Image courtesy of Hasselblad.

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I’m not sure if this is accurate, but the following may be of interest to you:

“The camera is not fast, however. It takes a long time to boot up, a long time to write images to its dual SD cards, and navigating the interface isn’t exactly smooth. The autofocus system is slow and ponderous, and you can hear the lenses cranking away as they rack back and forth trying to lock focus. This is definitely not a camera for sports photography or any fast action.

But for portraiture, landscapes, still life, or any other slower photography discipline, the X1D promises to provide a level of image quality you can’t get with smaller format cameras. We’re looking forward to spending more time with the camera and evaluating the image output from a final production version when the camera hits stores later this summer.”

—The Verge.

This is the first hands-on report I’ve read that goes into any detail about the handling of the Hasselblad X1D.

It’s what I feared, but expected.

As long as photographers understand that the main draw of the X1D is that it is lighter than any other digital medium format camera, then “it’s all good” as they say.

Who knows? Maybe the final production version will be more speedy.

Just don’t bet on it.

—Peter.