I love the XPan because it makes familiar scenes feel cinematic, but I also learned the hard way that it comes with quirks. For a long time my negatives looked just a touch too bright, not catastrophically wrong but wrong enough to nag me. After tracking every shutter speed and aperture for a few rolls I realised the internal meter was reading about one stop high. This post is the field guide I wish I had then. I explain how the XPan meters, why panoramic framing changes what the meter reads (optimisation choices by Hasselblad), simple checks you can run in five minutes, and the small habits that turn a camera quirk into predictable results. Read on if you want to stop guessing and start shooting with intention.
Is my Hasselblad XPan metering broken?
Like an old car, the more you drive it, the better you understand its quirks. The same is true for any old camera, it is still fully operable and works fine, but has it is unique to its own. If you are not aware of the quirks it might not work how you expect it to work when you need it. Then with an old car, you might want to have the engine run in stationary before you actually start driving it, because that resolves all quirks, an easy solution to a potentially difficult mechanical problem.
My Hasselblad XPan has the same, it is a perfectly fine camera, if you know how to operate it. I am not implying my camera is a bad camera in any sort of way or that if I don’t warm it up first it will not work. It has it’s intricacies that need to be taken into account. This is something you only learn by using. In this case, all my photos felt overexposed, but just a little. Not serious enough to prioritise instantly, nor clear enough that it was an obvious fix. It could have been a result of me not metering in the right area and the camera meter being slightly off. I then over time started to note down my shutter speed and aperture per photo and realised that my internal Hasselblad Xpan light meter is off with only 1 stop. Depending on the film you use and scene you are shooting it can affect the outcome of your photo enough for you to get annoyed.
The Hasselblad XPan light meter is a centre-weighted meter, which is often appropriate for landscapes and other subjects where the balance between highlights and lowlights is similar across the entire frame.
Spot metering vs Center-weighted
A lot of people associate center-weighted with spot metering and vice versa. Especially with the XPan and Fuji TX-1, because the viewfinder might make it appear like a spot metering camera, whilst it is not. The two types of metering have a slight difference.
Spot metering
Spot metering is a photo exposure metering for the spot in the centre of the frame, basically ignoring the rest. This is very practical, when you want to know for sure that the exposure is right for a specific object within view. This can be useful when shooting portraits or situation where there is high contrast and you want to make sure your subject is exposed correctly.
Center-weighted metering
Center-weighted metering is a camera exposure mode that gives the most importance to the light in the center of the frame, while still considering the surroundings, but largely ignoring the edges. Unlike spot metering, center-weighted metering averages the exposure based on a large central area, typically covering 60% of the frame, but gives extra “weight” or emphasis to whatever is in the center. This makes it ideal when your main subject is centrally located and you want that subject to be properly exposed, even if the background is brighter or darker.
The Xpan metering
Even though the centre-weighted metering is ideal for panoramic format, the frame is extremely wide and in my experience does not take extra width properly into account. This could also be because the meter is optimised for two types of frames: the 35mm width frame and the XPan wide format frame. I believe they used a normal 35mm light meter and used it in the XPan. Therefore, this type of metering averages most of the frame, but strongly prefers the center, making it well-suited to portraits or landscapes with a prominent central subject. When deviating from this, you must wonder if the metering is correct, especially in very high-contrast situations. When the subject is off centre, make sure to meter for the subject (with it in the centre) and reframe to the composition you want. As metering is not influenced by focus point, but only by position within the frame.
In case of a high contrast composition, determine your mid grey and expose for that, keep zone metering into account, if you want as much as possible from your highlights and shadows. In case you are more interested in one of the two make adjustments in metering accordingly for one of the two.
Zone System Photography
Determining Highlights, Midtones, and Shadows
The Zone System photography is a method, developed by Ansel Adams and Fred Archer, for measuring the right exposure settings to achieve precise rendering of all the tones in the black to white gradient. It divides the tonal range into 11 distinct sections or known as zones, from Zone 0 (pure black) to Zone 10 (pure white), with each zone representing a one-stop difference in exposure.
Simply speaking this is a technique to determine what should be black and what should be white in your final image. I personally really like having the full gradient in the image, especially when the subject is shown in the right tone and the shadows to be black and the highlights to be white and not another tone of grey.
To start with finding the right exposure you often determine your subject first and then determine how you want your subject to appear. Should the subject be be shown in mid greys, whites or blacks? Each has a reason to use when you want to convey a certain mood. However, when you can determine these by eye, you basically know how to do it in zone system photography. Technically speaking you have determined which areas are highlights (Zone VIII), mid-tones (Zone V), and shadows (Zone III). When you want the shadows to appear as mid-tones, then you need overexpose your mid-tones and this will then most likely blow out the highlights.
Avoiding Common Exposure Mistakes
Just keep in mind that when the meter is reading a bright sky, this will be interpreted as mid grey and will result in the rest being underexposed. Then if it's reading a dark shadow, it will overexpose everything else. This is not necessarily bad, but should be a conscious choice.
