Intro

In a World where most new cameras pack every feature under the Sun, from high speed video to unfeasibly fast bursts, it’s refreshing to find one that eschews both to concentrate on stills photography alone. I’m talking about the Hasselblad 907X body coupled with the new CFV 100C digital back, a pair which deliver a pretty unique shooting experience.

The 100C was launched in early 2024 and builds on the previous CFV II 50C, upgrading the resolution from 50 to 100 Megapixels, adding phase-detect autofocus, human face detection and swapping one of the two card slots for a built-in 1TB SSD. The 907X body and 100C back together cost around $8200 or £6700, coincidentally similar in price to an X2D body. 907X bundles with the earlier CFV II 50C may still be available at around $6400 or £6000, but don’t include storage as standard.

Hasselblad sponsored this article, but didn’t influence my testing or edit my opinion before publishing. So I’ll be including both technical tests and real-World usage, and presenting the pros and cons as I see them. As while this camera is undoubtedly tempting for anyone with the funds, it won’t be for everyone. Everything is in the video below, but if you prefer to read the written highlights, keep scrolling!

First things first, this is a modular system, which in its simplest working combination involves three parts: the 907X body in the middle, sandwiched by the CFV 100C back on one side and a suitable lens on the other. If this looks familiar, it’s because it’s the same approach made famous by Hasselblad’s V system since the late 1940’s. Models including the iconic 500 series employed a body with interchangeable backs and lenses, the former allowing you to carry multiple backs loaded with different types of film. In these systems, the body in the middle included SLR-style composition, where you’d typically hold the camera at waist-level and look down onto the focusing screen.

Fast-forward to the present day and digital backs like the CFV II 50C and 100C include both the sensor and a tilting screen on the rear for composition. This in turn allows the 907X body in the middle to slim-down and simply become a means to mount a digital back on the rear and a lens on the front, with a single rotary control collar around the shutter button.

But the clever part is these latest digital backs are also compatible with most vintage V-system film cameras. Simply unclip the traditional film back from, say, a 500 series body, and swap it for a CFV 100C to transform it into a high resolution digital camera. Hasselblad says film cameras launched after 1957 are supported. Since the sensor is smaller than the 6x6cm film used in those systems though, your lenses will deliver a cropped field of view. But Hasselblad includes a physical frame to drop into an old viewfinder to indicate the new coverage.

It’s also worth remembering the original V-system was designed for square format film, eliminating the need to rotate the camera to the portrait orientation. The CFV backs inherit this design and as such are also only practical to shoot in landscape, but now with a rectangular sensor and screen, there’s the temptation to rotate the camera for the maximum resolution in a portrait composition, and it’s just not designed for this.

For high precision photography, you could mount the CFV 100C onto a technical body. It’s this modularity which makes the system so flexible, breathing new life into vintage bodies and lenses dating back over 60 years, or coupling with new lenses to deliver amongst the best quality of any digital camera to date.

It’s also refreshingly compact and lightweight, with the 907X and CFV 100C combo weighing 728g with battery, or roughly similar to a mid-range mirrorless or DSLR camera. Paired with a suitable XCD lens and you have a system that’s surprisingly compact, discreet and portable, making it tempting for street and travel as well as in the studio.

The design is instantly recognisable as classic Hasselblad with textured panels outlined by chrome, and while it’s not officially weather-sealed, there are rubber seals on the buttons, doors and lens mounts. The modular design means full sealing will always be a challenge, but that’s not stopped landscape photographers from using the similarly-designed 500 series in a wealth of conditions over the decades. But obviously with more electronics now in the back I’d stay clear of heavy rain.

As for lenses, the 907X body is natively compatible with Hasselblad’s XCD series, although can also use other lenses with an adapter. Hasselblad supplied the recent XCD 90mm f2.5 lens for me to test, which thanks to the medium format sensor, delivers a field of view equivalent to 71mm on full-frame, making it ideal for portraits and details.

Like all XCD lenses, it employs a leaf shutter, in this case supporting speeds up to 1/4000, and allowing flash sync at all speeds. This is a benefit shared with the X2D, and a key advantage for strobists over the focal plane shutter of Fujifilm’s GFX, with its maximum sync speed of 1/125.

