This is a product review that I wrote for eBay, but didn't have room to complete. I have since updated and expanded it somewhat.
The Haselblad 500C (the model 500CM is merely a slightly updated version of this camera), was the first successful 6x6 negative camera Single Lens Reflex System Camera ever devised that used leaf Compur shutter, synchonizing shutter with electronic flash at all shutter speeds. From the onset,It was intended to fill a void that Victor Hasselblad and company saw in the camera market during the late fifties the last century.It was also intended to be quite simply, "the best Camera ever produced".
Many photographers would agree that 500C achieved this goal. It changed photography forever. It was also the clear choice of the astronuats and the 500C as well as subsequent models were used during the Appolo Moon Mission. An electricly-driven model, and another sister model was even used on the moon's surface itself.=The things I like most about the Hasselblad 500C are as follows:1)It was engineered by Hasselblad, with the help of the famous car makers at Porche, to be very ergonomic.In my hands,it has always felt very natural, with all the controls falling exactly in place, or within easy reach. For those who may feel differently, I submit that they may not be using it as intended.
For so many things times have changed greatly since 1958, but most of the mechanics of film cameras are still the same. However some of the routine techniques used then, have been lost on later generations.
2) The camera, as a system, allows the user to select from a vast array of lenses, backs, film formats, finders, filters, lens-shades, adapters, releases, and assessories designed to fill virtually any need.
Although relatively expensive, the 500C can even be fitted with a digital back to become one of the finest digital cameras available). You'll find that many of these lenses still sell for a premium. With adapters widely available to make manual use of these superior optics with virtually any advance model of any major make of new digital cameras.
Using your digital camera iun the manual mode should be something that every serious photographer knows how to do. It's more than a drill in the use of historical film cameras. It opens a wide range of control over your new camera, which tries very hard to anticipate your needs and allow for them. New digital SLR's are designed to satisfy as many needs a possible in the Auto mode. Anyt one who can aim a camera and push a button can get decent photographs in the Auto mode.
Next, the new digital cameras allow, for those who are willing to take the time to read their camera's Operation Manual for a half hour or more (or who already understands and knows how to use the concepts represented by the Preset Icons, and actually try each pre-set function to visually compare the results against the same subject with the picture taken on Auto, can gain a lot more versatility toward making better photographs.
And for those who are willing to become serious students of photography and to learn how to both use their cameras manually AND how to understand and use all of the new digital functions on a camera are in photographic heaven! This is why I am adamant with all of my students that they should early-on learn to use a manual camera. this is actually best done with a vintage film camera, which was designed ONLY to be used manually, because that's the only way they could be used.
Before I return directly to the 500C specifically as an excellent choice when selecting a vintage manual film camera for the historical education and cllector value, for the benefit of learning how to use a manual camera, AND for the actual final delivery of some of the best photographs technically achievable, let me quickly relate how this process of using a hi-bred manual/digital features skill set can enhance their flexibiliity to the max.
I immediately see that I need to make a new and sperate post from the beginnings of the next paragraph or two that I am now going to relate now: but that will come later, and this is for now:
Without sounding either too dramatic or too boring, "Let's Take an Enlightened Photographic Walk Through the park", with an advanced new digital SLR camera , taking pictures of this and that, in order to show how the hi-bred knowledge of manual and digital features can work in helping us, "Convert the Mundane, into The Sublime", or "How to find precious Photographic Gems, Literally in our Backyards". There--now have three new posts to add to this Weblog soon. I can't do this justise in a couple of paragraphs, so when I write these new blog posts, I will fill the links in here.
For now, may it suffice to know that I did this very exercise yesterday just for grins, without planning on writing about it, and I am even more excited than ever about both conveying this information to you, and the actual process of the Hi-bred approach which you can and should learn. The Hasselblad 500C provides among the best ways to learn this, AND you can adapt the lenses for it to your new cameras, using them manually, by simply purchasing adapters to attach these superb glass optics to your new camera bodies.
[Links to be added. As this part is an updated and expanded older post written for eBay--I promise (Today's date 1/25/2011)--to write this series of posts above referenced within the next fw days.]
Now on the used market, in a new generation of fewer vintage-camera-informed digital camera buyers, it is not always immediately apparent that these prices are turly outstandling bargains, at a fraction of their original prices, especially with inflation allowed for. This camera was once beyound the financial means of many if not most photograpehrs. There were reasons for this. It was worth it then, and it is worth it now.
The 500C, as it is came from the factory used a medium format 6x6 (2-1/4 inch square) medium format negative.This format, much misunderstood today, provided the real "ideal format", because cropping could be done within the viewfinder either horizontally, or verticaloly, or left square, without having to turn the camera sideways. Then the cropping was done in the lab or darkroom. Today it is done in the computer software.
4) Single Lens Reflex cameras have become very much the norm today, but at the time the 500C was made, SLR's were just coming into their own. In the larger (than 35 mm) format they were virtually
unheard of. This provided a highly-enlargable negative that totally out-classed the 35 mm format. It still does today for big enlargements. This was largely due to the technological and economical limits of technology at the time.
So a Single Lens Reflex, with a Leaf Shutter resident in each lens, in medium format caused about as much stir as did America's answer to the Russia Sputnik space satellite: that 500C is the TELSTAR! But unlike the Telstar, we BEAT the USSR on this. These were parallell historical events of the time. Let me be clear when I say WE, I mean the free world as the 500C originated in Sweden and is one of Sweden's and the Free World's finest moments during the Cold War.
The Telstar inspired the Ventures electric guitar led hit of the time--heard all over the world. The 500C camera inspired phographers to greater heights of creative photography all over the world. Yes, it really WAS that big a deal.
In truth, one is very hard-pressed to get as good an image made from a digital camera of "standard" sizes today, as one gets by using good modern films, processing, and quality digital scanning.
5) SLR cameras also enable the user to see exactly what is seen through the viewfinder, and therefore exactly what will transfer to the film, right up to the moment that the mirror blacks out the image for the length of the exposure, as with any SLR . This is an advantage over rangefinder or electronic display cameras. [with the recent advent of the new Digital Sony Alpha 55? and 35? this problem has been overcome. AND THIS IS ALSO A REALLY BIFG DEAL!]
6) The camera can take a variety of different film sizes by simply changing the backs, including digital, and/or Polaroid-type instant picture films.
7) The large negatives can be more easily seen on a light-table or even just held up to the light, in order to quickly select for final images for scanning. Even at this late time in the process, there is more image to choose from for an ideal crop, if it is cropped at all.8)In my opinion, there are no finer optics than those made for the Haselblad camera (out of room) try here for nuetral non-ad on the 500C: Jump to here for more: