Back to my real question. Just go to the dealer and check on both and they even pointed out 38mm is good enough. I am totally confused now. As they are all expensive and I will fly out soon, really wonder zoom 20-35, 25 or 38 for my Iceland trip.
TonyC
April 22, 2025 7:55 pm
I have the lens. My testing reveals the best image quality is from Aperture f3.5 to f7.1. Your f16 images show a great fall-of in rez and sharpness. Take the same images at f7.1 and you be amazed at the difference!. This is no landscape lens and people should not buy it as landscape lens. It an Astro and night lens only! The zoom 20-35mm does take great landscape images from f8 to f11.
I disagree. First, f/16 (or focus stacking) is necessary for a lot of landscapes if sufficient depth of field is desired. An aperture of f/16 does have more diffraction, but it’s still pretty sharp and benefits from a 100MP sensor – you certainly shouldn’t see any noticeable softness in a downsized 2MP image on the web.
Second, based on my testing, this lens is on about the same level as the 20-35mm zoom in the range from f/8 to f/11 (photographylife.com/revie…-2-4-5-e/2). If anything it’s a hair sharper. Both make excellent landscape lenses.
Struggle to get this or the 20 zoom. Cannot afford both. Going to Iceland in July. Seems 20 better and even though I understand no star (but then I do not live in Iceland … but still some astro later :-)). Unfortunately you have not tested it and hence seems it might be a bot issue there.
Not sure about your calculation on 0.8 adapter btw.
*** irrelevant mumbling about lens labelling. Please ignore. TL;dr
I really do not want to raise this as it seemed I am the only crusade of lens number it seemed.
But 35mm Hc is still 35mm after 0.8 Adatper for x2d.
The issue is the labelling. The 35mm label is meant for 645 film or the larger Hd6-100 or iq4 kind of sensor which is much bigger than 4433 we have. When it is on hx non-0.8 it is a 35*1.2 =42 lens on X1d or x2d. In other words it tried to boost it so the 4433 sensor acts like a much larger sensor. It does not further zoom out further. Just restore.
In other words, what the 0.8 does is to restore this by 42*0.8=33.6 because of this 35 mm 645 labelling of the yester-decade of medium format era where 645 or 56mm is the key reference.
The 135 label these days would label this 35mm it as roughly 51mm or just 50mm. So a straight through will be 4x mm lens and a 0.8 booster will be 3x mm lens, not 2x mm lens.
Btw, the current Hasselblad xcd lens used 135 lens label. Hence you times 0.8.
I just post this question about this to the source and I hope I am not going crazy.
Going crazy on your video : youtu.be/zcWtg…w2vvhzJFZS. Many years ago I got from your live about these adapter from you Hasselblad guys. What I got is that the xh give you 1.21 due to crop sensor (see 4:29) and the 0.8 adapter restore it back to the 645 lens label (see 5:47 and photo example at 6:45). It all makes sense as it is a crop sensor. All goods.
But last 2 years I know at least 5 people who get the other way round!
Are you wrong :-) and I hope not but just in case as I’ve even said he has asked Hasselblad and my understanding from you is wrong. Please clarify. It is not that using these adapters for a 100mm 2.2 hc lens becomes 80 and 64 lens on x2d! A cropped sensor becomes a booster ! Am I crazy or the world is.
The maximum of 3.17 stops is practically unheard of. Vignetting improves to manageable – though still disappointing.
From this review:
The maximum vignetting (2.84 stops) wide open isn’t much higher than we usually see with wide-angle, wide-aperture lenses. That’s good news for Milky Way photographers.
And Hasselblad’s vignetting doesn’t go away and has a colour cast to it, and Canon is a zoom lens :) Yes you wrote as Canon to be terrible and Hassy as “well, it is acceptable” :)
That’s fair, I didn’t word that portion very well. Here is the revised quote: “The maximum vignetting wide open is 2.84 stops, which is quite high. The good news for Milky Way photographers is that infinity focus has less vignetting than close focus, and that result (2.46 stops) isn’t much higher than we usually see with wide-angle, wide-aperture lenses.”
I also want to point out that at f/2.8, the 25mm f/2.5 V’s vignetting at infinity focus is 2.16 stops. In the same situation, Canon’s 15-35mm f/2.8 is 3.09 stops. My initial wording was clumsy, and this Hasselblad lens is hardly a vignetting champ, but it’s better than the Canon 15-35mm f/2.8’s Milky Way vignetting performance. To this day, the 15-35mm f/2.8 is one of the highest-vignetting lenses we’ve tested.
