Hasselblad SWC cameras

I currently own a 503CW and a flexbody and I am considering buying a

SWC. But since I have never seen one in person, I am wondering how

an exposure is made with one. Is it similar to the flexbody? Can

someone please tell me each step of the process?

 

thanks,

david

The SWC has a viewfinder in a cold-shoe on top. It is absolutley horrible, the worst of its kind in all cameradom. Severe barrel distortion, obnoxiously imprecise framing, and the lens itself blocks the entire lower 1/3 of the finder view. And of course you need to guess the focus. So the only way to really get accurate results from the SWC (unless you don't mind cropping the living heck out of your negs--and in so doing give up a chunk of wideangle coverage)is to buy an accessory GG back as you use with the Flexbody. But surprise! You need a *different* one, the one for the Flexbody is not recommended for the SWC according to Hasselblad.

 

I also have a 503CW and the 40CFE, which either that or the new 40IF would be much better for you as you could use them on both bodies.

I guess Jay loves the superwides! They are very easy to use just set the shutter speed and f-stop and with the large depth of field you preset focuse and fire the shutter. The camera is very light and compact so is very easy to handhold when shooting. Very sharp lens with nearly no distortion. The view finder is small and so wide you do lose the lower image from view but I have never found this to be a problem when shooting. I bought a ground glass for the camera but have never needed to use it.I find it a very fun camera ,great for candids, also with no mirror movement works great a slow shutter speeds.

The SWC finder I own (attached to my SWC [i have to idea what SWC finder Jay has seen]) shows me exactly what the framing is. Admittedly, part of the image is blocked, but not anywhere near 1/3 of the image; at most it's 10% of the image, but probably more like 8%, and the blockage does not extend even close to the lower corners of the image. Yes, there is quite a bit of barrel distortion, but so what? The lens has none. Jay's description of the SWC viewfinder is pure balderdash. Given his description, I'd even venture a guess that he's never even seen a SWC, let along used one.

 

Anyone who wants to see if the SWC's finder shows an accurate depiction of the SWC's field of view need only get the ground glass viewer. It shows exactly what the film will record, and yes, that's exactly what the viewfinder displays.

 

As far as describing how an exposure is made, compared with a Flexbody, I'm not competent to say, since I've never seen a Flexbody. But my SWC, made in the early 1970s, has the f stop ring linked to the shutter speed ring. You set the exposure, wind the shutter (advancing the film), and press the shutter release on top of the body.

 

With a ground glass screen, you can focus through the lens. But for most applications, set the aperture to f:8 and zone focus. It's hard to miss.

 

It ain't rocket science. ;-)

As long as you don't mind using a hand meter (and you must not if you are

using a 503, unless you have a metered prism), the SWCs are easy to use.

The finder does have distortion, but as the poster above says, the lens does

not. Also, it is much smaller than a 503, even with the back attached; barely

larger than the 503 with a 100/3.5 without the back. That makes it easy to

hand-hold. Focus is easy using guesstimate/zone technique. Only if you are

doing close-up work would you need the GG back for precise focusing.

Unlike the Flexbody, you don't have to use a ground-glass back because

SWCs are not perspective-control cameras (you would have to go to an Alpa

12 to do that with a 38mm Biogon lens)

I totally agree with Peter white and Chris Henry. A 903 is one of my equipment

cornerstones and I use it for everything from architectural interiors to sports action. Its

real and perceived shortcomings do not bother me a bit. It's quick and easy to use, light

and compact and delivers superb transparencies. I use it with a GG screen for a few things,

like vehicle interiors, which is a slight pain, but no big deal.

Using a SWC is straightforward, and nothing like the rigamoroll using a Flexbody (I have both). You have to go through the rigamoroll with the Flexbody to open the shutter, compose, close the shutter, pull the darkslide, expose, etc., etc. With the SWC, you guestimate the distance and set the focus scale, then set shutter speed and aperature. Then compose through the finder and press the shutter. I know Jay never misses a chance to bash the SWC and its "measly" finder, but I have gotten quite used to it and have made some of my best images with a SWC.

So I'm guessing that the shutter is always closed? If it is, how do you use the GG to compose?

I use the bulb setting on the shutter speed ring, held open with a cable release.

THe SWC is a joy to use and unlike Jay, I never found the viewfinder a big problem. But since you have the flexbody, wouldn't the CF40 lens make more sense for you, so you can use the tilts and shifts as well?

The SWC is a stunning camera. If you always use a big depth of field, never use graduated neutral density filters and dont own or plan to own a prism viewfinder, then you'll love this superwide.

