Image Quality Tests
The biggest selling point of the Hasselblad 907X & CFV 100C is image quality. Again, this camera can capture 100-megapixel medium format photos with a base ISO of 64 and 16-bit RAW images. It has excellent dynamic range, high ISO performance, and color fidelity. That will all be clear from the tests on this page.
The two most similar cameras that I had available to test were the Nikon Z7 II (a full-frame camera known for its excellent dynamic range due to base ISO 64) and the Fuji GFX 50S (a medium format camera known for its excellent high-ISO performance). While you would certainly hope that Hasselblad’s newer, more expensive 100-megapixel sensor comes out ahead in this comparison, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The Z7 II and GFX 50S are dynamic range and high ISO champions and wouldn’t give up their crowns easily.
With that, I performed a series of image quality tests: high ISO performance, shadow recovery, and highlight recovery. The results are shown below.
High ISO Tests
The following images are JPEGs exported from the original RAW images in Lightroom. They are extreme crops from an area of approximately 9% the width of the original image. They have no processing applied, including noise reduction or sharpening. The lower-resolution images were upsampled upon export from Lightroom so that the detail and noise from each sensor could be compared at the same size.
ISO 400
So far, the main difference I see is that the Hasselblad sensor is resolving more detail than the other two – no surprise, given the difference in sensor resolution.
ISO 800
The same is true here, with the Hasselblad definitely capturing the most detail. Noise looks comparable between the Hasselblad and the Fuji, while the Nikon has perhaps a hair more noise in the shadow areas.
ISO 1600
Nothing new here. The Hasselblad is still ahead in detail significantly (that’s not going to change). Noise levels are pretty similar across all three cameras, though the Nikon Z7 II remains the slightest bit noisier.
ISO 3200
Same general story, although I think the difference between the two medium format cameras and the Nikon is growing a little bit.
ISO 6400
At ISO 6400, the Hasselblad is starting to have a slight noise advantage in addition to its continuing advantage in detail. The Nikon Z7 II slips a little further behind; it is now what I would call meaningfully noisier than the Fuji.
ISO 12,800
This time, the Fuji GFX lost a lot of ground and is now just as noisy as the Nikon Z7 II. The Hasselblad is noticeably cleaner than both of them, with better shadow details and colors. All three images are taking on a bit of a color cast, with subtle magenta casts for Hasselblad and Nikon, and a green color cast for Fuji.
ISO 25,600
The winner this time is clear – the Hasselblad sensor is significantly sharper and less noisy than the other two. Colors are retained much better, with noticeably clearer transitions between the color swatches in the image. While none of the cameras look great here, the image from the Hasselblad is still somewhat usable; the other two are not. If anything, I give second place to the Nikon Z7 II sensor at this ISO. (I should note that the Fuji GFX 50S does not actually have a setting for ISO 25,600, so I brightened an underexposed image taken at ISO 12,800 to simulate it.)
All told, Hasselblad really surprised me with how good the high ISO performance of the 907X & CFV 100C is. Not only does it retain more detail, as expected of a 100 megapixel sensor, but it doesn’t lose any ground in high ISO performance. The days where full-frame cameras would outperform medium-format cameras in low light are clearly over.
Dynamic Range Tests
Because of the base ISO 64 of the Hasselblad CFV 100C sensor, I was eager to test how well it handled shadow and highlight recovery. For that, I took a series of photos at base ISO with each camera that were severely underexposed (7, 6, and 5 stops under) as well as severely overexposed (1, 2, and 3 stops over). In Lightroom, I equalized the images using the “Exposure” slider. All other processing and export steps were the same as the high ISO tests.
5 stops under
The Hasselblad is already the cleanest image here (and the sharpest) with less noise than the other cameras. The Fuji GFX 50S and the Nikon Z7 II are on about the same level as one another here.
