Opinion on new lens series

[dmecham]

I'm quite surprised you're seeing a focus shift.  Something I've never seen with any of my Hassleblad XCD lenses.  As I test each lens I test all apertures.  I have 28P, 38V, 45P, 65 and 75P.  I think I'd look further into this and contact Hasselblad.

[polychloros]

I'm quite surprised you're seeing a focus shift. I think I'd look further into this and contact Hasselblad.

I considered doing so but, frankly, I can't really be bothered. Especially when Matt on the GetDPI forum confirmed that his did the same thing <https://www.getdpi.com/forum/index.php?threads/hasselblad-xcd-28p-focus-shift.76065/>. Life is too short sometimes and it is easy enough to compensate for it.

[dmecham]

Hasselblad would most likely send you a new one if it was just recently purchased.

[polychloros]

Hasselblad would most likely send you a new one if it was just recently purchased.

I bought it in April 2024. Besides, I mostly use my 45P as I prefer a more moderate wide angle.

I do wish Hasselblad would make a 35P but that's another story. (I know there is the 38V and it's not big or heavy but I'd be happier with F4, smaller and less costly).

[dmecham]

I love my 45P and I do love the 38V but it was more expensive.  The 38V may be the lens I use most for it's IQ and angle of view.  It is one of the lightest lenses in the series as well.  With a well placed focus point my DOF at f 5.6 is about 20ft to infinity.

[niviblad]

Apparently, focus shift is a flaw inherent to the design of a lens, so, I believe every single 28P suffers from that flaw. Lloyd Chambers, who is very harsh with the 28P, mentions the focus shift too.

I've read on another forum someone saying it was a spherical aberration. Interestingly, and we can go back to the subject, he also said some older lenses left some spherical aberrations uncorrected so that the bokeh produced be smoother. Then, he added that nowadays, there are other ways to smooth the bokeh. I don't know who he is and how he knows that, but that's interesting considering the sometimes harsher double lines produced by new lens series, the 75P being the worst example I've seen. Also, the 75P MTF charts are impressive, and it seems to be as sharp as the 90V in the center. Wouldn't that double lines be a byproduct of that superior characteristics? These lenses have more aspherical elements and extra low dispersion elements than the older. Only the 21, the 30, and the 35-75 have one aspherical element. And the 45P.

I know the test provided by Steve shows the 80 and the 90V are close in a comparable scenario. But this test doesn't display the worst double lines I've seen with the new lenses either, not comparable to the sample I've taken from Hasselblad website. I've looked hundreds of times at my shots and I've never seen bad double lines in hair (sometimes we can guess it exists, just like in Steve test, but it's smooth enough not to be distracting). But I should mention that I've seen double lines or ghosts in the background of some shots with the 65. I'll provide examples.

[niviblad]

Shot at F5.6 with the 65. It's not as distracting as what I've showed elsewhere in newer lenses, but distracting enough to make me see it. Never seen anything like that with the 80 nor the 120, but I've used them far less, and probably never in the same scenario.

And you can see that in the Ray Cheung photography I shared in the 80 thread, the 75P doesn't produce the kind of double lines I hate, the effect is in fact lovely in this scenario. I believe it doesn't happen when focusing at close distance. It's also where the bokeh is maximized...

[niviblad]

An interesting read about aspherical elements and the way Panasonic optimised their design, and probably the reason why Leica and Hasselblad now work with Panasonic...

Fun fact, I've learnt what kind of bokeh I hate and sometimes encounter with Hasselblad lenses, old and new, and I'm not alone: Nisen bokeh... It's unclear to me whether a lens able to produce perfectly creamy bokeh could also, in some circumstances, produce nisen bokeh. I believe it's possible as the 65 can do that. Again, close focusing with it at 2.8, I doubt I'll ever see Nisen bokeh... But stopped down or at some distance, maybe more...

https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2014/05/02/the-end-of-onion-ring-bokeh-panasonic-beats-the-curse-of-aspheric-lenses