Hasselblad 500C

For their January 1958 issue Modern Photography magazine had Herbert Keppler take a close look at this new camera.

 

 

H 500 C 1 sm 2

The Mecablitz 100 was the first transistorized flash unit.

 

 

Mecablitz 100 1 sm 2

Here they take a look at the Ultrablitz Comet flash unit.

 

 

Ultrablitz Comet 1 sm 2

The Asahi Pentax was the first eye-level reflex with a quick return mirror.

 

 

Asahi Pentax MP 1 sm 2

Not everyone was using electronic flash in 1958.

 

 

Pocket Flash 1 sm 2

Here is a look at the Lord 5D rangefinder camera.

 

 

Lord 5D 1 sm 2

Agfa had just come out with their latest Silette SL camera.

 

 

Agfa SL 1 sm 2

A new name in 35mm cameras - Wittnauer.

 

 

Wittnauer 1 sm 2

Popular Photography magazine takes a detailed look at the Mamiyaflex camera.

 

 

Mamiyaflex TR 1 sm 2

Here is this month's 35mm Today column.

 

 

35mm Today 1 sm 2

Here is Pop's look at the new Hasselblad 500C camera.

 

 

Hasselblad 500C TR 1 sm 2

Here is their look at the Agfa Silette.

 

 

Agfa SL TR 1 sm 2

Here is their look at the Asahi Pentax.

 

 

Asahi Pentax TR 1 sm 2

Here is their look at the Mecablitz flash unit.

 

 

Megablitz TR 1 sm 2

Here are this month's camera equipment ads.

 

 

Airequipt 1 sm 2

Here are this month's dealer ads.

 

 

American CE 1 sm 2

Thank you as always for posting these.

 

Having recently acquired a 500C system from 1960, this was a great read. It's interesting that they suspect that the system will around for the long haul-my nearly 60 year old camera works perfectly(aside from the slow speeds on the 80mm-I'm planning on having it serviced as soon as I can). As we know, Hasselblad kept the same basic camera body alive for 56 years and as far as I know everything was backward and forward interchangeable.

 

I've been known to call the Rolleiflex the most perfect camera ever designed, but the Hasselblad is making me reconsider that opinion.

 

Although their opinion of the shift to leaf shutters in 35mm was wrong, it's also telling that what I've called the "Hasselblad pattern" of in-lens leaf shutters in MF SLRs came to be true. By Bronica ETR, SQ-A, and Mamiya RB67 work on basically the same principle. The Hasselblad influence in the ETR and SQ is obvious.

Edited January 24, 2018 by ben_hutcherson

Ben - I have noticed several articles from the late '50s where they think leaf shutters will be the future for 35mm. I notice also that most(?) medium format digital cameras are using leaf shutters.

Marc,

 

I wonder if the push for higher and higher shutter speeds in 35mm is what drove the nail in the coffin on 35mm leaf shutters.

 

I seem to recall there being some 35mm leaf shutters that could manage 1/1000, but 1/500 is more typical in anything up to a shutter in a 6x6 lens. The RB67 cuts that down to 1/400, and larger size shutters in a lot of LF cameras are even slower.

 

I don't think we've ever gone much past the 1/250 flash sync barrier in a focal plane shutter, but of course 1/1000 was common even for a lower end 1960s camera and now 1/8000 is typical. Granted there have been few times I've NEEDED shutter speeds that fast(I only recall pushing up to 1/4000 when I got caught with 400 ASA film outdoors and wanted to use a large aperture) but they're nice to have. Heck, my Speed Graphic can do 1/1000 on 4x5(allegedly-I've never used it or bothered to time it) although it takes a pretty long time to do that. I don't know the exact timing, but I think GE #6 bulbs are good down to a flash sync speed of 1/30, and caution not to use with a Speed Graphic.

