Conclusion

Hasselblad's digital medium format in general is a great choice for landscape photographers that want crisp detail, lovely colour rendition and an overall sense of depth to pictures. As such, the Hasselblad XCD 30mm F3.5 is a crucial lens in the XCD range.

This equivalent 24mm f/2.8 all-metal lens is solid, compact and lightweight. There are few external frills - solely a ridged manual focus ring that rotates smoothly.

Its quiet leaf shutter incurs minimal vibrations and when used with the X1D, X1D II or 907X cameras can be set to any shutter speed up to 68 minutes without fiddling around with bulb modes or a shutter release. These are two big wins for landscape photographers, especially long exposures landscape images.

The main drawbacks of how the lens handles are really more about the camera that it is paired with. Single point, contrast-detection AF is sluggish, though usually reliable once it acquires the subject. For an XCD lens, autofocus performance is on the quicker end of the scale.

Focus peaking is actually unhelpful, littering the screen with highlighted edges that aren't necessarily in sharp focus. Focus magnification without peaking is the way to go and a doddle via the lovely touchscreen on any of the 907X or X1D/ X1D II cameras. If that approach doesn't float your boat, then this system is limiting - especially with the viewfinder-less 907X.

Image quality excels in all areas. Lens distortions are almost entirely absent, with barrel (mustache) distortion being the most obvious of the lot, though this is automatically corrected on import to the Phocus editing software.

Bokeh shaping is not the best at any aperture setting except f/3.5 - but we don't expect that to bother the 99% interested in this lens. The same can be said for the modest minimum focus distance and consequent limited maximum image scale.

Regarding sharpness, we've been able to get crisp detail shooting handheld with shutter speeds as low as 1/45sec. When mounted to a tripod and with that leaf shutter, it is easier than expected to obtain pin sharp detail at any shutter speed.

And of course you're playing with 51.2-million-pixels from a big sensor, so images can be printed on a huge scale. Downscale the print resolution to a perfectly acceptable 240ppi and print sizes are 34.5x25.8in without interpolation.

Hasselblad's 'natural colour solution' offers some of the best colours around, while dynamic range is up there with the best too.

All this to say, the camera and lens combination is exceptional, especially for landscape and architecture photography. It's approximately £10,000 for the latest compatible cameras plus this one lens, but image quality is rich.

Ratings (out of 5)
Design	3.5
Features	3.5
Ease-of-use	4
Image quality	5
Value for money	3