Hasselblad launches new XCD 28mm f/4 street/travel lens we can actually afford!
The Hasselblad XCD 4/28P is the perfect travel companion for the Hasselblad X2D, and probably the older X1D II as well
If you thought that Hasselblad's medium format cameras were hardly well suited to street photography, you might have to think again. The XCD 4/28P is a super-slim, super-light lens measuring just 43.5mm in length and with a weight of just 245g, despite its metal construction. It's the smallest and lightest lens in the Hasselblad XCD range.
Not only that, while the original contrast-AF X1D was a little leisurely in its focusing (uh, to say the least), the X2D with its phase-detect AF is a very different beast. And, to be fair, Hasselblad probably has more in mind than 'grabbed' street shots and is including architecture, nature (min focus distance 0.22m), travel and landscapes amongst this lens's strengths.
It's part of the company's 'P' range – a set of lenses designed to be ultra-thin, light and portable for everyday photographic use. Hasselblad could also have mentioned 'affordable', because although this lens is not cheap at $1,679 (around £1,320 / AU$2,595), it's practically a budget lens by Hasselblad standards and bang in the middle of the price range even for premium full-frame lenses, never mind medium format.
It's enough to make us want to buy one. Hasselblad's XCD medium format cameras remain a little more expensive than Fujfilm's GFX series – and we can credit Fujifilm for bringing medium format cameras to the masses – but Hasselblad's XCD cameras are, for all their quirks (and there are plenty) simply beautiful to look at and to hold and, if you care about the feel of fine engineering, to shoot with too.
Hasselblad XCD lenses also include their own leaf shutters, too (remember those?), so the XCD 4/28P offers flash sync right up to 1/4000sec.
This looks like a terrific and refreshingly affordable lens for one of the best medium format cameras you can buy.
Read about the best Hasselblad lenses, and the best Hasselblad cameras
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Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com