 

I sold my 903SWC and got a 40cf, my heart said SWC, my head said 40cf. If money was no object I would have both, unfortunatly it is and I'm very pleased with the 40cf. If I had a flexbody, personally the decision would have been even easier, 40cf.

 

Only you know what you want, hire both and see!

<<Jay's description of the SWC viewfinder is pure balderdash. Given his description, I'd even venture a guess that he's never even seen a SWC, let along used one.>>

 

Spoken with the typical desperate passion of someone vainly defending his personal choice in gear against obvious fact. Perhaps someone happy with an Olypus Stylus could get on with the SWC finder but anyone with the dedication to framing to own and use a Flexbody will not. David: rent an SWC or buy a used one from a dealer with a 14-day no-hassle return. You will see what I mean in ten seconds and grow to hate the finder by leaps and bounds thereafter. The SWC is a carryover from days when lens technology had not advanced to where a retrofocus wideangle could be made with decent optical performance and the design of the SWC is a total compromise toward the Biogon lens, which is excellent but no longer better than the 40mm reflex lens. If you want a handheld snapshot camera in medium format with a wide lens, get a Mamiya-7-II with the 43mm. Superb lens, infintely better finder.

Its a great camera - I call it my medium format point-and-shoot....

"Spoken with the typical desperate passion of someone vainly defending his personal choice in gear against obvious fact."

 

Uh huh,

 

Well, here are Jay's "obvious facts", in order.

 

(1) "Severe barrel distortion." Well, severe is relative. What may be severe to Jay may not be to others, such as me, or perhaps, you. And since the USER of a SWC discovers as soon as the first roll of film is developed that the lens has no barrel distortion, it quickly become irrelevant.

 

(2) "Obnoxiously imprecise framing." I have no idea what that means, since the image on the groundglass accessory is identical to the image in the viewfinder at the corners when focused at about ten feet, which for most scenics and interiors is a fine working hyperfocal distance. As you focus to infinity, the image on the film shrinks a bit, moving what was right in the corner perhaps .5mm towards the center of the frame, hardly obnoxious in my book.

 

(3) "the lens itself blocks the entire lower 1/3 of the finder view"

 

Wow. I don't know quite what to say. You can clearly see the top of the lens; but vertically, it only blocks the lower fifth of the view at the center. And the horizontal blockage is slightly more than the middle half of the bottom edge of the frame. So, try as I might, even with all the desperate passion I can muster, I can't figure out how that totals 1/3 of the finder's field or view. Perhaps I'm not desperate enough? ;-)

1) Since the buyer of the SWC does so ostensibly for the absolute rectilinearity of the Biogon vs the 40mm Distagon, having to mentally envision a rectilinear image while framing through a semi-fisheye finder seems to me like a contradiction in thought.

 

2) and 3) If you read any of Wildi's Hasselblad books you will see clearly that my assessment of the imprecise framing and the finder bockage is the one illustrated and supported by the authority.

I like mine very much; it's so compact. The camera is just a sliver of a film back holder. I have a photo of the DC capitol dome shot from directly beneath, and the framing was/is very accurate. As for the imprecise framing and finder blockage complaint, I find it surprising coming from a Leica M user.

I've kept a mint SWC/CF for only 10 days after exposing "slides" and a roll of TRI-X, I sent the camera back and got the invested money($2,700.00)back. Hasselblad claims that, the viewfinder was designed this way in order for one to better see the lens settings- HELLO!?

 

Yes, the lens produces distortion, as I took an architetural picture whereas a round corner vase was at 1 1/2 meters from the camera. The round vase became oblong. I went to a local festival in order to do "street" photography but the people became so small that I was forced to do a lot of cropping, to the point of losing definition.

 

Yes sir, for architetural pictures, I went back to my old and trustfull 6x9 Horseman 985 with its 65mm lens (Biogon type) or my 4x5 Deardorff + 90mm also a Biogon type. For traveling, my CM+50/FLE + 80/CF a conbination that cannot be beaten.

Ah, I think I understand Jay's problem. He's been reading books about Hasselblads, not actually using them. On page 89 of The Hasselblad Manual, fifth edition, there's a graphic showing the view through the finder of a newer 903SWC, which displays a magnified image of the lens at the bottom of the finder. The graphic also shows lines that indicate the coverage when using a 6x4.5 back. My older SWC has the older finder without the magnified lens view or the 6x4.5 lines.

