Medium Format Camera Reviews

The Hasselblad 907X 50C camera is so different from the sorts of cameras most of us shoot with, I feel like I almost need a new vocabulary to describe it. If a visitor from Area 51 handed me the device used on their planet to take pictures, I’d expect it to strongly resemble this ‘blad. It is at once familiar and yet radically different. Using it made me feel like I was at Disney’s World of Tomorrow exhibit, sampling the future and finding it surprisingly intuitive.

Hasselblad introduced its latest mirrorless medium format camera this morning, the 50-megapixel X1D II 50C, which is the follow-up to the X1D from a few years ago. After this morning's launch, we got some hands-on time with an early, pre-production version of the X1D II 50C at a special press event at Hasselblad's NY Experience Studio.

Another year has come and gone, which means it’s time for Shutterbug to once again pick our favorite cameras and lenses of the past 12 months. With so much great photo gear to choose from in 2017, it was a difficult task. The below list though is a good summation of the cameras and lenses Shutterbug’s editors and writers most enjoyed shooting with last year.

While it might seem unusual that a camera can be both mirrorless and have a medium format size sensor, that’s exactly what Fujifilm has created with their new GFX 50S. The 51.4MP CMOS sensor size is 43.8x32.9mm, 1.7x the size of the sensor in a full-frame DSLR; the body is decidedly mirrorless, lacking a pentaprism finder and replacing it with an EVF and a tiltable rear LCD. 

“Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer, and often the supreme disappointment.”—Ansel Adams

Arguably, the biggest camera news at this year’s photokina show in Cologne, Germany was the announcement of the new Fujifilm GFX, a medium format mirrorless camera, which was unveiled to much fanfare on Monday. Shutterbug was one of a handful of media outlets to get our hands on a prototype of the 51.4-megapixel GFX and try it out for about half an hour in a conference room at the show.

When people asked legendary editor Herbert Keppler why he sometimes wrote about cameras costing more than the average photographer could afford, he told me it was because of the Maserati factor. “Most people,” he said, “can’t afford a Maserati but like reading about them.” And I get that. My personal dream car is a 1961 Maserati 3500 GT, which sells for north of $450,000. Fortunately, medium format cameras, while expensive, cost less than that.