The Hasselblad 20-35mm/3.2-4.5 E Zoom lens is Better Than You Think

Posted October 15, 2024

In Hasselblad, Hasselblad CFV II, Hasselblad XCD, News, Steve Hendrix, X2D

Hasselblad recently released their latest lens, the 20-35mm f/3.2-4.5 E Zoom Lens. This was great news. Remember at one point early on in the lifecycle of the X system (back in the X1D days), someone from Hasselblad stated they would not be producing any zoom lenses for the system. This was quickly corrected officially and in reality with the launch of the 35mm-75mm XCD Zoom Lens in 2019. This was a somewhat dense, weighty lens that performed remarkably well. While not a fast lens, it rivaled the prime lenses in resolving power and optical fidelity.

Now we have a companion zoom lens, the 20-35mm E Zoom. While the 20-35mm E Zoom is now the most expensive Hasselblad lens ($5,929), it is more compact and lighter than the 35-75mm XCD Zoom. But how does it measure up optically?

Some potential buyers were initially put off by some early questionable sample images from the 20-35mm E Zoom that were published. As we like to do at Capture Integration, we decided to perform some comparative testing. We were interested in assessing relative performance against prime lenses, and on this day had the Hasselblad 25/2.5 V Lens and 30mm/3.5 XCD Lens in house to test against (we were missing the 21mm XCD lens).

Results are below.