Hasselblad XCD 35-100mm f/3.5-4.5 E

One lens to rule them all?

The 35-100mm is Hasselblad's standard (but of course, 'exceptional') range zoom for the X system, taking you from a useful wide-normal out to short telephoto in a single barrel. On paper it's the do-everything lens: the focal lengths you reach for most, without changing glass.

And the rendering is everything you want from the system. Beautiful colour and tonal range smoothness that makes a Hasselblad file look like a Hasselblad file. And whilst the Hasselblad colours make a great base to work from, I do process my images to taste.

Despite the 3.5-4.5, thanks to the amazing in body stabilisation of the Hasselblad X cameras you can shoot in very low light environments.

Both of those were shot in near-darkness, and they're clean. That's because the X2D II's in-body stabilisation is extraordinary. For a static scene you can drop the shutter speed a long way, let the IBIS hold the frame steady, keep the ISO down at the bottom of its range, and the narrow maximum aperture simply stops mattering. Landscape, architecture, interiors, dusk, anything that holds still: this lens and that body are a brilliant low-light pairing, and the aperture you were worried about never comes into it.

The catch is the one thing IBIS cannot do. It stabilises the camera. It does nothing for your subject.

In good light it handles people beautifully, skin tones believable even in harsh contrast. These few street photos were me testing how well the autofocus could lock on and take a photo as both me and the subject were walking, not the ideal street camera, but it's how I like to push new gear.

Why it didn't work for (indoor) events

At an event, people move, they walk, gesture, turn, react. Which means indoors at an event I had to keep the shutter speed up. On a variable f/3.5-4.5 zoom in a dim room, that pushes the ISO high, fast. And on medium format, where the entire reason you're carrying the system is clean colour and fine detail, the noise reduction needed to tame that high ISO is precisely what eats the colour and detail you came for. After trying Lightroom (and even Phocus), I found the software just isn't optimised to handle high-ISO Hasselblad files as well as it does with Sony, Nikon or Canon.

The way it made me shoot

This part is less about the glass and more about me, and I think that's fair to separate out.

I tried to use the zoom as I would my Sony A1, chasing the moments, but of course it would never let me work as fast. Over a few jobs it started to dull my enjoyment of the camera, and a camera you don't enjoy reaching for is a camera you stop reaching for. That mattered more than any spec.

Why I went back to primes

In the end the decision made itself. I already had the focal range covered by XCD primes, and I am never giving up the 80mm f/1.9. Once I admitted the zoom wasn't earning its place for events, and was redundant for everything else, there was nothing holding it in the bag. The lens was also out of stock everywhere and I had the opportunity to sell it on and get my money back in full.

So I sold it and went back to primes. I still occasionally shoot Hasselblad at events, but I take a more relaxed approach, chasing the light foremost.

So should you buy it?

Here's the honest split, because my reason to sell is genuinely some people's reason to buy.

If you shoot events, weddings, gigs, anything with people moving in dim rooms, I wouldn't do it.

But if you just want to carry one lens and you shoot landscape, travel, architecture, street in daylight, or any static subject where you can lean on that remarkable IBIS, almost none of my reasons apply to you. You get one lens covering the most useful range, the full Hasselblad colour and detail, and a low-light capability that is genuinely there as long as your subject sits still. For a huge number of photographers that is exactly the right lens.

The 35-100 is hard to find used and often out of stock, but you can browse the current Hasselblad XCD lens listings on UsedLens to see what's around.