Image quality
Indoors, the tungsten balance (middle) maintains a slightly warm glow from the light for a more natural scene
For my outdoor shoot with the H4D-31, I used a Profoto flash kit with B3 battery pack, a single head and dish reflector, triggered with an Air Sync remote, all hired from the Pro Centre. The H4D-31 uses Hasselblad’s Natural Colour Solution (HNCS) to produce lifelike colours and it certainly lives up to expectations. Using the flash white balance preset, the colours appeared rich and warm. For non-flash shooting, the sunny white balance performed well leaving a slightly warm but not unpleasant image.
Indoors, the tungsten setting performed reasonably well leaving some natural warmth. There is the ability to set a custom white balance by taking a reading or choosing a Kelvin value, but there is no auto setting. None of this is really an issue, however, seeing as all shots are recorded in a non-processed raw format anyway.
The 31-million-pixel sensor is very impressive, being outresolved only by the 40-million-pixel 645D and H4D-40 on our test chart. The detail at 100% is a clear indication of that. Just a touch of sharpening is needed in the processing to reveal the true detail in the files and leave the shots look staggeringly real. Noise appears at fairly low ISO values, and even at ISO 400 there were signs of colour noise in shadow areas. This is easily removed with some noise reduction, however. The camera is capable of shooting at up to ISO 1600, but this gives quite a gritty texture that is difficult to remove without destroying the detail.
The metering system offers a range of centreweighted, spot and centrespot options. There is no evaluative or multi-zone option, but as a camera that is principally suited to studio and portrait work, the centreweighted and spot options are more useful anyway. The advantage of the H4D-31’s central lens shutter system, unlike the focal plane shutters of 35mm-style DSLRs and even Pentax’s 645D, is that flash sync can be maintained at any shutter speed.
Exposure is also fine-tuned using the True Exposure system to account for slight changes in shutter speed when stopping down. Results are impressive, with images generally kept slightly underexposed by between 1/2 and 1/3 of a stop to maintain highlight detail.
Noise levels: The images above show the same scene, shot at varying ISO values. With noise reduction applied before the raw conversion, it is possible to keep the noise under control. However, there is a gritty texture of luminance noise that remains, especially in the highest 1600 ISO shot. For this reason it is best to keep to the 100, 200 or 400 ISO settings for precision work.
