Hasselblad ruggedness

The question was about hasselblad ruggedness....having one fail after a month of use after buying it new is not a great testimonial to it. I can offer that I have had the occasional problem with new cameras also, but after they were repaired/replaced by the 'blad folks, I have had no problems what-so-ever.

My experience goes back continuously to '76. I have frozen them, taken them to extremely high altitudes etc and they seem to work fine. They are though, in my opinion, a one person camera...in that they cost so damn much that the person that bought it should be the one to use it....as pool cameras (used by a group of shooters) they don't seem to last.

My experience is with 500C, 500CM, Super Wide, 500ELM, 500ELX, 203 and with every lense except the zoom. The greatest thing about the cameras are the lenses available. The images from the "blad seem to have the contrast and saturation that I want in my shots.

The other redeeming factor is, and this is very important to me, they seem to still be around....the lenses and other accessories seem to work well with new and older equipment without any interchangeability (is that a word?) problems. They are an investment in your future photos, although they do seem to cost dearly.

just my 2 bahts worth

paul

I `ve owned a 500cm & a SWC for years . And i have had LOTS of trouble. The conclusion I have come to is that when you take your `Blad in to have factory service, overhaul doesn`t mean overhaul. They want you to tell them what is wrong and just how much of the camera to fix. The bodies are so scratch&dent resistent that the internals(after 15 years)are largely shot. NOTHING TO SPECS. The factory trained repairmen seem to have to sort between shot and not so shot. How do they tell me my out of focus pictures are due to a totally worn out mechanism? They dont.