I've always wanted an X-Pan
but it's always been out of my reach
so I built I am
imagine being able to walk around with a digital camera that shoots true
anamorphic images with a sensor as large as an IMAX camera
this is the Hasselblad H6D 100c
medium format digital camera with a sensor as large as an IMAX camera.
So recently I machined an adapter to mount an anamorphic projector lens on a
Hasseblad 500 C/M medium format film camera. Hasselblad saw the video I posted
about this project and reached out to me wanting to see if I was interested in
trying this adapter setup on their digital medium format camera
this camera comes in at around 32,000 dollars and has a sensor that's
literally the size of the screen on my a7 it is basically the top-of-the-line
digital camera that money can buy this camera
ergonomically is pretty awesome the grip on this camera is so comfortable and the
grip itself is the battery for the camera so it's actually pretty cool this
is definitely not small or light camera but there's a reason why it's the size
that it is take the back off and it's very intimidating because what you're
holding your hand is like $20,000 worth of sensor you look at that thing and you
can fall into it you go swimming in this sensor because it's basically the ocean
that you're looking at the camera is really cool because it's very modular so
pretty much every piece of it comes apart and you can put it back together
just like the film Hasselblad it's really a unique camera because it still
has that very deep analog heritage but it's literally the top-of-the-line
digital camera it's a very unique experience using it
being able to walk around with this anamorphic lens and just point my camera
at something and turn it into a brain from a movie is infinitely enjoyable an
anamorphic lens is different than a typical camera lens it gives you a wider
image than you would normally get at any given focal length with a 50 millimeter
anamorphic lens you would get the same vertical field of view as a 50
millimeter lens but you would actually get a wider image on the sides than a
typical 50 millimeter lens so this gives you a really interesting perspective
that you can't get with any other type of lens so that's something very unique
to anamorphic and it's something very characteristic of cinema in general I
was absolutely blown away by how much my little anamorphic lens resolved on that
hundred megapixel sensor I was honestly worried that it wasn't going to hold up
to that scrutiny of 100 megapixels considering my anamorphic lens is
actually not a fantastic copy it has some fungus in it that fungus is eaten
into the glass I've taken it apart and it just will not go away so I was really
surprised that the images coming out of that were like insanely sharp even with
an anamorphic lens that's made for a super 16 projection it was honestly very
surprising
so not only does this camera shoot incredible photos but it actually shoots
4k raw video as well so you can kind of think of this camera sort of like a 5d
Mark - it was a primarily a photo camera first but they added video features
because they could basically I'm really interested to see what people will end
up doing this camera in terms of filmmaking because this camera is is
basically an IMAX camera the size of the sensor is larger than the Alexa 65
that's pretty crazy when you think about it being significantly cheaper than an
Alexa or any of those cinema cameras if you were able to get over kind of the
fact that it wasn't really made specifically to shoot video and and you
can kind of get past some of the quirks in the way that you have to use it I
could see this being huge for indie filmmakers if you were to shoot a short
film on what is basically IMAX on this camera would instantly lend your project
so a very unique look that no one else as far as I know has done before like I
can't really think of anybody who's shot like a short film on I don't know like
65 or 70 millimeter film and from a camera that you know wasn't really made
to shoot video but if you you know just get over the fact that it's not really
like that and then just kind of work with it I think you can get some really
amazing stuff so I shot a little bit of video I had this camera but
unfortunately I only had a 32 gigabyte see fast card and shooting 4k raw video
that filled that card up almost instantaneously I think I got a couple
minutes of record time yeah so it was it was a little rough going shooting video
for me just because of the amount of space I had regardless like shooting
video on on medium format is a really really cool experience
even if you don't know what makes anamorphic anamorphic you still
subconsciously feel like that's a movie because that's what pretty much every
movie is shot with so it kind of works on a subconscious level two camera geeks
and lens nerds they can spot the specific characteristics like the
anamorphic flare the blue streaked lens flares or the oval okay or you know some
of the kind of distortion and vignette and all that stuff but to the layman
there's kind of a subconscious feeling that goes with anamorphic that's really
kind of hard to put your finger on
so if you liked this video or if you're just a fan of anamorphic hit that like
button and subscribe and we'll see in the next one
you