H4d>>>H5d

[Barry Goyette]

Just received my H5d-40 and seeing as I still have an H4d-40 I thought I would run both cameras thru the gammut of comparisons...ergonomic, image, etc to see where the improvements lie, and where they don't.

My H4d-40 has not always been the most pleasant of cameras. While I've always been happy with the images coming off of it, it has been unreliable to the point (3 extended stays at hasselblad in 3 years) that I purchased the H5d (trade in from an older H3d I had as a backup) because I was never sure if the H4d would make it through the next shoot. I'm being dramatic of course...but it's really the reason I upgraded...(the new features of the H5d were simply not compelling enough for me to upgrade on those merits).

Out of the box  The new camera is quite beautiful...it's not white, but silver, as you may already have heard. The black portions are textured and matted and are quite tactile. I wonder if they'll be durable...but maybe I'll start treating the camera with a little more respect :-). With exception of the paint job and a new top LCD and slightly larger buttons, the body and viewfinder are identical to the old in terms of form. The back has been redesigned substantially, the case is more substantial feeling, and the new release system is definitely more usable. (there have been times where the H3-h4 latch threatened to never open when I needed to clear a gnarly hair from the sensor.

ViewFinder Is slightly brighter and is now fully masked to the h4d sensor size. I'm ambivalent about this change...it's probably for the best, but sometimes It was nice to see what was lurking just outside the edge of the frame on the old "outline" mask.

Mirror/shutter - Mirror clap is quite a bit quieter, and causes the camera to "jump" a bit less. I don't see a big difference in hand-holdability...but it's nice to finally have an H Body that doesn't sound like the mirror is going to fly off while shooting.

LCD screen -- resolution appears to be the same, but the image has better shadow separation and is slightly brighter. This I think is a nice change, as the old screen I found myself wanting to increase the exposure to open up the shadows...which is really not what you want to do with this camera. Overall, the screen feels like a nice match to the images in phocus for the first time.

Image magnify feature --its very convenient, but I still don't feel like I really am seeing 100% resolution...

Browse mode - When scrolling through the images on the back, Apparently someone from the Lunar/Stellar team thought it would be a great idea to have the images animate like you were swiping them across the screen. It's annoying. And in a commercial environment where you are often trying to judge differences between frames, it's not helpful at all. I'm sending a note today to see if there's a way to disable this, or if they can quitely lose this feature.

Despite some of the comments about High ISO performance, I think a true side by side comparison between the h5d with proper noise reduction and a dslr would probably tilt in favor of the hasselblad right up to 1600. (there's a comparison of the h4d-40 and the D800 floating out on the internet, that shows the h4d is a bit ahead on detail, noise etc at 1600. The improvements in the phocus noise filter produce an image that is surprisingly good. Again, none of us would buy this camera with the plan of shooting at 1600 regularly. But really it's pretty good.

I've shot a series of images on both cameras to see if there are any image quality differences (I doubt much)...And will report back soon.

[sudarshanchari]

Thanks a lot for posting your findings Barry. Much appreciated.

[arminw]

Thanks for the write up , much appreciated .

[Barry Goyette]

On the image Q front. Not too much to report. Surprisingly, the h5d-40 is approximately 1/3 to 1/2 stop more sensitive under daylight. This isn't a scientific calculation, just a comparison of a variety of scenes with the same lens, settings etc. This may call into question my comments about the LCD, which seemed brighter than the h4d's. It could have simply been the exposure difference I was seeing.

Also, the new camera's image using the daylight standard preset is slightly warmer...but once neutralized, the color response between the the two files is identical.

Oh and one other thing I forgot to mention earlier. The true focus feature seems much more stable and usable. Often with the h4d, it was finicky, slow to lock on and thus I really never used it. I'll test further, but for now it seems like True Focus II is a genuine improvement.

That's it for now.

[PJ]

Thanks Barry for this report. I am in your situation, with a 2 1/2 year old H4D-40 that has had it's minor "glitches" and a couple of trips to Sweden. I'm am very tempted to trade it in for the H5D-40 for the same reasons. Also the improved weather sealing would be great as I've had dust under the IR plate requiring a return to base and a $800 bill! Is the sealing obviously more substantial in the new version?? Thanks!

[rem]

Barry, thanks for the info. what do you think about the autofocus? Some people say he is slower in the 5 than in the 4. What is your experience?
(I ordered my H5D50 2 months ago, but...) Beste Grüsse, Rem

[Giorgio]

Hey Barry,
Congrats on the new camera!
Sounds lovely, I bet your having fun with the new gun.
I think that the processing engine of the 5 is totally new making it a fast camera, let us know how fast you can shoot consecutive frames?
I for one am very interested...

