About me and my photographic way
XPan photography is a classical analogue kind of photography. “Why analogue?” is a common question. Because of the way, because of the art, because of ….. There are a lot of reasons. Maybe one of the best comparison by a question is: “Why are you driving a veteran car?” Nobody asking or needs an answer. Hasselblad XPan photography and as well all other analogue photography seems similar like that. It is the concentrated work with the medium, the photography. Not like a mass picture, one single moment, hopefully one of the best – thats enough. It is the fascinating format, more natural and inspiring. The perfect quality and the marvelous thought this is not only -one- from a digital powershoot of hundred similars – thats unique and a slow motion photography. Old-fashioned handicraft, but it is work – that’s as well the point.
My personal way to the black & white is bumpy, started in 1987 with easy shots, self developing and hundred of hours in the lab. After several years of black & white photography there was a break until 1999. I continued with the panorama camera XPan from Hasselblad and was since that time fascinated by this art of photography. I traveled a lot in this time, and it is not at least the reliability of the XPan at difficult places who convinced me. The elementariness, the format and the superb quality is the big advantage during travel. Lot of people were fascinated during my exhibitions and that is one aim for me – to share these fascinating views. Beside the panorama books this is another point to setup this little gallery to view the black & white world. Enjoy our world!
-Best Andreas Stimm-
Hasselblad XPan Photography Blog 
dear andreas! first of all my best compliment for you work, i have your trilogy and it is very nice, very recently i bougth an xpan II with 45mm, but i do not yet tryed. unfortunately i haven’t the dedecated nd filter and the hood, so can you sugest me if the fiter is really nesessary ( i will do b&w and color slides), do you know if i can adapt another hood? i think it is difficult and expensive to find the xppan hood.
thanks in advance for your advices.
sincerely
valerio de iorio
Dear Valerio,
mille grazie for the compliment! With the Trilogy you have a 10 years Hasselblad XPan I work….
To answer your question: I often time use a light orange/red filter, so don’t/cant use the hood or the 2nd-circumpolar filter. If you have strong lightning from center to rim (does not happen often time) you can use a soft gradiation mask in Photoshop. Think in color the effect is much more stronger, here it can be worse. For B&W, the special filter is in my opinion not really necessary. Try it for your own test.
Best & good light & fun….Andreas Stimm
Belíssimo trabalho, muito inspirador. Sou brasileiro, fotógrafo e possuo um conjunto de xpan com as três lentes, se possível gostaria de enviar algumas fotos para trocarmos experiências. Sds: jr.scharf@brturbo.com.br
Salut Ricardo,
gracias por el comentario, pero entiendo solamente un poquito de portugues y escribiendo solamente espanol… Que significa “fotos para trocarmos experiências” ?… What means this? Do you wanna samples? You can look also on my picturebox: http://www.picturebox.andreasstimm.de/, or write me in detail.
Best & Good light
Andreas Stimm
Dear Andreas,
I enjoy looking at your pictures – they are amazing! Let me ask you, what lens you have used for your great Nepal documentary and how you processed the images. You made me long for an xpan myself!
Dear Boris,
thanks for your comments!
I use the regular Hasselblad XPan 45mm lens. Usually it is panoramic enough for the most situations. If you change to the 30mm you will need a lot of space or printouts to represent the character of that angle. I process films by my one with the TMax developer, but due to the decline of Kodak, I change now more to the Ilford ID-11. Scan is by a canon scanner 😦 / not the best, but prints up to 100 X 45cm to exhibit are o.k.
Enjoy the light and use the XPan,
best Andreas Stimm