Photography News Issue 40

Photography News | Issue 40 | absolutephoto.com

Camera test 49

I shot a daylight scene and with a tripod-mounted X1D manually bracketed exposures from the correct reading which was 1/60sec at f/8 using ISO 100. The resulting Raws were corrected in Lightroom. With a claimed 14EV dynamic range for the 16-bit sensor I was expecting a good showing. The abused Raws corrected well and even at -4EV looked good and acceptable. Overexposure was also well handled with the +2EV shot looking very good while there was a colour shift with the +3EV shot. All round, a capable performance. Performance: exposure latitude

Original image

0EV

-1EV

-2EV

-3EV

-4EV

+1EV

Above The X1D’s touch monitor works well with gestures like swipe, spread and pinch. Handling is good which is just as well as I couldn’t find a way to disable the touch feature. Layout is user-friendly too and being able to move between the control screen (above left) and the main menu (above right) with a finger swipe is very good. Half press the shutter button gives live view, and this reverts to control screen after 12secs.

Verdict

+2EV

+3EV

+4EV

A high-performing camera that will undoubtedly delight and satisfy you for many years

Features The X1D has plenty to offer and the lens systemwill grow Performance Excellent image quality even at high ISOs Handling Fits the hands very nicely and ergonomics mostly good Value formoney It’s good value for what’s on offer – but it is still £10k Overall If medium-format appeals, check out this capable camera Pros Image quality, overall handling, portability Cons 10sec start-up time, sharp lens/shutter noise when you take a shot, limited set-up/customoptions 20/25 24/25 22/25 20/25 86/100 amount of money but there are keen photographers, pros and enthusiasts out there with that sort of budget. If you are one of them and you make the commitment of going for an X1D you will be the proud owner of a high performing camera that will undoubtedly delight and satisfy you for many years to come. To say that a medium-format digital Hasselblad complete with a standard lens at under £10k (less if you are VAT registered) is a bargain sounds like utter madness, but in the context of the digital medium-format market, I think that is a perfectly fair comment. Yes, it is still a serious

Performance: ISO

ISO 800

ISO 1600

For this test a low-light scene was used. The X1D’s base ISO is 100 and the image exposed at that speed needed 3.2secs at f/8. Images shown here were processed in Lightroomwith no noise reduction. The X1D’s ISO range is 100 to 25,600. At the lower ISOs up to ISO 800, image quality is excellent. Clearly, it depends on final use, but I’d happily shoot at ISO 3200 where with some software NR, the images are still very clean, crisp, saturated and feature good blacks. Even ISO6400 is impressive and the noise present has a nice, gritty filmic feel.

Original image

ISO 3200

ISO 6400

ISO 12,800

ISO 25,600

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