On 2 October, PhotoRumors ran a short post naming two unannounced Hasselblad lenses: a 65mm f/1.7E and a 135mm f/2.5V. Both numbers are right. They came out of the X2D II's own firmware, which is where I read them as well.
The firmware lists four.
The other two are a second version of the XCD 25V and a second version of the XCD 90V. Each carries a complete set of correction data, copied file for file from the lens it updates. I have not found either of them named in a rumor post, a forum thread or a subreddit.
I almost missed one of the four myself. Going through firmware 1.3.16.1 in July I counted the lens IDs that were new, found three (the two Mark IIs and the 135V), and stopped there. The 65E was already in the previous release, under an ID I had seen before. It went into my notes as a footnote and I never decoded its aperture. That was the wrong place to stop. The 65E is now one of the two lenses in the rumors.
Key finding: X2D II firmware 1.3.18.1 carries correction data for four unannounced lenses. The XCD 65E (f/1.7) and the XCD 135V (f/2.5, 1.8x converter) are widely reported. A 25V Mark II and a 90V Mark II are not. The 65E and the 135V carry measurements of their own. The two Mark II profiles are complete, but every file in them is byte-identical to the lens each one updates.
What is actually in the firmware
Every X System body ships with a lens-correction database. It holds the per-lens data the camera and Phocus use to correct distortion, vignetting and lateral chromatic aberration, and to drive phase-detect autofocus. Inside the firmware it is a plain registry: every lens by name, focal length, mount, and an internal ID, alongside a folder of correction files for each one.
These are the names and focal lengths the firmware itself records. Three of the entries first appear in 1.3.16.1. The 65E is older, and 1.1.9.2 is the oldest release I have examined.
| Firmware name | Focal length | Sits beside | First firmware listing it |
|---|---|---|---|
| XCD 25V M II | 25 mm | XCD 25V | 1.3.16.1 |
| XCD 65E | 65 mm | XCD 65 | 1.1.9.2 |
| XCD 90V M II | 90 mm | XCD 90V | 1.3.16.1 |
| XCD 135V | 135 mm | XCD 135 | 1.3.16.1 |
Two of them are Mark II versions, second-generation updates to the current XCD 90V and 25V. The firmware spells those two "XCD 90V M II" and "XCD 25V M II"; I write Mark II from here on for readability. The XCD 135V is a new designation: the current XCD 135 dates from 2018, is one of the oldest X System optics, and is not a V-series lens, so a 135V would be its modern successor.
The 65E would be the first prime to carry the E badge. The two E lenses in the registry today, the XCD 20-35E and the XCD 35-100E, are both zooms. The XCD lens guide covers what the V, P and E letters mean across the current range.
The current XCD 65, 135, 90V, and 25V all remain in the database under their own separate IDs, so none of the four new entries is a rename.
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The two lenses the rumors leave out
The XCD 25V Mark II and the XCD 90V Mark II have been in the database since 1.3.16.1. Both carry a complete correction set, and neither contains a single new measurement. Neither has turned up in the coverage. I went through the PhotoRumors and Camera Decision posts, the DPReview and FredMiranda threads, r/hasselblad and the public firmware-research repositories on 3 November, and found no mention of either one. That is the only claim in this post resting on my not having found something rather than on reading a file.
What the files say about them is narrower than I first read it, and blunter. The two Mark II profiles do not merely resemble the lenses they update. They are copies of them. I hashed every file in each profile folder: all twelve correction files behind the 90V Mark II, covering distortion, lateral color, relative illumination, blue-corner shading, phase-detect AF and the optical constants, are byte-for-byte identical to the current 90V's. The 25V Mark II is the same against the current 25V. Only the index files differ, and they differ in the lens ID, the name, the folder, and a generation stamp.
That is unusual in this database rather than routine. Of its 128 lens folders, 37 carry correction content, and exactly two pairs share an identical set: these two. The only other file shared anywhere in it is a single optical-data file between the HC 120 and the HC 120 II.
What the copying means, I cannot tell you. It fits a placeholder entry waiting for real calibration. It also fits a lens whose optical formula is unchanged, where the current numbers are simply the correct ones. Those two readings point opposite ways on how finished these lenses are, and nothing in the files separates them. A correction profile does not record coatings, element count, mechanics or weather sealing either, so it says nothing at all about those.
The autofocus configuration is the one place something moves. Each lens entry carries a configured fast scan speed for stills, and both Mark IIs sit higher than the lenses they update: 7000 against 6000 for the 25 mm, and 8600 against 8000 for the 90 mm. That single number is the only substantive difference between a Mark II and its predecessor anywhere in the firmware. Everything else in the two autofocus blocks matches, down to the slow scan speed and the focus step size. I do not know the units, and a configured value is not a measured focus time. It points at the focusing side of the lens as the place a Mark II differs, without saying by how much.