6 stops under
It’s the same story this time – we’re definitely getting the cleanest files from the Hasselblad CFV 100C sensor. It’s not just noise and detail – the colors are also better. I still see the Fuji and Nikon files at about the same level, although there are some differences in their color casts and contrast levels this time.
7 stops under
Seven stops of underexposure is really severe, and none of the cameras handle it well. The Hasselblad still clearly looks the best to me, but it does have more speckles of noise in the deep shadows (almost like hot pixels) than the other images. The Nikon Z7 II fell off a cliff at 7 stops of underexposure and has the worst performance of the three.
1 stop over
So far, there are no differences in highlight recovery capabilities. All three cameras handle one stop of overexposure with no problem. As before, the Hasselblad’s higher-resolution sensor enables it to capture some more detail.
2 stops over
With two stops of overexposure, a lot of subtle color details are lost with all three cameras. The Hasselblad and Fuji are noticeably better than the Nikon Z7 II here, and if I had to crown a winner, I would give it to the Fuji GFX 50S.
3 stops over
All three cameras look pretty awful after recovering three stops of overexposure. This time, I would rank the Fuji GFX 50S first, the Hasselblad CFV 100C a close second, and the Nikon Z7 II significantly further back in third.
To sum things up – the two medium format sensors definitely perform better than a top full-frame sensor in dynamic range. The Hasselblad CFV 100C sensor has better shadow recovery than the Fuji GFX 50S sensor, but highlight recovery slightly favors the Fuji. All told, I would put the advantage of the Hasselblad CFV 100C at maybe 0.3-0.5 stops over the Fuji, and about 1-1.5 stops ahead of the Nikon.
However, the Hasselblad’s higher-resolution sensor captures more pixel-level detail in all of the images above (as well as the previous high ISO tests), so it is pretty clearly the ultimate in image quality among these three cameras.
Image Quality of Long Exposures
One feature that the Hasselblad 907X & 100C lacks is long exposure noise reduction. I admit that I find that surprising on a camera with such good long exposure capabilities (namely, shutter speeds manually or automatically selectable up to 68 minutes).
Of course, you always have the option to take manual dark frames by simply putting the lens cap on your camera and taking an appropriately long exposure. But I wanted to see if capturing long exposures natively on this camera led to any hot pixels.
The answer is that it does – however, Adobe Lightroom (and Hasselblad’s own Phocus software) has a built-in hot pixel removal algorithm automatically, so many photographers will never even notice. If you use an unusual raw processing software that doesn’t have hot-pixel removal, be aware that this camera is just as prone to long-exposure hot pixels as any other camera. So, taking dark frames is still good practice.
Electronic Shutter
My single qualm about the image quality of the Hasselblad 907X & CFV 100C has to do with the electronic shutter. I should mention, most photographers who will be using this camera are probably going to stick to their lens’s leaf shutter for everyday photography. But if you need to use the electronic shutter for whatever reason (such as silent photography, ultra-fast shutter speeds, or a lens without a leaf shutter), you may run into a significant problem.
Namely, the electronic shutter on this camera has an extremely slow readout speed of approximately 300 milliseconds (3/10 second). This is so slow that it makes the electronic shutter really annoying if you’re shooting handheld. It’s also prone to giving very unusual effects if anything in the photo is moving quickly. Here’s how a ceiling fan on its lowest setting looks with the electronic shutter enabled (camera was stationary on a tripod):
For handheld photography, this incredibly slow readout can lead to slight warping throughout the image, potentially giving you an uneven horizon or other small distortions in the frame. It certainly isn’t a good choice if you’re doing architectural photography or anything with straight lines. Also, if you’re on the edge of a usable shutter speed, some portions of your photo will be sharp while others are warped and blurry! Here’s an uncropped example, followed by two crops from different portions of the image to show what I mean:
In short, you should avoid using the electronic shutter of the 907X & 100C if possible. I strongly recommend using your lens’s leaf shutter instead, unless you have no other choice.
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