Thank you, fixed! The two lenses might have the same build quality, but I probably shouldn’t have copied it *exactly* from the 90mm review :)
chris
May 9, 2024 4:19 am
thanks, it would be very interesting to see the differences to fuji as it is now clear what design goals hasselblad follows including the compromises they think are justified for their audience . when as often in my work the important part is not in the center such a massive vignetting does have a visible negative effect on image quality. the new H lenses seem also suffer from heavy focus shift probably another compromise they think does not matter….
The vignetting on this lens is quite high, especially at narrower apertures compared to most lenses. I didn’t notice much focus shift on this lens or the other XCD V lenses, though – none on the 90V, and only a bit on the 25V and 38V.
James
May 8, 2024 9:11 pm
Nice review, Spencer. Thanks!
While you mentioned below the Nikon 20mm f/1.8 and the Sony 20mm f/1.8 G, I’d also be interested in how tall three compare to the Viltrox 13mm f/1.4. I realize we’d then be comparing at best a 40 MP Fujifilm APS-C sensor to a 100 MP MF sensor, but FOV and DOF are basically equivalent as well. It’s a very sharp lens and seems to review quite favourably.
It’s a great time to be a photographer! So many wonderful lenses to choose from, regardless of your camera system :)
Sure thing, Dmitry. I would describe both lenses as the optimal wide-angle primes for their respective systems (the Sony 20mm f/1.8 G is also eerily good, on the same level).
One example is in the coma crops from each of these lenses – there’s hardly any coma on any of them. So it’s more a difference in what sensors you can put behind each lens.
Thank you for the answer! Perhaps in the future you will be able to develop a technique that can compare the resolution of the full frame and medium frame matrices.
It would be a good goal at some point. Although it took enough work just to get full-frame lenses for Nikon/Canon/Sony to be comparable – I can already imagine the headache that would be caused adding the additional variables of sensor size and aspect ratio into the mix. Not impossible but probably better uses of my time.
It definitely is! That’s the 907X & 100C. Although I mostly shot this lens on the X2D, which is a more traditional looking camera.
Jason Polak
Admin
May 7, 2024 8:06 am
Nice review, Spencer. The images you captured makes me want to visit these places very much! Even as more of a wildlife photographer, I can feel the spirit of landscape photography in what you created with this lens.
Back to my real question. Just go to the dealer and check on both and they even pointed out 38mm is good enough. I am totally confused now. As they are all expensive and I will fly out soon, really wonder zoom 20-35, 25 or 38 for my Iceland trip.
I have the lens. My testing reveals the best image quality is from Aperture f3.5 to f7.1.
Your f16 images show a great fall-of in rez and sharpness. Take the same images at f7.1 and you be amazed at the difference!. This is no landscape lens and people should not buy it as landscape lens. It an Astro and night lens only! The zoom 20-35mm does take great landscape images from f8 to f11.
I disagree. First, f/16 (or focus stacking) is necessary for a lot of landscapes if sufficient depth of field is desired. An aperture of f/16 does have more diffraction, but it’s still pretty sharp and benefits from a 100MP sensor – you certainly shouldn’t see any noticeable softness in a downsized 2MP image on the web.
Second, based on my testing, this lens is on about the same level as the 20-35mm zoom in the range from f/8 to f/11 (photographylife.com/revie…-2-4-5-e/2). If anything it’s a hair sharper. Both make excellent landscape lenses.
Struggle to get this or the 20 zoom. Cannot afford both. Going to Iceland in July. Seems 20 better and even though I understand no star (but then I do not live in Iceland … but still some astro later :-)). Unfortunately you have not tested it and hence seems it might be a bot issue there.
Not sure about your calculation on 0.8 adapter btw.
*** irrelevant mumbling about lens labelling. Please ignore. TL;dr
I really do not want to raise this as it seemed I am the only crusade of lens number it seemed.
But 35mm Hc is still 35mm after 0.8 Adatper for x2d.
The issue is the labelling. The 35mm label is meant for 645 film or the larger Hd6-100 or iq4 kind of sensor which is much bigger than 4433 we have. When it is on hx non-0.8 it is a 35*1.2 =42 lens on X1d or x2d. In other words it tried to boost it so the 4433 sensor acts like a much larger sensor. It does not further zoom out further. Just restore.
In other words, what the 0.8 does is to restore this by 42*0.8=33.6 because of this 35 mm 645 labelling of the yester-decade of medium format era where 645 or 56mm is the key reference.
The 135 label these days would label this 35mm it as roughly 51mm or just 50mm. So a straight through will be 4x mm lens and a 0.8 booster will be 3x mm lens, not 2x mm lens.
Btw, the current Hasselblad xcd lens used 135 lens label. Hence you times 0.8.
I just post this question about this to the source and I hope I am not going crazy.
