XCD 30mm F3.5 and flare

[polychloros]

I recently purchased a like-new example of the XCD 30mm F3.5 lens to give me the wider field of view I felt I'd been lacking. This lens has a reputation for being of stellar quality but, whilst I found it appropriately sharp and liked the general look, I was troubled by flare more often than I was expecting. I usually photograph towards the sun and other light sources so have a good feel for when I'd expect flare to be a problem and I was surprised by both the ugliness of the flare with this lens in a few photographs and also its propensity to flare. Fortunately, I bought from an excellent dealer and I am able to return the lens for a full refund but I was wondering what the experience of others might be with this lens and how it handles flare? The Hasselblad marketing blurb on this page shows two photos that demonstrate excellent (to my mind) flare handling but my experience was quite different. Should I assume that I had received a dud?

The first attached photo is probably the best (worst?) example. I have countless similar photographs using my 45P and many with my 21 F4 and I have never seen an ugly blob of flare like this when shooting directly towards the sun.

Even in the second example, with the sun obscured by cloud, the brighter area of the sky has induced another problematic flarey hexagon.

[Bob Foster]

Hello polychloros,

I've tried to duplicate the results you obtained with the XCD 30 and failed. I was unable to produce anything like the partial image of the aperture blades an rainbows in your image #1 nor was I able to produce a veiled area as seen in your image #2.

I used my X2D with the XCD 30mm at apertures ranging from f8 to f16. The worst features of any of the images I made were 1. the disc of the sun itself appeared to be very slightly octagonal when I magnified the image to 500%, 2. the limbs of the "sun star" showed very slight colour fringing at 500% magnification that was easily removed in Phocus, and 3. please see my note on an image by Vieri Bottazzini linked below. Gross overexposure (not seen in your sample images) resulted in the addition of a halo to the sun.

Link to a sample image by Vieri Bottazzini: https://www.vieribottazzini.com/2019/07/hasselblad-xcd-30mm-f-3-5-in-depth-review.html About 1/2 way down this web page flare is evaluated. If you will open the "master" image in a separate window and magnify it to ~500% you will note a small green splotch close to the sun at about 11:00 relative to the center of the sun. This did occur with my lens, not at 11:00 but at 1:00. I was able to remove this in post, though as you'll know, this requires patience and a deft touch.

For what it's worth my opinion is that the lens you used to make these images is not typical of the XCD 30. Assuming that it was within Hasselblad's specifications at final assembly and final inspection it may have been damaged during its' transit to your dealer.

Bob

[polychloros]

For what it's worth my opinion is that the lens you used to make these images is not typical of the XCD 30. Assuming that it was within Hasselblad's specifications at final assembly and final inspection it may have been damaged during its' transit to your dealer.

Thanks Bob. Yes, that was my thought too. The 30mm F3.5 has such a good reputation and my good experiences with other XCD lenses is such that something immediately seemed off with this particular lens when I was reviewing the photos in Lightroom. In fact, I was a bit taken aback by the flarey blob in the first photo whilst I was actually taking the photo (so much so that I started fiddling around with the lens hood as that freight train started to cross the viaduct, optimistically thinking the hood might not be fitted on properly ).

Fortunately, the dealer I bought it from was very supportive and has paid for the lens to be collected and returned for a full refund.