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Fury, Asilomar State Beach – Diving Into Digital Medium Format

Fury - PAsilomar State Beach, California

Fury – Asilomar State Beach, California

This weekend I went out with some new gear to test, namely the Hasselblad H5D medium format DSLR and Hasselblad 300mm f/4.5 lens via BorrowLenses.com. The location of choice was Asilomar State Beach. The H5D has roughly twice the resolution as my Canon 5D Mark II with a whopping 40 megapixels per image.  I had been curious to find out if Hasselblad’s reputation was hype or not. To cut to the chase I’ll tell you that the reputation is justified.  Focusing just on resolution for the sake of this post I’ll tell you that working with a 40 megapixel image is breathtaking especially when Hasselblad optics reveal so much sharp detail.

Fury - Asilomar State Beach, California

Fury – Asilomar State Beach, California

Above is the original image I took (7304 x 4578 pixels) before cropping it down to a ~2:1 ration (7304 x 3539 pixels). This particular composition I knew ahead of time I’d crop down into a panoramic format as much of the extreme background and foreground were uninteresting and unnecessary to include.

Fury - Asilomar State Beach, California - Detail

Fury – Asilomar State Beach, California – Detail

Above is a tighter crop into the image to highlight the sharpness Hasselblad lenses provide.  This particular image was cropped down to 2604 x 1953 pixels and below is a 1 to 1 crop of the original image.

Fury – Asilomar State Beach, California - Hasselblad H5D 1-to-1 crop

Fury – Asilomar State Beach, California – Hasselblad H5D 1-to-1 crop

In case you were curious this was the setup for the previous test shots. Expect a few more photos and thoughts on my experience with Hasselblad in the near future.

Hasselblad H5D and 300mm f/4.5 Auto Focus HC Lens

Hasselblad H5D and 300mm f/4.5 Auto Focus HC Lens

Photo Details:
ISO 100, f/13, 1/350 sec, 300mm on a H5D-40

Jim Goldstein is a professional photographer and author, based out of the San Francisco bay area in California, who specializes in outdoor and nature photography. Passionate about nature and the environment Jim infuses elements of the natural world into his commercial, editorial and fine art work. For more follow Jim on Google+ | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Subscribe
  1. djanon

    is it just me or do these images look like shit?

  2. jimgoldstein

    Assuming you’re not trolling what is it that you think is off with these photos?

  3. David Leland Hyde

    Interesting to see the results and hear more about this technology. Dad used a film medium format Hasselblad for years before switching to the Rollei SL66. He loved the Hasselblad, but he used to kid that they named it that for a reason, because it was a hassle.