I owned a complete X-Pan II system new and use it for 20 years. What's the best feature of this camera is that it is a real dual format camera for each frame you can choose if "normal" or pano look. I use it mainly in full frame mode and switch only to pano when the subject fits to a pano composition. The main problem when changing often format is that each time you change format the camera winds or rewinds a part of the film, and when your change you composition choice twice before taking the picture it rewinds twice what leads to a huge electricity consumption, with batteries lastings only a few rolls. If you don't have fresh batteries all time in your bag, you have from time to time interrupted shootings, because without batteries the X-Pan no more works at all.
Fantastic choice of films used.. great choice as it resulted in very unique images. In my experience, slides and Acros with this group of lenses (which were technically designed to be medium format in order to cover the pano length) are very different from other systems. Weird but formerly considered high end expired film also works extremely well.. no idea why. Portra/everything else sold today is great too, but I think the rendering of the lenses really enable some kind of abstraction.
Patrick is one of the few people that I would actually trust with this camera and he definitely earned the use of the full kit with everything he has done for me in the past year. This won't be the last time he ends up having it thrown at him. Visualising panoramic compositions comes with time. When Patrick and I were out shooting on that first day, I pointed out a few compositions that ended up in the video! It's worth remembering that his go-to setup that ISN'T a Nikon is a 6x6 SLR, which is about as far from the XPan as you can get. :) The vertical misalignment is very slight but is there. With my glasses, at least, it's not a factor at all for the 45 and 30, but it does pose problems with the 90. I'll get it sorted one day but the only man in the country whom I'd trust to do the job properly is swamped with work (a good thing!), and I don't quite like the bokeh rendering of the 90 all that much because f/4 at 1 m isn't reeeeally that conducive to beautiful subject separation, so I just stop down anyway. In critical circumstances it's just a game of finding a vertical element to focus on. Hasselblad confirmed to me prior to me buying the kit that they do still service the Xpan II subject to availability of parts. Where parts are shared between the first and second gen bodies, they're kept for the second gen only. I presume this is just a question of them saving the few remaining parts for the newer bodies that will probably last longer, but that wasn't confirmed.
For a camera geek like me, there is a huge draw to this camera for its unique features and technology. However, the price and service status is a deal killer, even of the prices were to drop 50%. In my case, I can do a very large part of what the X-Pan can do by shooting my 6x7cm camera with a 35mm or longer lens, then cropping the top and bottom of the negative.
I agree in every point. Concerning your last point: I think prices are not realistic. I think, when buying an XPan you have a big risk that you loose money when selling the camera again. I think some day prices will drop down because at some point nobody will buy an XPan for 10.000 Euros. In addition it eats a lot of film and film gets more expensive.
Fun video. Quite a camera alright ! Thank you. RS. Canada
I owned a complete X-Pan II system new and use it for 20 years. What's the best feature of this camera is that it is a real dual format camera for each frame you can choose if "normal" or pano look. I use it mainly in full frame mode and switch only to pano when the subject fits to a pano composition.
The main problem when changing often format is that each time you change format the camera winds or rewinds a part of the film, and when your change you composition choice twice before taking the picture it rewinds twice what leads to a huge electricity consumption, with batteries lastings only a few rolls. If you don't have fresh batteries all time in your bag, you have from time to time interrupted shootings, because without batteries the X-Pan no more works at all.
Fantastic choice of films used.. great choice as it resulted in very unique images.
In my experience, slides and Acros with this group of lenses (which were technically designed to be medium format in order to cover the pano length) are very different from other systems. Weird but formerly considered high end expired film also works extremely well.. no idea why. Portra/everything else sold today is great too, but I think the rendering of the lenses really enable some kind of abstraction.
Patrick is one of the few people that I would actually trust with this camera and he definitely earned the use of the full kit with everything he has done for me in the past year. This won't be the last time he ends up having it thrown at him.
Visualising panoramic compositions comes with time. When Patrick and I were out shooting on that first day, I pointed out a few compositions that ended up in the video! It's worth remembering that his go-to setup that ISN'T a Nikon is a 6x6 SLR, which is about as far from the XPan as you can get. :)
The vertical misalignment is very slight but is there. With my glasses, at least, it's not a factor at all for the 45 and 30, but it does pose problems with the 90. I'll get it sorted one day but the only man in the country whom I'd trust to do the job properly is swamped with work (a good thing!), and I don't quite like the bokeh rendering of the 90 all that much because f/4 at 1 m isn't reeeeally that conducive to beautiful subject separation, so I just stop down anyway. In critical circumstances it's just a game of finding a vertical element to focus on.
Hasselblad confirmed to me prior to me buying the kit that they do still service the Xpan II subject to availability of parts. Where parts are shared between the first and second gen bodies, they're kept for the second gen only. I presume this is just a question of them saving the few remaining parts for the newer bodies that will probably last longer, but that wasn't confirmed.
Seeing an X-Pan or any Hasselblad camera always makes me jealous! Looks like you had a really fun time with it.
For a camera geek like me, there is a huge draw to this camera for its unique features and technology. However, the price and service status is a deal killer, even of the prices were to drop 50%. In my case, I can do a very large part of what the X-Pan can do by shooting my 6x7cm camera with a 35mm or longer lens, then cropping the top and bottom of the negative.
If they could be repaired it would be one thing, but I’d hate to end up with a $5000 brick. Amazing cameras and glass though.
I agree in every point. Concerning your last point: I think prices are not realistic. I think, when buying an XPan you have a big risk that you loose money when selling the camera again. I think some day prices will drop down because at some point nobody will buy an XPan for 10.000 Euros. In addition it eats a lot of film and film gets more expensive.
Did you have a favorite focal length between the 3?
The 45mm is the most useful but the 30mm is something special when the situation calls for it, the external viewfinder is a faff tho.
Hey, what do you prefer for pano between the xpan and the bronica sq 135w ? Thanks
xpan has a larger frame and is a metered rangefinder. The sq-a is an slt but smaller frame and fiddly.