[Dustbak]

I find the AF in my H5D40 slower than in my H4D60. Also the transferspeed while shooting tethered is slower with the H5D40 compared to my H4D60. This might have to do with the fact the H5 generates a JPG as well. I also find the TF is slower on the H5 than on the H4 however it seems to be better. Hasselblad claims TF is improved and did never mention being faster. Unfortunately improved but slower sometimes means not getting the shot. The processing engine might be faster but the H5 processes a lot more than the H4 which might make it in some areas slower.

HB is currently looking into these things and if it can be improved I am certain it will.

One thing that I find really needs an update is the ability to completely turn off the JPG preview on the display when shooting tethered. It now has a minimum of 5sec's before it turns off. This means on heavy shooting days that the display basically does not turn off draining the battery much faster than necessary.

Oh, receiving power from the host on TB machines is a no-go and that will probably remain the case.

Another issue is with auto tilt. It sometimes works and sometimes not (happened to me shooting tethered). Annoying having to rotate images by hand, no biggie in a small shoot but having to select the images that need rotation in a 1200 image shoot is another story. i just ralize I forgot to forward this issue to  HB so I will tomorrow.

The H5 is notably more stable shooting tethered than my H4. I had only a few hangs and these were only in the beginning, none lately. The weird part of the first hang was that the images were not transferred to phocus and were not on the CF card either but the body ket me continue to shoot. This is kind of tricky.

All in all, the H5 is an improvement in many ways but it is still a work in progress in some areas. Unfortunately some of these areas happened to be things I wanted improved.

[Barry Goyette]

in answer

PJ:   Weather sealing...hmmm...you know this is sore spot for me, as one of my H4D "european vacations" was due to a leak of "personal humidity" (sweat) while shooting handheld on a hot day. Lets just say that the process of trying to get the mothership to take responsibility for this was "enlightening" on a lot of levels. I can tell you this...The H5d CF door has a tiny o-ring on it. and the LCD screens are no longer recessed but flush, or slightly raised from the body, which in combination with some other factors was a weak spot in the H4d design in terms of moisture control. The batteries seem a little more sealed than before.

REM:   So far the Autofocus is generally more stable than my H4d...which was always a little "hunty" compared to earlier H camera's I've owned. I'd say it's what you expect...not faster, but no slouch. In my case it's faster than my H4d, but I think there is some variablity among bodies frankly. (A note that may impact the differences between my report and others comments on focus speed....My camera was delivered with a firmware set several points higher than what is currently showing on the Hassy website (in fact, my rep hadn't even heard of it). There were some problems with my camera and I received from support a new beta firmware that is actually quite a bit higher than the one before...I don't know any specifics about this firmware, other than it seems to have fixed my problems....but it's possible that features and functionality have been improved.)

Giorgio:  Shot to shot speed is the same...for what I can tell. I haven't done a side by side, but it seems the same to me...a little more than a second per frame.

Dustbak...that's interesting about the power issue with Thunderbolt. It actually makes sense when using a laptop, as I've had more than my share of problems with the macbook pro (although my retina has been substantially more stable...), but we've never had any glitches on the iMac...I wonder why the change.
What's your feeling on the battery life?...I haven't fully run one down yet, but it doesn't seem to have a dramatically longer life based on the percentages. I think that simply the camera uses more power, which is crazy...and thus the need for the larger batteries...you?

[Dustbak]

Yes, the camera needs more power than before, hence the batteries with more capacity. According HB you should be able to get as much life out of a battery as before with a H4D and an old battery.

Initially the batteries will drain much faster. It takes a couple of times draining and refilling the batteries before they have full capacity. I have done so with mine (I immediately got 4 batteries when I received my body) and they now seem to be behaving like with the H4.

OTOH, when using these puppies with a H4 you will get much better battery life

The TB port simply delivers too little power to power the H5. It can do the H4 but the H5 just needs more. This is why the option is there to get the power from the camera when shooting tethered. I have tried using power from the host (simply because I like to explore stuff and see if it really is a no-go) but after several crashes in this mode I quickly reverted back to power from the camera

[rem]

Thank you Barry and Dustbak. So I wait for my 5er... But I think one reason that we have to wait so long (makes nothing, I have a H4D50 for free since january) could be that HB will solve some problems...

[pedro39photo]

Great real user feedback about the new H5D, thanks.
Pedro

[Barry Goyette]

Last bit of info regarding true focus. Had a fashion shoot last week, and was shooting full lengths with the 100mm at f 2.8. Which is, for me, suicide when manual focusing, something about that distance is really hard to nail. The true focus locked on quickly, as long as I was on the tripod. Had more difficulty when I was hand holding. All the shots I checked seemed right on in terms of sharpness. It's definitely an improvement over my H4d.

[NickT]

Yep my experience has been that True Focus definitely works with the 100. I think you have to be careful that you don't rock back and forward when recomposing if off a tripod.

Nick-T

[Drchevalier]

Thanks all for the input.  I always wonder if I am missing something when a refresh happens.  Since I've had no issues with the H4D-40 and am used to its little operational quirks, you've saved me money, or at least allowed me to point the money elsewhere.

Cheers all.

Ross