 

The image of the lens in the book displays it as taking up much more of the finder's area than with my SWC. Perhaps the 903SWC shows you less of the image than does the SWC; I wouldn't know, not having used a 903SWC. But still, the image that Jay can see on page 89 in no way approaches 1/3 blockage of the viewfinder's field. Instead of the top of the lens blocking the bottom fifth of the frame, it blocks the bottom quarter of the frame, but of course, only in the center. So perhaps the total blockage is in the range of 12% to 13%, well less than the 1/3 blockage claimed by Jay.

 

Also, the SWC finder I have has less barrel distortion than is shown in the graphic of the 903SWC finder. Perhaps the newer finder has more distortion? I don't know, having never seen one.

 

And, according to the book which Jay relies so much on, the finder shows more than the actual field of view of the lens. But that must refer to the newer 903SWC finder, since at infinity, my SWC finder shows just a tiny bit less than the image on the ground glass.

"Yes, the lens produces distortion, as I took an architetural picture whereas a round corner vase was at 1 1/2 meters from the camera. The round vase became oblong."

 

This is not what we are talking about when we talk about distortion. Barrel distortion will make any line that doesn't pass through the center of the image curve around the center of the image to some degree. What you discovered was an effect of perspective. By placing the camera so close to the subject, you got an image on film that looks quite different than the way you perceived the object when you decided to make the image. Any three dimensional object looks different from very close up than it does from a greater distance.

 

"I went to a local festival in order to do "street" photography but the people became so small that I was forced to do a lot of cropping, to the point of losing definition."

 

That just means you should have been using a camera with a longer focal length lens. The SWC is not a camera that most photographers would consider to be suitable for portraits.

"Yes, the lens produces distortion, as I took an architetural picture whereas a round corner vase was at 1 1/2 meters from the camera. The round vase became oblong."

 

Sorry, I misread this the first time. With any wide angle lens that is corrected to produce straight lines on the film regardless of there the line is in the image, round objects positioned away from the center of the field will be stretched towards the edge. It's simply not possible to avoid that, and place the image on a flat film plane. The only way to perfectly reproduce a round object on film is to place the object in the center of the image. This is not a problem that is unique to the SWC. It happens with all wide angle lenses.

The reasons mentioned aboved were the deciding factors in my returning the SWC. It does not excell for architetural photos as well as "street" photography. Even my 6x9 Technical Horseman using a wide angle is much better after applying the vertical+horizontal rotation on both standards. I am stating that, not all wide angle lenses produce distortion, but only the ones fixed on a body.

David,

 

The shoe viewfinder is not as good as the Leica brightlines...more distortion and I find the lens showing in the bottom of the finder a bit distracting.

 

That said, the GG back works great. And if you're interested, I have one for sale. I got it for use on my 501C for some critical copying and haven't used it for a while. Email me off line if interested. It's in great shape.

"I am stating that, not all wide angle lenses produce distortion, but only the ones fixed on a body."

 

Well, in fact, that's not really true. Wide angle lenses all produce distortion, if they are corrected to keep lines straight. But if your lens can shift, you can place the optical center of the lens so that a round object located off axis on the film stays round.

 

Let's say you have two circles drawn on a wall. One circle (red) is positioned in the middle of the frame, the other (blue) in the lower right corner, as you look at the ground glass on a view camera. The film is parallel to the wall, and there are no shifts applied to the lens, and its optical center is in line with the red circle in the middle of the film. The blue circle in the lower right of your screen will be elongated down and to the right. When you look up at the wall, the elongated circle is the blue one that's up and to the left, except that on the wall, it's not elongated of course, but round. If you move the camera up and to the left so that the blue circle is centered, the red circle will now be elongated up and to the left. But you want the blue circle to be round, and you want it to be in the lower left of your screen. The solution is to move the film up and to the left, leaving the lens and the wall right where they are. Now, the blue circle is round on your screen, located in the lower left corner, and the red circle is elongated up and to the left, but located in the center of your screen.

 

You can't have both circles round on the screen; you can have either one or the other, or neither, but not both. The secret is to use your shifts so that things that would look strange when distorted aren't distorted, and those things that will look less strange when distorted are distorted but without ruining the effect you're after.

I agree that the SWC is a piece of junk. For those of you who have them please send them to me ASAP. I'll pay for the postage.

Thanks!

 

Tony

 

PS: Please include the terrible finders!

David

I need you address so I can send mine. Would you please see if you can possibly take some of my other Hassey equipment also. Waiting for a reply. Thanks!!!