Going crazy on your video : youtu.be/zcWtg…w2vvhzJFZS. Many years ago I got from your live about these adapter from you Hasselblad guys. What I got is that the xh give you 1.21 due to crop sensor (see 4:29) and the 0.8 adapter restore it back to the 645 lens label (see 5:47 and photo example at 6:45). It all makes sense as it is a crop sensor. All goods.
But last 2 years I know at least 5 people who get the other way round!
Are you wrong :-) and I hope not but just in case as I’ve even said he has asked Hasselblad and my understanding from you is wrong. Please clarify. It is not that using these adapters for a 100mm 2.2 hc lens becomes 80 and 64 lens on x2d! A cropped sensor becomes a booster ! Am I crazy or the world is.
Yours : youtu.be/zcWtg…w2vvhzJFZS
Some of theirs more explicit one:
youtu.be/jQtjh…7RGjuBHSV8
youtu.be/JPlTB…1RZdXcM6rs
From Canon RF 15-35mm:
The maximum of 3.17 stops is practically unheard of. Vignetting improves to manageable – though still disappointing.
From this review:
The maximum vignetting (2.84 stops) wide open isn’t much higher than we usually see with wide-angle, wide-aperture lenses. That’s good news for Milky Way photographers.
And Hasselblad’s vignetting doesn’t go away and has a colour cast to it, and Canon is a zoom lens :) Yes you wrote as Canon to be terrible and Hassy as “well, it is acceptable” :)
That’s fair, I didn’t word that portion very well. Here is the revised quote: “The maximum vignetting wide open is 2.84 stops, which is quite high. The good news for Milky Way photographers is that infinity focus has less vignetting than close focus, and that result (2.46 stops) isn’t much higher than we usually see with wide-angle, wide-aperture lenses.”
I also want to point out that at f/2.8, the 25mm f/2.5 V’s vignetting at infinity focus is 2.16 stops. In the same situation, Canon’s 15-35mm f/2.8 is 3.09 stops. My initial wording was clumsy, and this Hasselblad lens is hardly a vignetting champ, but it’s better than the Canon 15-35mm f/2.8’s Milky Way vignetting performance. To this day, the 15-35mm f/2.8 is one of the highest-vignetting lenses we’ve tested.
Fourth paragraph:
—
Build Quality
The Hasselblad XCD 90mm f/2.5 V features…
—
What lens are we reading about again? :-)
Thank you, fixed! The two lenses might have the same build quality, but I probably shouldn’t have copied it *exactly* from the 90mm review :)
thanks, it would be very interesting to see the differences to fuji as it is now clear what design goals hasselblad follows including the compromises they think are justified for their audience . when as often in my work the important part is not in the center such a massive vignetting does have a visible negative effect on image quality. the new H lenses seem also suffer from heavy focus shift probably another compromise they think does not matter….
The vignetting on this lens is quite high, especially at narrower apertures compared to most lenses. I didn’t notice much focus shift on this lens or the other XCD V lenses, though – none on the 90V, and only a bit on the 25V and 38V.
Nice review, Spencer. Thanks!
While you mentioned below the Nikon 20mm f/1.8 and the Sony 20mm f/1.8 G, I’d also be interested in how tall three compare to the Viltrox 13mm f/1.4. I realize we’d then be comparing at best a 40 MP Fujifilm APS-C sensor to a 100 MP MF sensor, but FOV and DOF are basically equivalent as well. It’s a very sharp lens and seems to review quite favourably.
It’s a great time to be a photographer! So many wonderful lenses to choose from, regardless of your camera system :)
Thanks, James! I’d look forward to testing it. Seems like one of the better choices for APS-C Milky Way photography at the moment.
Thanks for the review. Question. How big is the difference between this lens and the Z 20 mm f/1.8S?
Sure thing, Dmitry. I would describe both lenses as the optimal wide-angle primes for their respective systems (the Sony 20mm f/1.8 G is also eerily good, on the same level).
One example is in the coma crops from each of these lenses – there’s hardly any coma on any of them. So it’s more a difference in what sensors you can put behind each lens.
Thank you for the answer! Perhaps in the future you will be able to develop a technique that can compare the resolution of the full frame and medium frame matrices.
It would be a good goal at some point. Although it took enough work just to get full-frame lenses for Nikon/Canon/Sony to be comparable – I can already imagine the headache that would be caused adding the additional variables of sensor size and aspect ratio into the mix. Not impossible but probably better uses of my time.
Such a beautiful camera..
It definitely is! That’s the 907X & 100C. Although I mostly shot this lens on the X2D, which is a more traditional looking camera.
Nice review, Spencer. The images you captured makes me want to visit these places very much! Even as more of a wildlife photographer, I can feel the spirit of landscape photography in what you created with this lens.
Thanks, Jason! It’s hard to beat Yellowstone for wide-angle landscapes. And telephoto landscapes for that matter…