Hasselblad True Zoom Camera - $124 on Verizon

[bill-e]

With all the bad reviews I wasn't going to spend $249 for the mod but the day before Thanksgiving Verizon had it for half price at $124.

I had read all the bad reviews but I thought for this price I had to try it.

I am a hobby photographer and have a ton invested in Nikon DSLR's and lenses and I know what a good photo is and that I would have to lower my bar if I had a chance of being satisfied with this mod.

As delivered the mod had software version .74 on it and before I updated the s/w I did some playing and I must say, if the performance didn't improve with the latest version of software I would have returned it.

But I updated the s/w to version .81 and it made a huge difference in the camera's performance.

Being used to shooting raw I went into the professional mode which is missing the most important adjustment, aperture, a mode I mostly shoot in, but it does allow me to take it out of auto ISO and set my iso low for well lit shots. This greatly reduces the digital noise and can produce some really good shots. I also found that changing the exposure to +1 worked quite well.

Had the mod been released with the performance of the .81 version of software I think it would have gotten better reviews even at the high price.

Color is good, focus speed is reasonable for a cheap camera and sharpness is pretty good as well considering at $124 this mod is less then 5% of the cost of some of my tack sharp lenses....I cant expect it to be as good. I do love the familiar half press focus

The camera is a bit difficult to hold steady at maximum zoom and it would be nice if someone made a wrist strap for it.

Too cold and windy to go outside so here's an indoor shot of my parrot, Nike.

First, here are the photo parameters. This was taken in the auto mode creating both a RAW(.dng) and JPG. The only adjustment made to this JPG was to the levels to reduce exposure a bit as the +1ev was not needed for this shot.

This is at 10x zoom, no crop.





I think that this is a quality photo, good color and sharpness.

 

[Scott337]

Like you, my wife is a semi pro photographer / hobby photographer. I got her the True Zoom Mod for free with her Z Play last year. She has really liked it right from the start. But definitely better with the newer updates.

 

[kmf1]

I don't see a setting in Professional mode to adjust the shutter speed. How do I get there?

 

[bill-e]

Shutter speed and aperture are not controllable...maybe in a future update (my wishful thinking). If you had a True Zoom attached you'd also have the ability to shoot raw/jpg.

 

[benjamminh]

This is really encouraging! I've had it for a year and been pretty disappointed with it over than using the zoom capabilities.

 

[kmf1]

@bill-e... Thanks for the information. Maybe a future update will add that capability.

 

[Mike-Mike]

Does it do anything for video? Or is the only benefit for regular photos?

 

[bill-e]

Does it do anything for video? Or is the only benefit for regular photos?

Focus tracking is pretty good and you get the benefit of the optical zoom. The zoom motor is very loud so for a good clip, if you zoom you should edit the transitions out. It only records in 1080p so if you don't need the zoom the phone camera is better.....though if u only look at the video on your phone or computer 1080p is more than good enough