 

Funny enough, though, 645 SLRs seem to have leaned more toward focal plane shutters. The Bronica is the only example of a leaf shutter 645 that really sticks out to me. The Mamiyas and my nifty little Pentax are FP. I didn't particularly care for the FP 6x6 Bronicas I had, though.

I think the shutter design question really comes down to professional studio usage with electronic flash. Large focal plane shutters don't sync with strobe at very fast speeds, and leaf shutters will sync with flash at the highest speed that they are capable of. 1/500 gives a lot more control than the 1/30 or so max of most large focal plane shutters if you're concerned about controlling ambient light mixing with flash. If you know that you're using studio flash with 35 mm then you're also likely to use the slowest, finest grain film available, so the lower sync speed of a focal plane shutter in a 35 SLR isn't that big a deal. In any case, by the 1980's cameras like the Nikon FM2 with sync speeds of 1/250 were readily available, so the added complications and design limitations of leaf shutter SLRs were just not worth it. Compare the percentage of Nikon F cameras that still work with that of the Kodak Retina Reflex or other leaf shutter SLRs that still do and you'll see what I mean.

I think the shutter design question really comes down to professional studio usage with electronic flash. Large focal plane shutters don't sync with strobe at very fast speeds, and leaf shutters will sync with flash at the highest speed that they are capable of.

 

Admittedly I don't run a professional studio, but by and large when I'm using studio strobes I consider the shutter speed to be irrelevant. They're so much more powerful than ambient or even the modeling lights that with slow film or a low ISO that 1/30 doesn't really gather any more ambient light than 1/250. With the set-ups I use I'm often at f/16ish, and there again indoors at ASA/ISO 100 or whatever ambient would have to be pretty bright.

 

Where fast sync DOES matter is when you're using fill flash outdoors, since ambient certainly does overpower the flash in that situation(of course, that's the idea).

Ben, you're right that in most studios ambient light can be controlled or ignored because of the brightness of the flash units relative to overhead lights in an average room. But studio flash durations are typically much longer than battery powered units (my White Lightnings are somewhere around 1/300) so you can still get motion blur with some subjects, and sometimes you have to mix flash and ambient light, such as when you photograph interiors with windows showing a daylight sky. One of my most satisfying moments in acquiring photo equipment came when I finally got studio strobes and could go onto a factory floor with mercury vapor lighting or sodium vapor lighting that was just about impossible to correct on color film and just overpower the ugly ambient light. I am attaching an early interior shot where I lit the interior to look plausible with the exterior visible through the windows. This is from an unmanipulated 4x5 Tri-X negative shot with a 65 mm f/4.5 Grandagon at f/22, if memory serves. Today one could simply do HDR and merge multiple images for this shot; in 1989 when I took this, not so much. The constraints of color film, etc. were even greater when the Hasselblad 500c came out, so the leaf shutters would have been especially welcome at the time.

I always thought the focal-plane shutter was a 'better' idea .

 

Somehow the rude an crude Soviet makers of the Hasselbladski seem to have made it work:confused:

 

Anyhow, thanks for the trip back in time.

AJG-fair enough on the strobe duration.

 

I went through and timed my Normans using a Nikon D1(which can sync at any speed) and I found that a 2000 w-s pop through a single head is around 1/500 while when I crank the power down I can easily get it to 1/1000. Still, though, they're all different.

 

In any case, great work on the above. The thought of using a 65mm lens on 4x5 gives me chills...

Thanks for posting these, Marc. The 500 C made quite a splash at the time.

 

"For modern men and technique the focal-plane is now dead", said Dr. Vishniac. The rest of the article has a more balanced discussion of shutter alternatives which helped me to understand the technology evolution.

 

It is interesting that the 500C, Sillete SL and Asahi Pentax were featured in both magazines. That TF-80 germanium power transistor in the Mecablitz was well set in a large dissipating plate. It could probably shoot fill-in in the Sahara desert, if needed.

 

The new Exakta VX IIa was commanding top dollar, well over a Nikon S2.