Photographer Daran shot entirely in the classic XPan 65x24 format with his Hasselblad X1D II during a family trip to Osaka, Japan. The unique charm of the wide frame makes the images more evocative, and shows medium format in a different light.
By Daran Wu
It had been a long time since visiting Japan — more than five years since the whole family traveled abroad together. With a few days off over the 2023 New Year, we planned a small family trip to Osaka.
Traveling with family isn't as free as traveling alone — you can't just stop to shoot whenever you want. More often it's about the interesting things your eyes catch while moving, or the scenes around you between stops. But since this was a relaxing trip, I let the shooting happen naturally.
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The charm of the wide frame made a deep impression from the very first time I tried it. Used to the 3:2 ratio, 65:24 feels like your vision extends sideways — more elements can be arranged in the frame, and it's close to what our own eyes see horizontally.
65:24 can of course be cropped in post, but I prefer to think in XPan when composing at the moment of shooting. The Hasselblad X1D II has a built-in 65:24 crop mode, so I can compose directly with the wide frame lines — intuitive and more precise.
This time I shot everything with the XCD 45mm F3.5 (about 37mm equivalent). The whole setup is light and portable, autofocus is fast enough for everyday shooting, and stopped down two stops, the medium format image quality is truly moving~
More photos below — enjoy!
Hasselblad X1D2 + XCD 45mm F3.5
Further reading: Hasselblad X1D II XPan View: A Tribute to XPan
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