There’s one comment that simply must be made. If you’ve never shot with the Hasselblad H system, you need to, at least once. It is possibly the single most ergonomically designed camera I’ve ever used, and I’ve used almost all of them. In terms of medium format, digital or film, the H system has no equal, period.

It’s a fairly large, and heavy camera for a medium format SLR. The Hasselblad V system is wonderfully compact and light, if not ergonomic and balanced. Most SLR medium format platforms are about the same size as the H system, if not a bit smaller and lighter, and, of course, there are the systems like the Pentax 6x7 and Mamiya RB/RZ67- aka the “football”. For the size and weight, actually, for any size and weight, the H system handles like a luxury sports car.

This is purely personal. And I have big hands. Take this with the usual grain of salt, but you owe it to yourself to handle one at the very least, and if at all possible, shoot with one for at least a few hours.


The user interface on the camera takes some time to get familiar with. It’s not all too similar to any 35mm-format DSLR, but once you’re up to speed the controls and handling is, again, without compare. Part of that is the pointed absence of options, the bells and whistles that account for the huge features gap between DSLR and MFDB, so the controls can be simpler and easier, but, and especially for a camera of that size, it’s incredibly well thought out and laid out.


Finally, I can’t say enough about the autofocus. It’s simple. It works. There’s very little hunting and error. The cameras we shot with were set up to focus with the user-program button by the thumb, something I didn’t want to change out of courtesy to the owner of the cameras, and I simply pushed the button, the camera focused, I framed and shot. The focus in every frame was spot-on. I can’t say the same for any of the DSLR cameras. I was constantly trying to get the focus of all the cameras to do what I needed, in some cases I just ran the focus at Manual to get the shot done. Presumably, with more time with each camera I could have set the mode to match my shooting style, but with the H3D it was simply pick it up, focus, and shoot. Also, this camera, at 1.2 seconds per frame, just doesn’t have to respond to focus as fast as a camera like the 9fps Nikon D3s.