weighted, Center-Spot
• Built-in 1TB SSD storage, with support for CF express B (up to 512 GB)
• Touch-screen interface, 3.2 in TFT, 24-bit color at 2.36 million dots, and tilt up to 90 degrees
• Mechanical and Electronic shutter with electronically controlled leaf shutter
• Flash Sync can be used at all shutter speeds. Mechanical shutter only
• 907X only: 102 × 91 × 28 mm and 160 grams, CFV I00C only: 91 × 92 × 61 mm at 460 grams (excluding card and battery)
• 907X and CFV 100C: 102 x 92 x 84 mm at 620 grams (excluding card and battery)
• USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10GBits/s plus in-camera charging)
• Approximately 420 shots on a full charge (CIPA standard)

Hasselblad Natural Colour Solution technology is integrated into the CFV 100C, delivering an exclusive to Hasselblad’s real-life rendition of colors.

The CFV I00C back is compatible with any V-mount camera from Hasselblad, and it’s also compatible with the XCD mount via the 907X body. Along with the H mount adapter, the CFV I00C has been compatible with every Hasselblad lens since the 1950s. 

Hasselblad XCD 2,5/38V lens

There are 14 available X-system lenses that are fully compatible (auto-focus) with the 907X CFV II 50C, categorized across standard XCD and the newer XCD V series.

Equivalent to a full-frame 30mm focal length, the XCD 2,5/38V is a low-distortion wide-angle lens suitable for shooting journalistic, street, and landscape photography. While I had hoped for the XCD 2,5/55V for this review based on readers’ request, the review kit came with the XCD 2,5/38V, which all samples here will be based on this lens.

The XCD 2,5/38V lens features ten elements in nine groups, including three aspherical elements.

• Equivalent focal length of 30mm, aperture range: 2,5 – 32
• Angle of view diag/hor/vert: 70°/59°/46°
• Length/diameter: 68mm (length) x 76 mm (diameter)
• Weight (excl. covers and lens shade): 350g
• Filter diameter: 72 mm
• Minimum distance object to image plane: 0.30 m
• Elements/groups: 10 elements in 9 groups

Performance & Handling

Samples will be across portraits, street and of course architecture, landscapes to give a more complete picture.

First, even though the Hasselblad 907X CFV I00C hardly conforms to the typical SLR/Mirrorless body, it fits perfectly in one’s hands. I have always found the build of the Leica M system robust and excellent, but the build and craftsmanship of the Hasselblad 907X CFV I00C is a level higher, down to the highest quality materials and finishing for every single part.

Every surface, button, and camera part is machined like a well-crafted part of a Rolls-Royce luxury car rather than the typical photographic tool. The attention paid to every part is immaculate, down to how the battery door closes most assuringly.

The thing is, once you have used a well-crafted camera built with the best materials, it is hard to go back to the well… ‘standard’ build.

but to be fair this MP will still outlast my life-span and build wise much better than most other brands.

Holding the Hasselblad 907X CFV I00C is a unique experience versus our typical ‘press the viewfinder tight to our eye,’ ‘go level with the LCD,’ or ‘place the camera on a tripod’ style. At times, holding the camera at the waist level and looking down at the LCD was a new photographic experience I needed to get used to. 

Camera operation-wise, one gets a shutter button with a scroll wheel around it to change the aperture and a relatively large screen with five solid buttons along the lower edge for your main settings. That’s all you have and need, similar to Leica’s philosophy, where less can be more.

We are not new to touch screens on cameras either. Hasselblad has designed a very user-friendly implementation from managing settings to pinning the auto-focus point to zooming into shots in a very smooth and efficient manner, with the 60 frames per second screen giving a more fluid experience.

Ten minutes was all it took for me to learn how to work the camera, from taking it apart and the menu settings system.

However, with this said, the screen does ‘fade out’ under bright sunlight like every other camera screen. Hasselblad sells an optional optical viewfinder attachment for this, but I see that as more of an aesthetic/vanity accessory than a practical help.

In the auto-focus department, let me be honest and to the point. The Hasselblad 907X CFV I00C is slow by today’s Sony A9 III standards, even though I must point out that autofocus performance is significantly improved from the CFV II 50C.

While it is more likely the 907X CFV 100C is used is a studio, posed setting, I have delibrately tested it for street photography, where it’s auto-focus is still quite competent.

However, if you plan on using this camera as a run-and-gun camera or to shoot sports or wildlife, you will likely be disappointed.

The Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C is not designed to be a run and gun camera.

A point more reviewers can make more often is that we have an unhealthy obsession with autofocus speed, which should be linked with the genre of photography one does.

If you are shooting the Olympics 100-meter race, go ahead with a global shutter equipped 120 frames per second camera, but if you are doing posed wedding shots or landscapes, well, you should be questioning the salesperson trying to sell you a 30 frames per second camera. My Leica M10-R doesn’t have autofocus and does a maximum of 4.5 frames per second, and I have never found it too slow for street photography or capturing daily moments.

Hasselblad has made a big deal of their Hasselblad Natural Color Science (HNCS) and I can see why, with output having an editorial vibe and the blues and greens produced vibrant without looking artificially saturated.

The Hasselblad XCD 2,5/38V lens creates detail-rich images with plenty of sharpness across the frame, gorgeous editorial colors, and dreamy bokeh, especially when one uses the short minimum focusing distance to advantage. There are abundant details for those who love to dig into the post-processing part of photography.

Distortions are minimal, and imperfections are easily corrected in post-processing. Most images require minimal editing with this system, and in fact, if the parameters are set right, I can see the Hasselblad 907X CFV II 50C with XCD 2,5/38V being a jpeg-only camera with its realistic rendering of skin tones.

There is this colour depth in the images that really sets Hasselblad apart.

There is a control and focus ring, with the former customizable, which I set to Aperture on the lens’s all-metal body construction. Sliding the lens forward reveals the depth of distance scale and automatically sets the camera to manual focusing.

The XCD 2,5/38V lens gives pleasant bokeh (after all, it is a 30mm ƒ1.98 full-frame equivalent). Even when stopped down, the lens gives wonderful environmental portraits with pleasing bokeh.

This lens is most lovely for photojournalistic and environmental portraits, in my opinion, and if I were to invest in the system, having this with the XCD 2,5/55V would be all I need.

Conclusions

As of today, years after the release of the original 907X 50C in 2020, the 2024 Jan released Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C has been updated to bring the photographer further. While this is so, my very honest opinion is that while this is a camera most photographers will aspire to own and use, the Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C is not a camera for everyone.

Ergonomically, the Hasselblad 907X CFV I00C ensures that one will not be shooting fast with it, with every shot a deliberate practice instead of the ‘let us go with 500 continuous shots and then pick the best two later’ approach. With this camera, every shot should count and be thought through.

In a world of endless shiny new things to purchase , the Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C earns brownie points getting some of my friends excitedly dusting off their long-shelved away Hasselblad equipment as old as 1957.

The best thing about this camera is its stellar image quality. It produces beautiful images with bountiful details. Colors are true to life with an editorial flare, to the point where I feel it can be a SOOC camera, with all the room for further post-processing if one chooses to. I can understand why Hasselblad’s Natural Colour Science system alone can be a reason to purchase the system.

A critical question is: “When was it last you felt emanormed with a camera’s design?” And in this respect, the Hasselblad 907X manages to do so.

While almost everyone is chasing the newest and the fastest with the longest specifications sheet, Hasselblad has found a way to differentiate itself by tapping into its heritage and creating a unique, beautiful, and thought-provoking system.

On paper, this camera will not be the fastest nor technically the most up-to-date camera, yet this camera will inspire and do the most important job of a camera well, which is helping you create the most beautiful pictures.

I do have to return this set, but I hope one day I can purchase this Hasselblad 907X CFV 100C and XCD2,5/38V that is more of art than camera and capture the moments of life with it.

Thank you for reading.

For those keen, SLR Revolution, Singapore is a good starting point to check out Hasselblad’s system. (To be upfront and non-biased, I do not earn a single cent of commission from their sales)

Disclaimers:

1. All product photos and samples here were photographed by me unless otherwise stated. I believe any reviewer with pride should produce their own product photos.

2. All images were shot with the Hasselblad 907X, CFV 100C, and XCD 2.5 / 38V, and the raw files were edited in LR CC Classic to my preferences. 

3. This review is not sponsored, and the setup was returned to CLES Singapore, the local authorized distributor of Hasselblad.

4. I do not do affiliate purchase links to keep myself neutral. I write as a passion and a hobby, and I appreciate that photography brands are kind enough to respect and work with me.

5. The best way to support me is to share the review, or you can always help support me by contributing to my fees to WordPress for the domain using the Paypal button at the bottom of the page.