Hasselblad X2D 100C: Best Focus Bracketing Support Yet of Any Brand? Symmetric Mode for Just-Right Focus
Related: focus stacking, focusing, Hasselblad, Hasselblad medium format, Hasselblad mirrorless, Hasselblad X2D 100C, medium format
Stellar support by Hasselblad vs non-support of the Leica SL3.
When I reviewed the Hasselblad X2D back in October 2022 it wasn’t ready for prime time—full of bugs, beta quality really. And it lacked a focus stacking feature.
I do want to try out the X2D’s stacking support, but what also intrigues me is the best support I’ve ever seen for getting the focus just right.
Hasselblad focus stacking support
Near-to-far and far-to-near — all good and there with other cameras.
But what intrigues me is a very smart feature over and above what Fujifilm, Sony, Nikon offer.
Often when making an image, it is not clear what the idea point of focus should be. Given field curvature and focus shift, sharpness may land not quite where one hopes. A very small change in focus can yield a far superior or inferior image when shooting at distance eg landscapes. This matters hugely even at f/5.6 and even with relatively short focal lengths.
X2D Symmetric mode
Symmetric mode first takes a picture as focused, but with capture sharpness deviating from plan due to both focus shift and/or field curvature—the bane of all high-res cameras.
And/or a slight focusing error. And/or serious difficulty in determining the best place to focus in a 3D scene eg the intersection of the subject as a whole with the zone of sharp focus of the image. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are or how much experience—that can be very difficult with some scenes.
However, the X2D then takes additional images at both closer and more distant focus. One of those could be significantly better than the others.
Assuming this works the way it sounds, this means that for purposes of optimizing depth of field in a single shot (no focus stacking), you could set the camera to takes 2/3/4 exposures, then select the one that incorporates the best sharpness for the scene, probably on the computer but possibly even on the camera.
To my knowledge, no other camera offers this mode. Good work Hasselblad!
Step size
See Hasselblad X2D 100C: Step Size for its Focus Bracketing Feature.
Hasselblad also does an excellent job of explaining step size.
