Famous Cameras #1 : Hasselblad - the first camera to visit the moon

Posted by cucicov in Cameras, Featured Articles on 04 4th, 2009 | one response

the latest model of Hasselblad - H3D featuring a 48 x 36 mm sensor with a size of 39 Mpixels

There’s nothing wrong with 35mm, that a 5X4 (Hasselblad) can’t put right. /Ted Orland/

I thought about starting a set of articles about world famous photo cameras and for the first issue of these series I’ve chosen Hasselblad cameras - a famous brand and a legendary camera. Please enjoy and wait for other articles to come.

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the world first Hasselblad consumer camera, the Hasselblad 1600F.

The roots of Hasselblad

Victor Hasselblad

Hasselblad is a medium-format camera created by Swedish manufacturer Victor Hasselblad. This type of cameras started it’s fame ascension during the World War II, when the Swedish government approached Victor Hasselblad with the request to create some models of military cameras for aerial surveillance.

All the models were a great success, but Victor still wanted to create high quality civilian cameras.

Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in still photography and the related cameras and equipment that use this film. Generally, the term applies to film and cameras used to produce images larger than the 24 by 36 mm of 135 film, but smaller than the 4’’×5’’ size, which is considered to be large format. In digital photography, medium format refers either to cameras adapted from medium format film photography uses, or to cameras making use of sensors larger than that of a 35 mm film frame./wiki/

How did the fame come

Hasselblad SWA with Biogon lens

The company grew fast and after participating at the Photokina trade show in Germany in 1954, it started to gain worldwide fame. At the German trade fair, Hasselblad presented their great improvement - the new 38 mm Biogon lens by Zeiss also known as SWA (Super Wide Angle), that was a great success and derivatives of SWA were sold for decades.

In1962 NASA began to use Hasselblad cameras for space photography and meantime the brand was gathering a steadily growing reputation among professional photographers. By the 1970’s Hasselblad increased it’s name recognition dramatically, partly because of the publicity created by NASA’s use of the product.

Replica of the moon camera from Apollo 11. The camera is a modified Hasselblad 500 EL. The lens was equipped with a polarisation filter. The camera was painted with silver colour to reflect the heat from the strong light on the moon.

In 1969 when Apollo 11 mission was launched, there was a special Hasselblad camera designed to be used on the moon surface. It also featured a Zeiss 60 mm Biogon Lens.

Hasselblad camera evolution

In parallel the company developed high quality civilian camera types and the first one was launched in 1948 - a 6×6 cm format SRL camera named 1600F, because of it’s high shutter speed of 1/1600 sec. Later in 1964 500C SLR camera offered flash synchronization at all shutter speeds along with interchangeable bodies, lenses, viewfinders, film magazines and other accessories.

In 2002 Hasselblad launched H-system cameras. First of all it moved away from traditional 6×6 format to 6×4.5 cm and included auto-focus lenses. It continues to sell H-system cameras till nowadays, the newest model being H3D and it’s variations.