Hasselblad 1600F Origins

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The German camera on which the Hasselblad 1600F and the Salyut/Kiev 80

and 88 were based was the HK 12.5/7x9, an aerial reconnaissance camera

produced for the German military by the Fritz Volk concern in Berlin.

The Swedish military did contract with a Hasselblad subsidiary, Ross

AB, to produce a similar camera, and the Ross HK7 resulted; the HK7,

in turn, led directly to the 1600F. The Volk HK 12.5/7x9 is an

extremely rare collector's camera today. One recently surfaced which

had been taken from the wreck of a Japanese aircraft in New Guinea in

1943, interesting proof of co-operation between Japan and Germany on

the optical front.