Practical Steps Before You Press the Shutter
Knowing all the technical aspect is great, but it does not give you much practical knowledge. Here we will focus on actionable points.
Determine Your Frame and Meter Mentally
When you have determined your frame, take a moment to mentally meter the scene. What are the shadows, what are the mid greys and highlights. Guess your exposure settings by eye for the scene. This only works when you genuinely start to pay attention to your exposures on daily basis.
Finding Mid Tones for Accurate Metering
Then compare this to a reading from the Hasselblad XPan. When you do the reading, try to aim for the mid-tones. This will give you an exposure that will work for the majority of the frame, unless it is a high contrast frame. When you can’t find a mid tone within your frame, find a grey card or something nearby that represents the mid tones in the image (can even be out of frame). This will then very likely give you an exposure that works for the entire image. Obviously finding a mid grey might not be as easy, therefore you can easily use the palm of your hand, a patch of asphalt or a grey shirt to take the guessing out of the game.
Using Exposure Compensation
When you have determined the mid tones, you can decide whether you want to over or underexpose these to change the feel of the image. Perhaps the mid-tones should lighten up and become your highlights (zone VIII, see zone chart), or shadows (III). This can easily be done by using the exposure compensation dial on the camera. In the case of my Hasselblad XPan, this dial is semi-permanently set to -1, to compensate for the overexposure it naturally does.
Bracketing Film Photography
When the exposure is too hard to guess or you don’t want to mess up in any way, you can always opt for bracketing. Film photography bracketing is used when you want to have different exposures of the same frame, which then allows you to, after the fact, determine which exposure was best. To bracket, you first take a meter reading. The camera then automatically determines what is 1 stop above and below that reading. It then takes three photos with the different settings. Reducing the chance of taking a photo with the wrong settings.
High Key Low Key Film Photography
I already briefly touched upon metering for the highlights or shadows, this is a technique often described when considering portraits, but is actually applicable in any circumstance. In either case the extreme, highlight or shadow, will be used as point of reference for metering.
High-key panorama photography
The goal of a high-key image is to create a light and airy feel. Most of the tonal values in a high key image cluster around the bright end of the zones (whites and light grays), while shadows are minimized or largely absent. You can achieve this by setting your own aperture and shutter speed to be two or more stops over the metered “correct” value, especially if the background is very light and you want it blown out.
Low-key panorama photography
Low-key photography is a style that emphasizes dark tones, deep shadows, and dramatic contrast, using minimal and controlled lighting to highlight only specific parts of the subject, creating a mysterious or moody effect. Set your aperture, ISO, and shutter speed so that your meter reading for the highlight is “correct” or slightly underexposed, ensuring shadows stay very dark. When metering for the brighter part of the image, which is minimal, take into account that most meters will try to brighten the dark scene to middle gray, therefore often the compensation dial is set to -1 to -3 to achieve the low-key effect. Classic low-key looks draw inspiration from painters like Rembrandt and Caravaggio, who all are known for a strong contrast between highlights and shadows.
I once tried to shoot a low-key portrait of my friend in a dimly lit studio. My XPan meter screamed 'underexposed!' but I knew that if I followed it, I'd lose all the dramatic shadows. Therefore I manually changed my compensation dial by a stop to preserve the rich blacks and avoid a muddy gray mess.
The External Light Meter: When to Use a Second Opinion
Since analogue photography practically makes you blind as you shoot and can’t evaluate instantly, it sometimes helps you when you get another reference metering. Many analogue photographers have an additional external meter. This meter can be used to directly measure the light in a space. Most meters have two modes, one is incident metering and the second being reflective metering. I will only cover the incident metering here. When using reflective metering you do not have the rely on a grey area to measure it from, the dome on the meter acts as a reference for a mid tone and measures the light falling onto the subject. This method measured the light falling onto the subject and not what bounces off it. This gives an absolute reading and is less affected by background reflectivity or subject tone. External light meters are especially useful for film, studio, or high-contrast scenes where the Hasselblad XPan’s built-in light meter may be inaccurate or easily fooled.
In case you truly believe there is something wrong, then it would be good to contact a Hasselblad XPan repair specialist.
Conclusion: Your Eye Is the Best Meter
The best metering tool isn't a camera—it's your eye. The camera's meter is a suggestion. Your eye, informed by this knowledge, is the final authority.
Get to know your in-camera light meter, use it, test it, even abuse it and verify it with an external source, whether that is your eye or an external meter does not matter. Don’t solely rely on it if you do not know it well enough. There will also be moments when the camera cannot tell the story you intend. The built in meter can nudge you toward compromise rather than intention. A handheld meter gives you a second opinion. It can measure the light falling on your subject with incident readings or measure the light returned by a scene with reflective readings. Incident metering removes the scene as a variable and delivers consistency across subjects and sessions. With greater accuracy, fewer surprises arise in the darkroom. Next time you have a tricky contrast or a mood you want to protect, try bringing a small meter along or take two frames with different exposure settings, compare results, then tell us which approach preserved your intent best. Your experiments will sharpen knowledge that will bear it fruits long term.
