Customer Reviews

Hasselblad XPan II - Panorama rangefinder - 35mm - lens: 45 mm

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
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Overall this is a great camera for it's intended purpose, full frame panoramic photos. It is an extremely solid well built camera, and has proven to be very reliable. It is a camera which should really be used on a tripod with a spirit level and the center filter for best results. The lenses (45mm and 90mm) are superb. I have not tried the 30mm yet. The camera handles well and the controls are for the most part where they should be.
The negative points are the lousy paint finish, which looks great when new, but wears off rather quickly, and the lack of any information in the viewfinder. The center filter is a must (and quite expensive). Some may prefer the Fuji TX cameras as they do not suffer from the paint problem, since they have an unpainted titanium cover and base plate. Still, there is nothing else quite like it.

The Hasselblad name is synonomous with quality craftsmanship and amazing image quality. Despite the fact that this camera is made in Japan, not Sweden, the tradition continues with the X-Pan II. It hand-holds like a Leica M7 (also a dyno-mite camera) but it makes both panoramic images and regular 35mm format images. The meter is very accurate, even with narrow latitude slide film like Fuji Velvia 50. The lens, also not made in Sweden, is, at 40mm, a nice compromise focal length. Mine makes tack sharp images that sell very well to various car magazines. How well? I took a picture of a Ferrari overlooking the countryside above Maranello in Pan mode, expecting to use the shot as a lead in to a two page spread. The photo editor cropped the image, blew it up from a horizontal to a vertical image and put it on the cover. The results looked like medium format, uncropped. The image quality is that good.

For you film users out there (and you know who you are), who want to expand their craft to panoramic images, this is one of the best deals around. It's thousands cheaper than a medium format pan camera and the image quality is absolutely first rate.