A Long-Awaited Partnership: Hasselblad and Capture One Announce Native RAW Support

Here’s something that caught me by surprise: Hasselblad and Capture One have officially announced a landmark partnership to bring native support for Hasselblad medium format cameras to the Capture One platform. For years, a native workflow uniting Hasselblad’s peerless image quality with Capture One’s industry-standard processing software has been one of the most frequently requested features across community forums, feature-request boards, and social channels. Now, that community request has finally been answered.

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What It Took to Get Here

This collaboration marks the end of a long-standing division between two of the industry’s most respected photography brands, putting aside the years of incompatibility for the sake of their users. Achieving this level of integration required moving past generic compatibility to build a truly bespoke ecosystem. Historically, bringing Hasselblad’s proprietary RAW files (.3FR) into Capture One forced photographers to resort to complex file conversions and tedious workflow workarounds. These extra steps did more than just consume valuable time; they actively cost professionals precious color fidelity and editing latitude.

To bridge this gap, engineers from both companies spent years aligning their technologies to create custom-tailored color profiles for each supported camera model. Rather than applying a standard, generic RAW conversion, these specialized profiles ensure that Hasselblad images render natively with the exact true-to-life color processing that Capture One users expect, while strictly preserving the integrity of Hasselblad’s premium sensor data. Furthermore, the collaborative effort yielded dedicated lens profiles for Hasselblad’s XCD lenses, providing automatic corrections for distortion, chromatic aberration, and light falloff right out of the box.

Direct Benefits to Hasselblad Photographers

For existing Hasselblad photographers, this partnership removes significant friction from their creative pipelines. Available immediately in Capture One version 16.8.3 and Mobile version 3.3.4, photographers can import, organize, and develop their RAW files natively. At launch, this support spans three of Hasselblad’s flagship 100-megapixel models: the X2D II 100C, the X2D 100C, and the modular CFV 100C digital back.

By eliminating the third-party conversion phase, photographers can leverage the full weight of Capture One’s robust editing toolkit—including layers, masks, precision color editing, and advanced adjustments—directly on their native files. This ensures that the ultra-rich 16-bit color depth (representing approximately 281 trillion colors) and the acclaimed Hasselblad Natural Color Solution (HNCS) remain entirely uncompromised throughout the post-processing phase.

Benefits for the Capture One Community

Conversely, existing Capture One users and studios gain immense value from this alliance. Capture One has long been recognized as the professional choice for high-end digital workflows, natively supporting over 550 cameras and 700 lens profiles. Brining support for Hasselblad camera only further solidifies Capture One’s standing as an open, versatile, and comprehensive hub for professional digital photography. This collaboration will grant Capture One users with the creative freedom to invest in Hasselblad’s medium format ecosystem without being forced to abandon the professional editing tools, fast processing, and collaborative studio features they already rely upon.

Looking Ahead

What excites us here at The Phoblographer are the possibilities that this could signal. For years, Hasselblad photographers could use the company’s Phocus software as a free, all-in-one RAW development and editing app with integrations for Lightroom; today’s announcement already has considering what this level of integration could mean for Capture One users.

While the initial launch delivers comprehensive, native file development, both companies are already working on the next phase of their collaboration. Tethered capture support, which connects a camera directly to Capture One for live, on-set shooting, is scheduled to arrive later in 2026. If you’re a current Hasselblad photographer and want to give Capture One a spin, they’re offering a free seven-day trial to commemorate this historic announcement.