At the heart of the CFV 100C is a 100 Megapixel medium format sensor measuring 43.8×32.9mm, giving it 1.7 times the area of 35mm full-frame, and wider coverage from the same focal length lenses. Note there’s no video capture on the 100C, nor the earlier X2D for that matter; these are pure photography cameras only. If you want video on a 100 Megapixel medium format, check out Fujifilm’s GFX series.

The CFV 100C shares the same sensor as the X2D and almost certainly Fujifilm’s 100 Megapixel GFX bodies, although unlike either of those, it does not include sensor-shift stabilisation or IBIS for short, as it couldn’t be accommodated within this format.

This means you’ll need to be extremely vigilant when hand-holding the camera as even the tiniest wobbles will compromise the potential resolution, and this means using faster shutter speeds than you may think. If you’re using Auto ISO, it’s possible to set a minimum shutter speed as a multiple of the lens focal length, and I’d suggest at least two times.

Cupping the camera in both hands and keeping your elbows pushed into your body will help, but ultimately this is a camera that benefits from being used with a tripod. At first I found this disappointing as the compact size and weight really does encourage you to use it for street, travel and more casual shooting, but I found you could greatly improve stability by leaning against walls and posts, or resting the camera on a variety of platforms, benches, tables and bollards. 

If you’re in an urban environment, there’s often lots of options at around waist height which is how you tend to shoot with the camera anyway. I also found my Feisol TT-15 mini tripod worked a treat with the 907X and CFV 100C, allowing me to more quickly frame-up a shot while enjoying the stability of a tripod. I often left this attached to the body, which let me set up and shoot faster, without the worries of handholding.

In terms of resolution, the maximum image size in the full 4:3 format is 11656×8742 pixels, although a variety of cropped modes allow you to format your photos ready for presentation at popular print or display shapes. I was particularly fond of the 65:24 XPan mode which crops the image into an ultra-wide shape ideal for panoramas, albeit with reduced vertical resolution. Note the crop is applied to compressed files, leaving RAWs recording the full shape. Images can be recorded in RAW, RAW+JPEG, JPEG alone, RAW+HEIF or HEIF alone. There’s no further compression options available, with 8-bit JPEGs typically measuring between 30 and 50MB each, while 10-bit HEIFs exploit greater efficiency to squeeze-in at around 20MB each. 

Meanwhile RAWs work out around 200MB each and you have the choice to record them in 14 or 16 bit tonal depth. Shooting in 14 bit RAW won’t produce smaller files but will allow the camera to shoot faster bursts. In my tests I measured an 11-frame burst at 1.8fps for 16 bit RAW or 2.7fps for 14 bit RAW.

The base sensitivity is 64 ISO, with options up to 25600 ISO, although for the maximum detail and least noise to deal with, I’d recommend sticking at 400 or below. At 800 ISO, a very fine sprinkling of noise begins to appear and gradually becomes more obvious as the sensitivity increases. But look closely and you’ll still see lots of fine details, as Hasselblad is opting for modest noise reduction, leaving that choice to you. In fact if you’re happy to deal with noise reduction, I’d say you’re still getting a lot of detail up to 3200 ISO, and only really losing it to noise beyond this point. I wouldn’t use it between 6400 and 25600 ISO unless you absolutely needed to.

To test out the dynamic range, I took a 16 bit RAW file in a forest on an overcast day where the sky was completely blown-out. There’s no tonal detail here, and many of the branches and tops of distant trees are clipped. But in Adobe Camera RAW here, reducing the highlights slider can retrieve a lot of those branches against the sky and even some subtle shades in the sky itself. Sliding back and forth between the extremes illustrates what’s possible on this shot. Meanwhile for shadow retrieval, I’ll zoom-in on this dark portion at the foot of the tree where much of the detail is lost to darkness. But again as I increase the Shadows slider, see how much tonal detail is present in the file if you want it.

