STREET Portrait Photography with Hasselblad X2D and XCD 90V
there are portrait lenses and then there is this the xcd 90v from Hasselblad now this is going to be a bold statement but this is the best lens I've ever used for still life and portrait photography and I have a pretty decent lineup of portrait lenses so when Hasselblad asked me if I'd like to test out the 90v on my channel I thought sure why not couldn't hurt well it turns out I was wrong it hurts a great deal because now I have the knowledge that there is a better lens on the market than my already brilliant 80 mm 1.9 from hassleblad which has taken some beautiful captures over the last year or so so why is this lens so good well let's find out play [Music] tape that's lovely hold that wow and maybe give me a little Hollywood shoulder maybe nice it's going to come in closer chin down ever slightly there [Music] [Music] [Music] beautiful [Music] yeah nice so along with the release of this world class lens the 90v comes a brand new firmware update on the x2d medium format camera body which brings the Hasselblad system firmly into the year 2024 with the kind of advancements in camera technology that we've come to know and expect from other camera manufacturers namely the autofocus system the new firmware update on the x2d now offers the much anticipated face detect autofocus now of course this is not new technology it's been around for a number of years but now offering this feature on a medium format camera with 100 megapixels of 16bit raw power and 15 stops of dynamic range that makes this camera now extremely desirable amongst amateur and professional portrait photographers alike and along with the release of hasselblad's Flagship portrait lens the 90v what can I tell you it's a beast of a combo entering the menu directly on the main screen we now have this little face icon which gives us the choice of autoace detect manual or no detection autof face detect is very capable nailing focus on those eyes even though the firmware upgrade doesn't offer eye detect it does a great job of focusing um go a little bit through 3/4s that way cuz then you get a bit more light on your face [Music] wow yeah [Music] [Applause] beautiful the autofocus speed on this new lens is quick jumping from foreground to background is seamless and because there is no physical moving Barrel unlike the 80 mm 1.9 it is lovely and quiet the leaf shutter sounds like this once again not exactly stealth but less intrusive and quieter than say a DSLR more on the shutter later so it's safe to say that the build quality of the 90v is First Rate all metal design with this lovely manual focus clutch ring I actually took part in the development testing phase of the 90v back in the summer of last year and my only questionable feedback about the physical design of this lens were both the focus ring and the aperture ring because Hasselblad has chosen this very slick design where both rings are flush with the body of the barrel and of course they too are metal my personal preference is a rubber ring just like on the 45p so you can distinguish what you're actually feeling for when you're behind the camera and inside the viewfinder it does take a little bit of getting used to the aperture ring gives the option for a smooth or ratcheted action using this little switch on the side it's a glorious piece of engineering and for the size and weight of this lens the Optics are devastatingly good just grab along the railing here wow [Music] nice ah that was lovely your the hair just sort of swept in front of your face just said so let's talk about the size and weight somehow Hasselblad has managed to deliver a 90mm lens at f2.5 with only nine glass elements in six groups and this is important because they managed to keep the weight to 551 G which is about the same weight as a bottle of beer when you consider how much bigger and heavier the 80 mm is in comparison that's quite an achievement especially when a leaf shutter component has to be installed inside the lens there's a major Improvement here 1 over 2,000 of a second on this Leaf shutter versus 1 over 4,000th of a second on the 90v and because it's a leaf shutter you have flash SN speeds all the way up to 4,000th of a second very impressive in comparison to fullframe cameras like the Sony a74 Flash sync speeds are limited to 1 over 250th of a second now the aperture range on this lens goes from f2.5 all the way up to F32 which is nuts now you might be thinking f2.5 doesn't sound very wide in comparison to say an f1.9 however because of the extra 10 mm that you'd get with the 90v you can actually achieve about the same amount of to fall off and Boker on each lens the other end of the scale we have F32 which of course is very narrow and there would be few instances where you would use this in a real life scenario a because your ISO would have to be so high or your shutter very slow and B Because image quality does begin to degrade at such high f- stops but not as much as you think this is a quick snapshot of my clutter desk shot at F32 with the 90v zooming in to 100% we can clearly see the tiny text on the back of my external hard drive and should you be caught short without an ND filter such high f stops could come in very handy for those long exposures so 90 mm on a medium format camera is roughly equivalent to 71 mm on a fullframe camera and that makes this the perfect portrait lens and still Life photography companion and in my line of work which is headshot photography those close-up portraits are greatly improved with the 90v the clarity of the details captured is world class and the skin tone reproduction with 16bit color depth is so good still life and product photography give us ridiculously good image quality coupled with that x2d 100 megapixel sensor so how does the chromatic aberration perform with the aspherical lens element installed in the 90v well since you ask very well in fact zooming in on Joel's hair which is a high contrast area chromatic abortion is barely noticeable hardly any purple or green fringing and Distortion is minimal with only a small correction needed in postproduction using that lens profile Starburst effects at f-stops over F16 are very enjoyable giving us that 8 Hallmark signature Starburst effect not as good as the wide angle lens is but pretty decent all the same minimum Focus distance on this lens is 67 cm way better than my 85 mm Sony uh really useful for those still life close-ups and coupled with the resolution of the x2d you're almost almost getting macro ability all in all I'm pretty Blown Away by the quality of the images coming out of the 90v and the advancements that Hasselblad have made to the x2d firmware update giving us that autofocus face detect um also giving us live view when shooting either tethered or connected to the focus mobile 2 app I would always reach for my Sony camera on a professional photo shoots because I could rely on the autofocus system these days I'm reaching for the Hasselblad anyway thanks for watching hope you enjoyed the video if you did please give us a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to the channel for more photography content if you like headshot photography or want to learn about portraiture I have a headshot photography course available on my website so I'll pop links to that in the description below and also if you like Lightroom presets I have a preset pack available too so I'll catch you on the flip [Music] side
