The Hasselblad Xpan is a legendary and very expensive film camera that can produce cinematic
panoramic images some digital cameras can shoot in the panoramic aspect ratio but what if
I told you that there is a digital Hasselblad XPan alternative that you can get for one-tenth of the
price of an XPan stick around to see our selection of digital alternatives to a Hasselblad XPan
when I told our resident photographer Ian the idea for this video he explained why are video
people so obsessed with the XPan and I must admit sometimes we just are you've got to love those
widescreen cinematic images that just look like stills taken from a movie and the Hasselblad XPan
is one of the very few cameras that can produce these kinds of images but it stops being produced
a long time ago and the prices of those cameras are just going up so many people are looking
into alternative solutions and looking amongst digital cameras is a great option first of all
some of these alternatives are much cheaper than the original XPan none of them use actual film
and don't get me started on prices of a raw film these days and you know they are digital so you
see the image straight away you can manipulate it on the computer and generally benefit from
the wonders of modern digital technology let's change the scenery and I will tell
you all about the magic of the Hasselblad XPan first and then we'll move on to the alternatives
In 1998 Fujifilm and Hasselblad collaborated to create a camera which was sold under two names so
Fujifilm TX-1 or the Hasselblad XPan the unique feature of this camera is that it can take the
regular 35mm photos but it can also take the wide panoramic images and it does that without masking
the film so without sacrificing any of the image quality it is basically a medium format camera
using a 35mm film in recent years the resurgence of film photography has caused the prices of film
cameras to rise and the Hasselblad XPan has been no exception a pricey camera even when it was
released it's unaffordable for many photographers these days to make matters worse some say this
camera is like a ticking bomb once it breaks and we're talking 20 something year old camera it's
really hard to repair it that's why many people are looking for other ways of recreating the
expand experience there are some DIY and rather clunky solutions like using a regular camera with
an external monitor and a cinemascope mask on it or physically masking the LCD screen or stitching
a panorama in post or even using an anamorphic lens but this is not what we are looking for
today the point is to have a reliable convenient solution so a camera with the panoramic mode built
in with a real-time preview so we don't have to guess the composition or carry around an external
monitor let's move on to our first digital Hasselblad XPan alternative Sigma DP0 Quattro
is a compact fixed lens camera which allows us to take pictures and close to XPan 21:9 aspect ratio
the Sigma DP Quattro line consists of four models which are basically the same camera but with
different focal lengths they all share the same aps-c sized foveon sensor which is built a little
bit differently from the most popular C-MOS sensor we use these days some claim that nothing beats a
foveon sensor when it comes to color reproduction or resolution and that can even rival some of the
medium format cameras you can buy a used Sigma Quattro camera for 1/8th or even 1/10th of a price
of a Hasselblad XPan and that's not even counting the long term cost of buying developing and
scanning film the Sigma DP0 Quattro reminds me of shooting an XPan not only because it's panoramic
crop modes it's also a little little bit slow and clunky for a digital camera anything above ISO 400
let's say it's fairly grainy and its features are quite limited after being a Sony user for
many years now I went through Sigma's buttons and menu options and thought to myself oh is that it
another thing is you have to process the raw X3F files coming from the Sigma using the Sigma
PhotoPro Software which again is so slow that it almost reminds me of developing a negative
but I must say I deeply enjoyed using this quirky little camera it forced me to slow down be more
creative and just more present while taking an image I wouldn't buy it for commercial work as
it's a camera that can't do everything unlike my Sony A7 III but it's a special little camera that
pushed me out of my comfort zone and reminded me that taking pictures can be just fun if it only
had a built-in viewfinder and a better LCD screen but hey it costs a fraction of an XPan price
Next up is the Fujifilm GFX 50R it has a medium formats 50 MP sensor which even in
the XPan 65 x 24 panoramic crop modes will give you a healthy 25 MP resolution files it
will be enough for a decent sized print and more than enough for an online presentation
I'm using the GFX 50R as an example here but bear in mind that all of the other
GFX series cameras they all have the 65 x 24 XPan crop modes and if you pick up for
example a GFX 100 even in the crop modes it will give you a stunning 50MP resolution file
what's more the Fujifilm cameras come with their famous Fujifilms film simulation modes so you can
have both the XPan crop and a specific look and even grey already baked into the image
shooting JPEG basically means that your photos are ready to be published straight away if you
don't like spending hours editing your images well you don't have to there are two more things
that make this Fujifilm camera quite an amazing Hasselblad XPan alternative first of all you can
use a third-party adapter to mount original XPan lenses on it and second as the original XPan was
in fact a Fujifilm camera that retro Inspire look of this Fujifilm GFX 50R doesn't look miles away
from the look of the original XPan Last but not least the most expensive of the cameras
I have with me today and is the Hasselblad X1D 50c it has a 50 MP medium format sensor and
what's unique about this camera it's really small for a camera with such a big sensor Hasselblad
achieved it by pushing the shutter mechanism out into the lenses it's called Leaf Shutter
and it means that this camera can achieve flash sync speeds not achievable with the conventional
playing shutter mechanism it also greatly reduces any shake when the camera is taking a picture
it has a similar or even the same sensor as the Fujifilm GFX 50R so the performance in terms of
resolution noise and so on is almost identical the differences lie in handling lenses and image
processing you could say it's a studio camera and a portable body although it shoots both JPEGs and
Raw the JPEGs are just a 12 MP previews so you have to process the Raw files in order to get a
usable image also there are no built-in color profiles with the X1D 50C the idea behind the
Hasselblad image processing is that it captures images that are as close to reality as possible
and you can adjust them to your preference in post not in the camera but of course the most
important feature for us is the 65 x 24 crop mode which is actually called XPan crop in this camera
it's a quite a slow camera to operate when turning it on it reminds me a little bit of a cine camera
so instead of quickly turning on it takes a few seconds to boot up it can be annoying at times
but overall it adds to the experience of using a film-like camera and slowing down while you're
taking pictures and it feels good in a hand and does look good doesn't it of course it is
a Hasselblad so you can buy a genuine Hasselblad adapter to mount the original XPan lenses on it
That was our choice of digital alternatives to the Hasselblad XPan so the Sigma DP0 Quattro the
Fujifilm GFX 50R and the Hasselblad X1D 50C Do you know of any other cameras that can shoot images
like the XPan or maybe you think that just nothing beats the original let us know in the comments and
don't forget to like this video and subscribe to MPB's YouTube channel See you next time