Moving on, behind a sliding door on the right side of the 100C is a compartment that houses the battery and a single CF Express Type B card slot. In general use I managed about 200 shots from a single charge, although this was mostly without fully shutting down the unit. If you do shut it down, you could expect up to double the shots.

As mentioned earlier, one of the more unique aspects of the 100C is the built-in 1TB SSD, an idea inherited from the X2D and allowing you to capture around 4700 RAW files or 28000 JPEGs without worrying about a card. I wish more high-end cameras offered this. But the slot’s there if you prefer to use removable storage, and you can set either it or the internal SSD to be the primary storage with the other acting as overflow or backup.

On the opposite side is a small spring-loaded door which houses a USB C 3.1 Gen 2 port. This is used to charge the battery internally, directly access the images from the internal SSD, or to tether the camera to a laptop running Hasselblad’s free Phocus software. Wifi is also available for wireless tethering on mobile devices, although Hasselblad’s Phocus Mobile app is only available for iOS not Android.

Meanwhile a flap beneath the screen on the rear opens to reveal flash sync inputs and outputs, an ELX output and a port for a remote release. In the absence of video recording, the 100C has no need for mic or headphone jacks and doesn’t have an HDMI output either.

Looking around the 100C, you’ll notice unlike the X2D there’s no flash hotshoe. If you want to use on-camera flashes, Hasselblad supplies the 100C with an adapter which clips into the top of the body, and again thanks to the leaf shutter you can sync up to the top mechanical shutter of 1/4000. It’s a little awkward to reach the body release button when it’s fitted, but not impossible.

The clean minimalist approach also applies to controls, with the 907X body sporting a shutter button with a single dial around it, and a push button to the side to change its function. In Manual mode, the front dial adjusts the aperture, while pushing and holding the side button as you turn the dial adjusts the shutter speed. In Aperture or Shutter priority, the front dial adjusts the f-number or shutter speed respectively, and if you also push and hold the side button, you can adjust the exposure compensation.

But beyond exposure, the front dial can’t currently be customised to adjust anything else which feels like a missed opportunity. And even if it were limited to exposure alone, I’d like an option where it directly operates the compensation without having to hold down a button, as I could assign aperture control to the custom ring on XCD lenses.

Meanwhile in Manual I found it a bit awkward to hold down the side button like a shift key when I just wanted to adjust the shutter speed. I’d have preferred a single or perhaps prolonged push to simply switch the dial between shutter and aperture. I’ve fed this back to Hasselblad and believe further customisation of these controls could come in a future firmware update.

As for the shutter speed range, the 907X and 100C offer 1/4000 to 68 minutes using the leaf shutter of XCD lenses. Alternatively an electronic shutter boosts the fastest speed to 1/6000, although the leaf shutter is already pretty quiet. Beyond exposure adjustments via the front dial, almost everything else is controlled through a modern icon-based touch interface on the 3.2in screen on the rear of the 100C, which also includes five buttons running beneath it. 

If you prefer more physical controls, not to mention more to hold onto, Hasselblad sells an optional grip for around $730 or £680 which screws into the bottom of the 907X and equips it with twin control dials, four buttons and a joystick for AF point selection and navigation, albeit in four, not eight directions.

The grip shape itself is a stylised wedge, tapering from top to bottom in a straight line, unlike most other camera grips which tend to be thicker at the bottom and often including indents or ridges for individual fingers. The grip encourages you to shoot from a higher position, more in-line with your chest or face, but even then the shape didn’t feel comfortable to me personally. Ironically turning it upside-down was an improvement, but for me it’s nowhere near as comfortable to hold as a traditional DSLR or mirrorless camera, or indeed Hasselblad’s own X2D which has a great grip, but then the 100C isn’t designed to be held at eye-level. This of course is further cemented by the absence of a built-in viewfinder, as you’re supposed to compose with the screen alone, typically looking down at it from waist-level.

Hasselblad does offer a pair of optical viewfinder accessories for around $500 or pounds each which, like the hotshoe mount, clip onto the top of the body. But since these are not connected to the main lens, you’ll only be using their markings for basic framing, and have to return to the screen for focusing.

