Actually Using The Hasselblad 500C/M

Dave Colangelo · Aug 9, 2016

Its been a while since I have updated this, I was at the beach 2 weekends ago and ready to shoot but a stomach bug kept me in the house for most of the weekend. As such I only was able to get a few shots and no rolls were finished so there was nothing to develop. I was however at the air and space museum this past weekend while on a visit to DC (as a pilot I was like a kid in a candy store there, if you are in the area its a must to check out), I got to see one of the Hasselblads used on the Apollo missions which was a real highlight. The Hasselblad ELM was the camera of choice for the Apollo missions, nasa was kind enough to release all the photos recently, you can see them here. Anyway, heres the actually camera

The Camera

The film backs

Here is a pic of the lunar surface camera

Another thing I thought was pretty funny was this checklist (see the first item on the smaller card)

I hope to finish off the rolls this weekend and get the roll of slide film developed.

Regards
Dave

chuasam · Aug 14, 2016

After 15mins of dicking around trying to load the film magazine, I gave up and picked up the Sony RX1R2 instead.

fmw · Aug 18, 2016

Incidentally, I saw a digital back for the 500C on Ebay recently for $600. I sweat when I think of what they used to cost.

Dave Colangelo · Aug 30, 2016

So I got some of the rolls back from the other weekend and I had the chance to run a roll of Fuji Velvia 50 which I find has a bit more of a blue tone to it than the Ecktar I have been using up till now. It ran nicely and I cant complain with the limited exception of it being almost twice the price of the Ecktar which is a bit frustrating. Anyway the highlight shot was another shot of the chairs, in this case the red was may more bold than the Ecktar,

I also got a roll of Ecktar in that weekend during sunrise but ill admit I was not floored by any of the shots. It was so hot and humid out that morning (even before the sun came up) I think i was just irritated and in a rush and it showed in the outcome.

Regards
Dave

Dave Colangelo · Sep 30, 2016

So its been a little while since I have updated this, the end of summer always signals a bit of a downturn in photography for me and this year work has really been keeping me busy but I have tried to shoot a few rolls here and there. Im hopefully heading up to VT to see the foliage next weekend and will be bringing the hassie no question! Here are some shots from around Philly which I think I over exposed a bit and I may have adamantly been in a bit of a rush.

I was up in VT a few weeks ago and shot two really nice rolls you can see here and here my favorite shot was this one

Im hoping the foliage in VT holds for next weekend (as well as the weather). Right now I have lots of Ecktar 100 and ill get some fuji slide film and really work on color but we shall see.

Regards
Dave

Dave Colangelo · Nov 11, 2016

So the weather ended up holding, and the flight up to VT was a great time. There is nothing quite like flying a tiny Piper Archer 1000 Ft. over a 747 coming into KLGA. We got to chase the hurricane back which was pretty cool to fly next to as it moved out to sea. But none the less I had a great time with the 'blad up in VT again. Only shot 2 rolls (here and here) and learned a few key things. A hazy sky has a big impact on things, trees look way better up close in the fall, the 250mm is a nice lens for shooting from a mountain top.

Lots of other things have been going on around Philly and I have been trying to get out and about as much as I can. The midtown festival got a roll of Illford 100 which was a lot of fun. The Clinton rally the night before the election was a good opportunity for me to try out some 3200 ISO Ilford and a great lesson in low light shooting. To be honest most of the shots came out pretty terrible but I learned just how hard it was to focus in low light even with the Matt-D screen. The rolls can be seen here. I also added some more shots to my other philly street photo album from this past weekend.

One of the better shots from the series (and quite forum appropriate),

Regards
Dave

minicoop1985 · Nov 11, 2016

fmw said:
Incidentally, I saw a digital back for the 500C on Ebay recently for $600. I sweat when I think of what they used to cost.

I just bought a Hasselblad H3D-39 for $3200 (including cost of the lens). It was a $30,000 camera when it was new. It's amazing how these things depreciate. Definitely not investment material.

Dave Colangelo · Nov 11, 2016

The digital ones are always a toss up, I have looked at some of the digital back for my 500CM but the truth is the affordable ones are only slightly higher resolution than the best things out on the DSLR market . I shoot the 500 C/M to get back into shooting film and have some fun the old fashion way!

minicoop1985 · Nov 11, 2016

There's a couple options out there for MF digital backs. Phase One P series is worth a look. Sure, it's not much more resolution wise than a current DSLR, but the image quality blows modern DSLRs away. I had a 22 mp Leaf Aptus that had 22 megapickles, and the image quality out of even the cheapo Mamiya glass was unbelievable.

greybeard · Nov 11, 2016

I had a 500 C back in the day when I was shooting a lot of weddings. I ended up adding an eye level prism finder to mine. I eventually sold it and bought a Mamiya 645 which I liked a lot better, especially the price of the lenses.

Dave Colangelo · Jan 12, 2017

The holidays kept me busy and away from shooting a lot for a bit. I put a few rolls through my new Rollei 35 (German made) which has been a lot of fun. But I have this coming weekend blocked out for a trip to southern VT and Im getting everything ready. I recently snagged a 50mm and a red filter for it which should be fun.

Regards
Dave

Dave Colangelo · Feb 1, 2017

So I trip was a blast but I must admit I was feeling a bit uninspired and my work shows it. You can see the album here. I went a bit nuts with the red filter on the 50mm but it was a good exercise in exposure calculations. I made it a point to notate what I was doing for comparison later which helped in my post analysis. One of my favorite shots from the weekend,

The lighting was over-cast which was a bit disappointing as I was really hoping to get that big cloud look with the red filter but the summer may be better for that. I was also hoping for some great snow covered landscapes however the warm weather put a hamper on that. I may head back up after a big snowfall and try again.

Until Next Time...
Regards
Dave

Dave Colangelo · Mar 24, 2017

The strange but very cold weather in the northeast as of late has kept me inside. However we had a really a really warm weekend a few weeks ago so I was able to get out and get a roll thorough. I have been feeling a bit uninspired lately but nice weather is around the corner which means ill be out and about more. This roll was a lot of work with the 50mm and a red filter on a few of the shots which has been interesting to shoot with. Frankly the 50mm is very wide and I need to work more at really getting to know how to use it correctly. My favorite shot from the roll was most likely this one,

Regards
Dave

greybeard · Mar 24, 2017

Dave Colangelo said:
2 roll from the new lab (see roll 2 and roll 3)...

The color came out really nicely and I really cant complain about it so for the price they will be my go to C41 lab. My only quam is that they give you the scans on a CD and I have no computer with a CD drive anymore.

Now for the black and white, the light lines are back and they are worse than before. Now that I know what to look for I asked them about it when I picked my prints up as I was pretty upset. Unfortunately they did not seem very surprised at what happened which angered me even more. Apperently as a result of the machine they use and the way it pulls the film through added with the development time, black and white high iso film is prone to problems like this. So it looks like its time for me to order some the chemicals and start doing this at home (I have been slowly acquiring tanks, changing bag etc.). I was fairly furious yesterday but the lines only appear heavily on the last 4 images of the roll even though they were my favorite images.

This image has some of the worst
View attachment 124693

Still lots of things to learn as some of the images did not come out exactly as expected.

Regards
Dave

Back in my film development days, I had some negatives that looked like that, it was from poor agitation. You have to agitate for 5 sec every 30 sec to get uniform development.