The XCD 65E correction data starts at f/1.7
Each lens's vignetting correction is stored as a table sampled at a series of apertures, beginning wide open. The first aperture in the table tracks the lens's maximum aperture. I checked that against all eighteen released XCD lenses in the database and it holds for every one: f/2.5 for the four V primes, f/2.8 for the XCD 65 and XCD 135, f/4 for the 28P and 45P, and f/1.9 for the XCD 80, which is the fastest X System lens Hasselblad has made to date.
The 65E's table begins at f/1.7. The next sample is f/1.8, so the data is fine-grained enough to tell the two apart. That would put the 65E a third of a stop ahead of the XCD 80.
The 135V's table begins at f/2.5, where the current XCD 135 begins at f/2.8.
The optical constants in each profile give close focus and maximum image scale. Run on the XCD 55V, the calculation returns 0.45 m and 1:6.4, which is what Hasselblad's datasheet lists.¹ On the 65E and the 135V it returns this:
| XCD 65E | XCD 135V | Current XCD 135 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Widest calibrated aperture | f/1.7 | f/2.5 | f/2.8 |
| Close focus | 0.56 m | 0.85 m | 1.0 m |
| Maximum image scale | 1:7.6 | 1:5.0 | 1:5.8 |
The same tables say how much vignetting the camera expects to correct. For the 65E at f/1.7 the extreme corner sits about 2.2 stops below the center, falling to 1.2 stops at f/2.5 and half a stop by f/5.6. The 55V at f/2.5 is 2.0 stops. These are the values in the correction model. They are not measurements of a lens, and nothing in this data says how sharp any of these lenses are.
Have you seen the guide? I've published Essential Phocus 4.x for Mac - 85 topics across 8 sections and 251 pages covering everything from HNCS color science to HDR workflows. It's the reference manual Hasselblad hasn't updated since 3.8. It's $49, and updates are included.
Why the 65E was easy to miss
The 65E's history across releases is plain enough once you know where to look. Firmware 1.1.9.2, built in September 2025, lists the lens by name as "XCD 65E" with a focal length, a magnification curve, and nothing else. In 1.2.7.16 the same entry, under the same internal ID, carries a number where the name used to be. 1.3.16.1 has both the numbered entry and the named one, and for the first time a complete set of correction files behind them.
That is why counting new IDs finds three lenses and not four. The 65E never arrived as a new ID. It was already there, and what changed was the data hanging off it.
It's impossible to know why the name disappeared for a release and came back, but this is Hasselblad so we shouldn't be surprised.
The rest of the mess is still there: a few staging entries, some duplicated IDs, one entry whose values belong to a different lens. That looks like a build still being worked on.
The XCD 135V and its 1.8x converter pairing
The current XCD 135 has two sets of correction data, one for the bare lens and one for the lens on the X Converter 1,7. The 135V also has two sets. The second one is for a different converter value.
Decoded on the same scale as the apertures, the current converter comes out at 1.68x and the 135V's at 1.78x. The focal lengths in the data agree with that. The current 135 goes from 133 mm to 226 mm, which are the figures in Hasselblad's own lens brochure.² The 135V goes from 131 mm to 233 mm.
| Bare lens | With converter | Ratio | Aperture with converter | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Current XCD 135 | 133 mm | 226 mm | 1.70 | f/4.8 |
| XCD 135V | 131 mm | 233 mm | 1.78 | f/4.5 |
The f/4.8 in the first row is the firmware arithmetic, and it matches what Hasselblad publishes for the current pairing.³ The f/4.5 in the second row is the same arithmetic applied to the 135V.
The camera's autofocus configuration settles what that second value is called. It lists the current pairing as "XCD135+1.7x" and carries a separate entry labelled "XCD135V+1.8x". So the firmware names a 1.8x pairing for the 135V, which on a 135 mm lens would be sold as something close to 240 mm.
The limits are these. The lens registry has no entry for a converter as a product, so there is no name for one beyond that label. The data cannot separate a new converter from the existing one behaving differently on a different master lens: the two converter codes each appear on exactly one profile, which is not enough to tell an identity code from a per-pairing factor. And the 135V profile contains no calibration for the 1.7x value at all. Calibration data records what Hasselblad chose to measure, which is a different question from what will physically mount.
If you own the X Converter 1,7, the firmware gives no indication either way on whether it will work with a 135V.
Which of the four profiles are finished?
Three of them, counting files. The XCD 65E, XCD 25V Mark II and XCD 90V Mark II each carry the full set of corrections: distortion, lateral color, relative illumination, phase-detect AF, and blue-corner shading. For the two Mark IIs those tables are filled with the current lens's values rather than values of their own, so a complete file set and a finished lens are not the same claim.
The XCD 135V is the exception. It carries substantial correction data, but it is missing one category that every other finished lens profile in the database includes, the blue-corner shading correction. It was one file short in 1.3.16.1 and it is still one file short in 1.3.18.1.
Correction files also carry a generation date. The 65E's are stamped the first days of February 2026, and its provenance is genuinely mixed: the blue-corner data dates from September 2024 and the optical data from June 2025, written by different people. The 135V's are dated 15 May 2026, three months newer, and that is the profile still missing a category. Both Mark II profiles carry a February 2026 stamp too, but on files whose contents came from the shipping lens, so that date records when the entry was written and not when anything was measured.
So readiness splits rather than ranking cleanly. The 135V is the only one of the four whose own data is visibly unfinished. The two Mark IIs look finished by file count and are the least informative of the four, because none of their numbers were measured for them. The 65E is the only one carrying a complete set of its own. That is an inference from timestamps and file contents, and says nothing about which lens ships first.
The 65E shows how little a registry entry says about timing. It has been listed since at least September 2025 and is still unannounced a year later.
How much should you read into this?
A firmware entry is about as strong a signal as you get short of an announcement. Every XCD lens Hasselblad has released is in the database. Hasselblad loads a lens's correction profile into the camera at or before that lens ships, because the camera needs the data to correct the files. A fully populated profile normally means the optical design is done and the calibration work finished or close to it. The two Mark IIs are the exception that makes the rule worth stating carefully: their profiles are populated, but with borrowed numbers.
What the firmware obviously cannot tell you is when, or how much, or whether the final marketing names will match these working names. Plans move. A lens can sit calibrated for months before a launch, and a name can change on the way to the store.
There is one place this might change a decision today. If you are about to buy the current XCD 135 with its converter, or a 90V or a 25V, the firmware says a successor to each already has correction data in the camera. Everything else can wait for an announcement. The firmware tracker lists the current version for every X System camera and lens.
Where this comes from
Nothing here is a leak. This is the reference data that ships inside the X2D II firmware, the same file Hasselblad publishes for every owner to download.⁴ No NDA, no insider, no tip.
I am not the only person reading it. On 27 September 2026, u/Upstairs_Charity_272 published their own analysis of the 65E's correction data on r/hasselblad and arrived at the same f/1.7.⁵ The numbers in this post are my own, computed from my own copy of the firmware, and where I ran the same calculation the results agree. Since then the f/1.7 figure has spread well beyond that thread. The arithmetic behind it has not.
I checked the method before relying on it. The aperture reading reproduces the published maximum aperture of all eighteen released XCD lenses, the close-focus calculation reproduces the 55V datasheet, and the converter arithmetic reproduces Hasselblad's figures for the current 135 pairing. The claim is only what the firmware lists, and what the numbers in it decode to.
Correction, 3 November 2026. An earlier version of this post said the two Mark II profiles were calibrated in the same February batch as the 65E. That was wrong. The February stamp sits on their index files, and the correction data behind it is copied from the current 25V and 90V. I found it by hashing the files after a reader asked whether the three 90mm profiles differ from each other. The sections above now describe what those files actually contain.
What the next firmware would have to show
Two things. The blue-corner shading file for the 135V, which is the one piece missing from an otherwise finished profile. And correction data of their own behind the two Mark IIs, replacing the copied files they carry now.
References
- Hasselblad XCD 2,5/55V datasheet - close focus 0,45 m, maximum image scale 1:6,4 (checked 2026-09-28)
- Hasselblad X and H System lens brochure - XCD 2,8/135 focal length 133 mm, 226 mm with the X Converter 1,7 (checked 2026-09-28)
- Hasselblad XCD 2,8/135 product page - aperture range 4,8-55 with the X Converter 1,7 (checked 2026-09-28)
- X2DII_100C_v1_3_16_1.cim - the firmware container (366 MB)
- 65E f/1.7 firmware analysis - u/Upstairs_Charity_272 on r/hasselblad, 27 September 2026
- Hasselblad X2D II Firmware 1.3.16.1 is Available - the release this data first appeared in
- X2D II Firmware Updates Since Launch - the running history of every X2D II firmware
- Hasselblad is rumored to release two new lenses: 65mm f/1.7E and 135mm f/2.5V - PhotoRumors, 2 October 2026 (checked 2026-11-03)