Initially I lamented the absence of an electronic viewfinder for precision eye-level composition and focus, as well as a larger, more ergonomic grip, but both would have turned it into a more conventional camera, which we already have plenty of. If you want a 100 Megapixel Hasselblad with an EVF, grip and more conventional looks, not to mention IBIS, just go for the X2D. 

Instead the 907X and 100C represent a different proposition, a camera that’s designed to not only look different, but handle differently. So rather than try and make it something it’s not, I actually feel the accessories prove it was already doing just fine how it was. So rest the body in both hands around waist-height, and compose looking down at the screen for that classic perspective.

Of course if you’re relying on a screen alone for all composition, focusing and navigation it had better be good, and luckily the 100C delivers the goods. The large 3.2in panel matches the native 4:3 shape of the sensor, so there’s no letterboxing unless you opt for one of the cropped modes.

The panel is hinged at the top, allowing it – and the buttons below – to angle-upwards by up to 90 degrees for comfortable waist-level shooting. There’s also a notch at the 40 degree angle for when it’s held a little in front of you, and there’s enough friction to hold the screen at pretty much any angle in-between if preferred – handy for reducing glare. Pushing the circle button below the screen cycles through various display modes including completely clean, before superimposing basic info, a brightness histogram, grid guides, a focus distance scale, or leveling graphics.

The 1024×768 XGA resolution delivers a detailed image that’s easy to confirm focus or make manual adjustments, with the 100C also offering peaking, magnified views and a neat circular indicator all providing useful manual focusing assistance. As someone who shoots more outside than in, I was initially concerned about the screen visibility, but it’s very bright and proved easy to view in bright conditions, especially if you angle it to minimise reflections. That said, if you’re coming from an electronic viewfinder, I’d suggest a period of getting used to it for judging exposure, as well as trusting the built-in histogram and metering. I sometimes felt my images looked a tad underexposed on location, only to find them looking fine back home.

Meanwhile the user interface makes good use of the touchscreen with a thoroughly modern, icon-based approach. During composition with the basic information view, you can tap on the White Balance icon in the top left to bring up a list of options to scroll through, while tapping the ISO value on the top right lets you tap through a list of sensitivities.

For greater options, swipe-down from the top to present a clear view of all the current settings, most of which can then be tapped for direct adjustment. For example in the lower left is the exposure mode, while at the top are the autofocus options. The latter include automatic or manual face detection, more about which in a moment. For more options swipe left to reveal a page with ten clear icons, allowing you to drill-down into exposure, focus, quality and crop modes, along with various custom and setup options. It’s a refreshingly clean, clear and simple system compared to the countless pages of menus on many rival systems, and I feel many companies could take inspiration from this approach.

Moving onto autofocus, there’s two main options: single area or face detection. When refocusing between a bottle and the wall behind it using the XCD 90mm lens at f2.5, the combo takes roughly a second to pull-focus, with the phase detect system behind the scenes allowing it to mostly avoid wobbling to confirm. It’s clearly not as fast as most DSLRs or mirrorless cameras, but it’s not slow either and felt perfectly usable for general operation.

It’s also easy to reposition the AF area by touch, and there’s two sizes to choose from too, albeit no auto selection of non-human subjects. You have to tell the camera what you want to focus on by placing the box over it. Switch the AF system to Face Detection and the 100C will attempt to recognise a human subject anywhere on the frame, placing a white box around their face which turns green to confirm focus when you half press the shutter button. 

Do note however that despite having a phase-detect system, the 100C does not support continuous autofocus, so if you hold the shutter down and the subject changes distance, it will go out of focus even though the frame remains green. So if the subject does move, you’ll need to let go of the shutter and push it again to reacquire it. 

Obviously this means you’ll have to be careful during a portrait shoot compared to a camera with continuous autofocus always making adjustments. Oh and if you have multiple faces on a frame, only one will have a box around it, but you can simply tap another to make it the desired target instead. The face detection does a fair job at continuing to recognise subjects turning more to profile, and while there’s no visible frame over an eye, I did find the camera was generally locking onto the closest eye in the image.