Hasselblad XH-to-XCD Boosting Converter

2020.11.04

Hasselblad is getting ready to breath some life into their Medium-Format Mirrorless Digital Camera system. After launching the X1D-50c in 2016, edging Fujifilm by a few days with the release of a Medium-Format mirrorless system, it took them 3 years to make minor additions that came in the Hasselblad X1D II 50C. These thin mirrorless cameras introduced a new XCD mount which relied on lenses with built-in shutter to omit an in-camera shutter but also made it nearly impossible to adapter third party lenses.

With such an exclusive system, Hasselblad introduced lenses extremely slowly and, even four years after the XCD-system launch, only 9 such lenses exist. All but one are prime lenses with focal-lengths from 21 to 135mm. A single zoom exists for the system and no third-party manufacturers adopted XCD either.

This morning Hasselblad unveiled the new XH 0.8 Converter which allows mounting XH system lenses while recovering their original focal-length and effective aperture by applying a 0.8X magnification on incoming light. This works because the XCD system is based on a 44x33mm sensor with 0.8X crop compared to XH backs that measures 53x40mm.

Using the XH 0.8 Converter gives the X1D II 50C access to XH system lenses covering 24 to 300mm, including two zoom lenses and one macro lens. By compensating for the focal-length-multiplier, Hasselblad allows these lenses to be fully utilized to complete the existing lineup of XCD lenses.

• Lens