Back from Trip with Loads of Hasselblad X2D Images — and a Guarantee of Data Integrity with IntegrityChecker
Related: data compression, data integrity, diglloydTools, Hasselblad, Hasselblad medium format, Hasselblad mirrorless, Hasselblad X2D 100C, IntegrityChecker, Java, medium format, SSD, USB
re: Hasselblad X2D
Back from my 6-week trip, I have over 600GB of Hasselblad X2D files. Fantastic image quality.
But which could have been 300GB if only Hasselblad had the wisdom (and courtesy) to use lossless compressed image files, as virtually every other vendor offers*. Instead, I get stuck forever storing an extra 300GB for zero benefit. It is a time hit (copying/backup) and permanent financial cost** to store 600GB instead of 300GB. Shame on you, Hasselblad, for technology incompetence. No other major vendor is that insultingly stupid. I was writing code to do lossless-compression 35 years ago! This is 2022 and even Sony got their shit together last year. Time’s up for stupid.
Huh, maybe I got some of my mojo back this trip, I haven’t felt this energetically righteously cantankerous for 2.5 years. If you don’t like it, go read a cheerleader fanboy review somewhere.... anywhere/everywhere will do.
But any file format you want as long as it is huge and uncompressed is only one of numerous issues with the X2D. Five years is plenty of patience for both hardware and firmware improvements, so I am not going to give Hasselblad a 'pass' on any of these issues. It’s ridiculous that crappy things I documented 5 years ago still exist.
Did I mention the image quality? Fantastic! But why crapify the experience?
For example, it is infuriating to have lens focus reset up on power-on. This cost me shots, which no pro can tolerate for long. Every other vendor offers an option to not fuck up the focus, super critical under some conditions. Or having no visual or auditory feedback on self timer? So you can do over 2/3/4 times until you get the shot. Every other vendor will blink a light and/or beep—super critical for self or group shots off a tripod. Unbelievably moronic. All you have to do Hasselblad is just copy what other brands do—how fucking hard is that?! And that’s just two issues of many, so don’t get me started on a touchscreen that takes 10 fucking taps to work with the fucking windchill at -10°F and frozen fucking fingers because of a fucking touchscreen-oriented design. Touchscreens should be secondary/supplementary UI, not primary. JFK.
Many of the issues are easy to fix in firmware. Except that if it has not happened in five years, good luck with that. As for the hardware shortcomings like no multi-way controller or focus point controller, you’re just shit out of luck. Did Hasselblad just feel the need to defy common sense, to defy the ease of use available on virtually every other successful brand out there today?!
Did I mention just how much touchscreen-oriented “design” sucks? I should not have to navigate with my nose.
Hasselblad X2D 100C + Hasselblad XCD 21mm f/4 @ 18mm equiv (21mm)
ENV: White Mountains, altitude 10700 ft / 3261 m, 9°F / -12°C
RAW: LACA corrected, vignetting corrected, +10 Whites, +10 Clarity, diffraction mitigating sharpening
wind chill well below 0°F
[low-res image for bot]
* Fujifilm GFX100/100S reduces file size losslessly by an incredible 54% for 14-bit files, and 41% for 16-bit files.
** This was just one trip. How many extra terabytes of SSD would an X2D user have to buy over a 5-year period? Add an extra $4000 spend just for the “stupidity penalty” of the X2D’s lack of lossless-compressed files.
Verifying image integrity
Connecting the X2D to the computer, both the built-in 1TB SSD and (if present) the CFExpress Type B card both show up as volumes on the desktop. Which means that I can use IntegrityChecker Java to update and verify files on both—guaranteeing the bit-for-bit data integrity of the files on both (I used the card slot for a backup copy of the SSD, the X2D writes to both if so-configured). I never did fill up the internal SSD, so I never had to delete files.
I worry (based on experience!) that the USB-C port on the camera will fail from frequent connect/disconnect cycles (charging and downloading). Because that’s just what happens to such things; the USB-C port is NOT meant for thousands of plug/unplug cycles. Already (6 weeks) I see some flaky connections. And then I wonder about how long repairs would take, and at what cost after the pathetic 1-year warranty expires.
BTW, beware of connecting the camera and the connection degrading to USB-2—your downloads will be glacially slow. If this happens, disconnect and try again. On the Mac, you can check the speed via About this Mac => System Report => USB. This is a BFD if you need to download 80GB from a day’s shoot.
Validating data integrity
I did download my files on the trip to my 2019 iMac 5K, and after copying that 600+ GB over file sharing to my 2019 Mac Pro main machine at home (promptly and permanently wasting 300GB of expensive SSD space as per above), I wanted to see that all was well, that every last bit was intact and unaltered. Yep, all was well with my image bits.
diglloydMP: lloyd$ icj verify /Volumes/Master/2022-0928-TripPhotos # icj 3.0fc4.r3 2022-09-22 12:30 # (c)2022 DIGLLOYD INC. All Rights Reserved. Valid license required. https://diglloydtools.com # 2022-11-07 16:46:12 USER=lloyd HOME=/Users/lloyd OS=macOS i386 12.6 JAVA=18.0.2.1 verify: /Volumes/Master/2022-0928-TripPhotos ... Hash data for 214 folders containing 3666 files loaded in 162 ms. HashInfo status: 2087 icjh+attr, 21 icjh-only, 1558 attr-only Hashing 3666 files totaling 623.7 GiB in 214 folders... 1%: 169 files 11.6 GiB @ 2981 MiB/sec, 00:04.001 [3221,1542ms] 3%: 335 files 24.3 GiB @ 3106 MiB/sec, 00:08.000 [3223,1537ms] ... 99%: 3645 files 619.5 GiB @ 3237 MiB/sec, 03:16.0 [3251,1532ms] 100%: 3666 files 623.7 GiB @ 3236 MiB/sec, 03:17.0.0 DONE ----- Detailed file changes ----- ============================== OVERALL STATUS SUMMARY ============================== 214 folders totaling 623.7 GiB in /Volumes/Master/2022-0928-TripPhotos # With hash: 3666 # Without hash: 0 # Hashed: 3666 # Missing Files: 0 # Missing Folders: 0 # New Folders: 124 # Changed size: 0 # Changed date: 0 # Changed content + date, size unchanged: 0 # Total files differing: 0 # Num ignored files: 66 # Attributes: 3645, 0 stale, 0 lacking # SUSPICIOUS files: 0 icj done at Mon Nov 07 16:49:31 PST 2022 runtime 03:19.0.0
