david_scouffas

I just purchased a used 67 II and had a question about how to store the camera. I have a

Hasselblad currently and I generally store it cocked and ready to go. With a leaf shutter in the

lens this seems to work out fine. I would assume that since the Pentax has a different shutter

system, that I should NOT store the camera cocked. Anyone care to give me some advice on

this question?

I sent in my 503CW in for servicing to Hasselblad USA earlier this year and they sent the

camera back with a Hasselblad baseball cap. All black with a "V" logo on the front. So, yes,

they do market some things. Its a pretty cool cap.

I purchased a 503CW on eBay about a year and a half ago. I love this camera but I have

gone through a pretty steep learning curve with it. So, for what its worth, here are a few of

the lessons I learned.

I, too, was a bit hesitant to use it at first. I finally got some good advice from an instructor

of mine at school who told me to use the camera a LOT. My experience was it was a

challenge to get even the basic things right initially (focus, exposure, depth of focus). I

suppose that I was so used to auto features of my cheaper cameras that using a totally

manual camera was a humbling experience. It wasn't until I made a committment to shoot

dozens and dozens of rolls of film that things started to fall into place. It is all working

much better now and I couldn't be happier.

So, I guess I'd echo what my instructor said. Get a good light meter and shoot lots and lots

of pictures. Once you get the basics down, you'll be surprised at how good the images are

from this camera. The lenses are so good.

Also, get used to taking your time when making pics. Again, the experience is really

different from 35 mm or a digital camera. Trying to rush a shot almost always resulted in

poor results, for me at least.

Getting my compositions to work in the square format was an adjustment for me as well.

However, I'm really starting to appreciate this format.

I got my initial camera as a kit with the 80 mm standard lens. Since that time, I also

bought a wide angle (40 mm) and a telephoto (150 mm) lens. In practice I find that I use

the 80 mm lens 80 percent of the time. Just to let you know, I am shooting landscapes,

portraits and architectural photos for the most part. The 80 mm lens almost always works

out to be the best choice. The depth of focus on the 150 mm lens is so shallow that I'm

not getting the parts of the image in focus that I want. I've got more practice to do to get

the results I want from that lens. I will say that all the lenses are a pleasure to use and that

the issues I'm having is the fault of the photographer and not with the hardware.

Another surprise I had with Hasselblad is that you can't get the lenses to focus on objects

that are very close. For the 80 mm lens, you can't focus on objects that are closer than 3

feet (.9 meters) away. For the 150 mm lens, its 4.5 feet or about a meter and a half. This

is not close enough for many of the shots I wanted to take. So, if this is an issue for you,

you will need to pickup one or two extension tubes. I have found the 16 mm extension

tube will allow me to get the close up shots of people that I want to get.

When I first got the camera, I immediately starting fooling around with it and one of the

first things I did was to mount the lens on the body when the lens wasn't cocked. This

locked the lens to the body and I couldn't fully cock the lens or remove it. I had to send it

back to the guy who sold it to me who fixed it and sent it back to me. So, right from the

beginning, I learned that I needed to get some good information on how to use the camera

and not "wing it". I purchased a book called "The Hasselblad Manual", by Ernst Wildi at a

local camera shot. It has a lot of information that is useful. The writing is a bit uneven, but

I still use it all the time. I'd recommend that you get something like that.

Finally, as far as eBay goes, I've purchased all of my Hasselblad equipment from eBay, and

I've had good luck so far. I just buy from people with really high feedback scores, and try

to only buy recent equipment that is rated as excellent or better. My rule of thumb is to

keep the price at 50% of the list price or lower. Its worked out well so far. From everything

that I've heard, the stuff I have will last indefinitely as long as I don't abuse it.

I'll just close by saying that I love this camera and I'm never going to give it up. I am

constantly surprised by how good the images look when I print as compared with my other

equipment. Have a good time with the thing. Feel free to contact me with questions you

may have. I'm not an expert by any means, but I have had about a year's head start on the

process.

David

Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond. The suggestion to use latex gloves

was a good one. I'm going to take that advice immediately. Also, I will take the suggestion

to use ICE to deal with the dust and put into practice. The bigger issue are the fibers...they

can't be missed on the image.

As for the progress, I've contacted Nikon and talked with their 3rd level support (a

technical support manager) who asked me to send them some of the scans. While they

look at the files, I'm just not using the scanner (brushing up on my C print skills ;-).

On the chance that anyone else may run into a similar issue, I'll follow up with info on

what Nikon did, or did not, do to help resolve this.

David

I've run into an interesting problem with my Nikon Super Coolscan 9000 scanner. I bought

it new last summer. What I'm finding is that my scans (120 and 35 mm negatives, mainly

color) show LOTS of dust and fibers. I had made the assumption that the issue was with

the negatives and I've been trying to find a better lab to do my color negative processing,

and working on ways to clean the negatives. The negatives seem really clean when I get

them back from the lab, and I immediately put them in new clear plastic negative

perservers.

After going to one more new lab for developing my most recent set of negatives, and

finding the usual problem with the scans, I took the scan files back to the lab and asked

them to take a new look at everything. The lab guy looked the negatives and they looked

clean. Viewing the scan files on his PC, he pointed out that the foreign material was

sometimes in focus on the file, but often not in focus. His conclusion was that the problem

might be dust and fibers inside the scanner itself.

The scanner is located on my desk at my home office. I have never opened the unit for any

reason. Because of the issues that I have had with dust, I have been careful to make sure

that all the negative holders I use are always clean, and that I use white gloves when I

handle the negaives. I DID send the unit into Nikon for repair last summer, so they

probably opened it.

Has anyone else had a problem with dust/fiber contamination with they're Coolscan

scanners? Any ideas about how to clean the interior surfaces? I am reluctant to do much

with the mechanism inside, including doing anything like blowing into the unit. Anyway, I

thought I'd put these questions out to the forum and see if anyone has any ideas.

David

Hi....I've been on this site for a year or so, and a couple of months back, I ran into a

section of the site that allowed me to list the equipment I have along with the serial

numbers. I thought this would be a good place outside of my home to keep this

information in case my equipment was stolen or my house caught on fire, etc.

Having filled out the information, I haven't been able to find where on the web site to

recover the information (I have a new camera and would like to record the information).

Can anyone tell me where this part of the web site can be found? Its probably right in front

of my nose, but I can't find it.

David

There is a California photographer, Michael Light, who scanned thousands of the Apollo

photographs and published a book (Full Moon, Alfred Knopf, 1999) that not only describes

the camera equipment used, but also has some incredible photos from the moon's

surface. I can highly recommended this book. Check it out.

In the Hasselblad website, go to the "Our Company" section, and you'll see a link to "Space

Cameras" for their breakdown of equipment used. Several models were used apparently.