The Smallest and Lightest! If You Want a Medium-Format Mirrorless Camera You’ll Actually Use, Get the Hasselblad 907X
Hi to everyone who bought a nice camera, felt satisfied, and hasn’t really been shooting lately — I’m Hide, tech journalist and part-time house-husband.
I wasn’t taking my EOS R5 out much either (wry smile), but buying this changed my camera life completely.
It’s medium-format digital yet amazingly compact, with the wide tonal range only medium format gives you. The images are worlds apart from your average mirrorless camera, so it keeps you motivated!
Its chunky little look is so cuteThe lens is the XCD 45P, the most compact oneThe X1D II with the same lens. You can see how small the 907X is
## The ultimate digital camera I finally landed on
Cameras are tricky, right? You buy one because you want it, and then you don’t shoot — happens all the time. There are a bunch of hurdles before you actually take it out every time.
These days I casually take it out and shoot snapshots like this. 45mm ISO400 f5.6 1/125
Weight, design, functionality — maybe even the strap is the problem. Something feels off, and you stop using it. When I bought my EOS R5, I thought, “It’s this small and shoots 8K video — this is the one!” In the end, it became my main video camera.
At first I thought the R5 with the RF28-70 F2 was the ultimate combo...I mean, shooting this handheld is amazing, right? 35mm ISO400 f22 0.4
What’s funny is that I also stopped taking out the X1D II, a medium-format digital camera with the same specs. Looking back, I think with the EOS R5 it was “developing and organizing what I shot is a hassle,” and with the X1D II it was “the battery doesn’t last and it’s heavy.”
Even with the exact same specs, I stopped taking it out — usability really matters
## To keep using it, does it need to get you excited?
I think psychology plays a big role too. One reason I stopped shooting photos with the EOS R5 is that “the photos turned out surprisingly ordinary.” Of course, a good prime lens gets you great shots, but it’s heavy. It wasn’t really suited to shooting anytime, anywhere.
Big, yet kind of ordinary... I think a big part of it was getting tired of the look of this class of mirrorless camera
That’s when I came across the 907X. I already knew the image quality from the X1D II, but what’s great is this interface. I was surprised that the shape alone could change my shooting style and how satisfied I feel.
The 907X’s shutter button is on the lower right of the front, pressed with your left hand like old cameras. The screen tilts so you hold it and look down into it
Because of this, I press the shutter way less. Look carefully, think carefully, click. With the EOS R5, I’d fire off bursts “just in case.” Then there were so many shots that even after loading them on my computer, I’d just leave them. With the 907X, I remember everything — “Ah, I thought this and shot it like that” — so editing is easy. The whole experience changed.
Firing a flash straight on in daylight never occurred to me when I was using the R5. 45mm ISO400 f4.8 1/125
This goes for medium-format digital cameras in general, but their burst shooting is way behind recent full-frame mirrorless cameras. But I felt that actually turns into a strength.
The 907X gives you the joy of shooting slowly, one frame at a time
Shadows look beautiful too. Medium format’s dynamic range really renders dark areas beautifully. It feels like what you see gets captured exactly as is. So “I’ll frame this scene like this and express it like that” is easier, because it’s the same as what your eyes see.
When stopping down I used to show everything, but since the shadows are so pretty, I deliberately stopped down with a flash. 45mm ISO400 f11 1/30
When editing, I think of it as finishing the photo by adding a little of what I felt when I saw the scene. Like, “there was a melancholy here.” This is so much fun that now I take it out every time.
Besides Hasselblad, there are medium-format digital cameras like FUJIFILM’s GFX50S II, but they’re fairly big. The 907X is compact in shape and, at 740 g, probably the lightest medium-format camera. On top of that, there’s the unique shooting experience this interface creates.
Add the optional grip and viewfinder and you can shoot quickly, so it works for portraits too. Being able to transform it for different purposes just tickles the inner kid in me...
Buy this and you probably won’t buy another camera for the next ten years. I mean, it works with old cameras too, and the expandability is insane.
You can actually attach it to the back of an old Hasselblad like the 500C/M, so you can enjoy how old lenses render too. I’ll cover that in another article
It’s expensive, but you won’t need to chase trends anymore, and the photos it takes are just superb, so I recommend it to anyone getting tired of the mirrorless look. I think you’ll use it more often and be very satisfied.
Hasselblad Tokyo has a shooting booth, and before COVID you could try all kinds of things there
**Official site: [907X](https://www.hasselblad.com/ja-jp/v-system/907x-50c/)
[HASSELBLAD TOKYO](https://www.hasselblad.com/ja-jp/brand-stores/tokyo/)
