Just before Christmas I bought myself an Hasselblad XPan ii with a 45mm lens. I’ve got some pretty clear ideas what I want to do with this camera, though in fact largely speaking I think I’m more interested in the results I can achieve with the 90mm I’ve bought since.
Regardless, the 45mm is a lens I still want to get to grips with; I’m pretty certain I can find good use for it, especially when the summer comes and me and the family start going out for our walks in the countryside again. So, first roll, just a bit of a mission to get used to the camera and experiment with the field of view and aspect ratio a bit.
First impressions of the camera are fairly positive, it’s seems largely speaking fairly logical to use and is comfortable in the hand, if a little big and heavy. I’ll get to all that in much more detail when I eventually get around to writing the review. In the meanwhile I just want to talk about my first roll.
Unfortunately, the first roll was somewhat of a disaster. I’ve got so used to shooting the M-A recently that the automation completely confuddled me. I loaded a roll of HP5, set the ISO to 3200 and proceeded to shoot on aperture priority without paying any real attention to how the meter was responding. It didn’t go well, many of my shots ended up underexposed leaving me with murky scans.
AG photo lab assure me they processed at +3, so my current feeling is that I need to spend some time learning how the meter reads (something I’ve been doing with the currently loaded roll).
Regardless of the slight balls up, and the somewhat murky underexposed scans I received back, I have been able to salvage something out of a couple of the shots with the slightly heavier use of Lightroom than I’m usually comfortable applying.
These are the best of the bunch, far from perfect exposures, yes, but I do love the aspect ratio, and actually feel quite comfortable with the focal length
Wish me more luck with the next roll!
Hamish
You can find my eventual review of the Hasselblad XPan-ii here
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Patrik on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 15/01/2016
Will follow your thoughts with this camera!
Comment posted: 15/01/2016
Paul Needham on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 15/01/2016
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Cody Priebe on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 15/01/2016
The sausage one too is really cool. I love the amount of black. ah- they are all cool. Well done.
Cant wait to see more!
Comment posted: 15/01/2016
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Patrick on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
I agree with Paul, you are too hard on yourself. The exposures convey a nice mood. Your compositions are great, especially the last five.
I bought the original Xpan when it first came out in the 90s (I was on the wait list from B H, so it was an early production model), the paint peeled off like crazy and the 45 was quite soft on the edges, especially wide open. Honestly, quite disappointing. I sold it after a year or so because Corbis refused taking any images shot with the Xpan. Fuji must of redesigned the 45, 'cause your results looks a hell of a lot better than what I recall getting. Do you know if your 45 is a newer version? What is the difference between the Xpan and XpanII camera bodies?
It's such a nice ratio. Thanks for sharing.
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
Aukje on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
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Christoph on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
The aspect ratio really is amazing: I also have an XPan and love getting back the prints, as they always turn out better than expected (low expectations, perhaps?).
By the way @Patrick: the main difference between the I and II models seems to be the location of the metering readout. For the I you have a little LCD outside the viewfinder. I thought this was going to be a killer, but once you have a rough value set it's actually quite nice not to have a cluttered finder.
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
Patrik on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
http://www.oneaday.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/img008.jpg
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
Patrik on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
I'm totally in love with the panorama format though, hence why I'm dreaming about an X-pan as well. The Xpan you can shoot in normal mode as well, so its a more versatile camera I think. I did a job for a few months ago perfect for 6x17 and panorama, it can be viewed here:
http://www.oneaday.se/gallery/industri
8000m2 industrial area in Stockholm, empty now for the first time in 40 years. I was alone there for 4 hours, unreal!
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
levee on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
As for underexposure... well, it depends on what kind of developer the lab was using. Ilford recommends Microphen. I'd say at least Xtol.
Maybe try D3200 next time. It's not a "native" 3200 ASA film, more of an ISO 600-800 film with great pushability. D3200 is not as characteristic as HP5, but you'll get better tones.
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
Hank on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
When everything came together, though, it made an extremely interesting photo!
Francois on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
Was considering getting another one but since Canadian currency is so low now, any purchases become 30 to 40% more expensive than it was 18 months ago.
Comment posted: 16/01/2016
Patrick on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 17/01/2016
Thanks for the info in the differences between the bodies. I checked ebay yesterday for Xpans. They still sell for a high price. I'm going to have to pass on the urge to buy one again since I'm in Canada too and our dollar is dropping like crazy with the price of oil.
A bit out of scope for 35mmc, but I just started shooting with a 6x12 roll film back on my 4x5 field camera. Definitely not as long as the 6x17/Xpan, but still a pretty cool format. You get six shots per roll. Can be printed in a 4x5 enlarger. Horseman and Linhof both have dedicated 612 cameras. If someone is interested, check them out.
Patrick on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 17/01/2016
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Dexter on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 18/01/2016
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Leo Sze on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 22/06/2016
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benjamin lee on First roll with the Hasselblad Xpan II & 45mm
Comment posted: 22/09/2016
http://benleephotography.co.uk/hasselblad-xpan/