So why did you and why will you

[simonpg]

Melton, I was very intereted to hear about your "re-ignited creativity" through 6x6. Me too!

There is something quite beautiful about a large 6x6 image of anything.

I was also interested in your comment "digital explosion has overrun the world" - so true. I refer to it as being how "consumeristic thirst has infultrated photography".

While I do not wish to sound overly prescious; my years behind a camera viewfinder in the days of one media (film) began with a careful selection of preferred tools and concentration of my efforts on creating images rather than the tools themselves. My conversations with others (fellow shooters or people interested in my images) were typically about how I used the tools and / or about the images and what made them appealing.

Sadly today so much of conversation is dominated by topics such as "Have you got a..."; "Did you get a digi..."; "How cool is the new...: etc. etc..

The infultration is so similar to the tiresome discussion about the latest and greatest PC; how fast; how big... Or, like excessive mobile phone fascination... "Does yours do..." " My new mobile....".

Bits and bytes so often seem to bring out a mindless need to have for the sake of having it; a preparedness to dump for the sake of keeping up with others; a reckless regard for real value for money and outcome focused benefits.

Moreover so often we are exposed to unsubstantiated claims about performance; near fraudulent statements. Photography stores so often staffed by salesmen with little true knowledge and littel photographic skills - people with smart mouths, flogging gear and conning lambs being lead to the slaughter.

Certainly much of this has been to great advantage and profit benefit of manufacturers that now have factories so busy that they can't believe their luck. I'm not so prescious as to see that as a bad thing. But what I dislike is how such behaviours push the creative and artistic pleasures into the background never before see in this art.

That so many will visit photo exhibitions only to ask if "that image was taken on a XYZ MP camera...." is sadenning. It risks pushing great talent into the land of commodities. Of course I'm not suggesting that this generally applies accross the board; but it is nonetheless a growing characteristic.

While I'm lucky and grateful for having the equipment I have, in the end I'd be happy enough if I only had one cheap but effective camera and one lens, so long as I can keep running as much film through them as I desire.

Certainly I've benefited from digital technologies to the extent that my film frames can be scanned for me to play with, share easily, and conveniently display to others on a simple TV set. And one day I will be happy to record my images on a full frame sensor matching all the attributes of film and do so without having to be too concerend about the film and processing cost per frame that I shoot.

But I for one certainly do not want Bill Gates and his like to dominate my passion. I will always prefer that my eyes and brain dominate my photography.

 

[qnu]

For people coming from 35 mm photography, a part of the change is in the viewing system of typical MF cameras.
Instead of peeping through a 'hole' at your subject (with the camera surrounding the hole merely being something obstructing, restricting the 'direct' view), looking down in a waist level finder at the ground glass image of your subject adds a 'degree of separation'.

You're no longer dealing with the subject itself, but with an image of the subject.
Trivial as it may seem, that makes a huge difference.

A pitty that the last crop of MF machines all were 6x4.5, needing peep-through 90 degrees prism finders again. Now it's completely up to the person doing the peeping again to find the picture in the scene.


Simon,

While Zeiss lenses are good, great even, they were not part of why i chose Hasselblad. The lenses produced by Mamiya etc. are that too.

What you say in your penultimate paragraph applies to me as well.
Digital technology has made life easier by a fair amount. And i too do see myself switching to direct digital capture sooner or later (now, the only digital camera i have is in my cell phone. I never use it, of course).

We can complain about Gates c.s. as much as we like. All that matters to me is that the machines i run their software on allow me to also run the applications i need. And they do.
How you can see Gates is/would be/could be dominating our passion is beyond me.

 

[bahngeist]

The first 6x6 I used was a YashicaMat I bought for $30 back in 1977 when in art college. I was using a Canon F1 at the time, and was pleasantly blown away by the tonality in the B&W negatives it produced. Unfortunately, after about 4 rolls the camera tumbled out of my locker at school and was no more. In the early-mid ‘80s I almost acquired a used Mamiya 330 from a work colleague, but passed to instead pick-up a mint Leica M 21 Elmarit for $400 CDN. At roughly the same time I had a chance to borrow a SWC, compare the results with those from the 21 (no slacker itself), and thereafter the SWC became my dream camera.

When in art college I had a chance to sign-out/borrow practically all of the medium format systems then available, and was most impressed by the build quality and results that Hasselblad & Zeiss provided. I have always had a deep appreciation for fine craftsmanship, and have always-preferred totally manual, mechanical cameras for the craft and discipline they require to use consistently (as a painter and printmaker I was trained that one either mastered one’s tools and medium(s), otherwise they controlled you and, more importantly, your results). Given that I am from the Canadian prairies, reliability, robustness, and not having to depend on batteries are also important to me.

In the ‘80s my Leica served all those and other preferences and practicalities admirably, excepting the fact that my style of shooting tends to be somewhat contemplative and a 35 mm. rangefinder isn’t quite the ideal tool for that. Further, I also prefer to crop and nail-down an image in-camera unless I already intended to do extensive masking and other manipulations in the darkroom – that craft thing again. I also tend to print large (16x20+). A view- or field-camera would fit those needs admirably, but not my need for a walk-around camera that provides relatively precise framing but quicker action. This may explain why I went with a medium format SLR as my general-purpose kit.

And why did I choose a Hasselblad V system? To be honest, I almost went with a Linhof Technika 6x9, but missed out on an excellently priced used system. After some thought, I decided that a field camera rather than a technical camera would be the better choice down the road, quite possibly an 8x10 since I have always wanted to explore platinum printing. The 6x6 format is a neither-here-nor-thing for me, though not having to be concerned about turning the camera on edge for vertical shots helps to maintain an even flow during a session. There is also the matter that the Hasselblad V system is a masterpiece of industrial design and a pleasure to own in itself. And of course there are the practical reasons noted earlier, and the fact that I always dreamed of owning a SWC – something I realized just recently.

 

[jotloob]

I have been reading all comments very careful and want to add some ideas to this discussion .

first to Qnu
what i have for the 1600F / 1000F system is a ZEISS OPTON TESSAR 2,8/80 and also a CARL ZEISS TESSAR 2,8/80 both in very good condition . the 250mm lens is a ZEISS OPTON SONNAR 4/250 with very little sign of use .
the Planar 2,8/80 6 elements i was talking about is a C-MOUNT PLANAR of the very first serie (for 500C camera) and the serial number is even lower than the first mentioned lens of that type in RICK NORDINS compendium . it has the serial number of the built in shutter engraved on the back .
I use that lens (from the year 1956) in combination with a 500EL/M from 1980 and a magazine from 1999 .
Very strange for a collector ???? No . This is a very good ex&le of how compatible this HASSELBLAD design is over all the years .
regarding mint accessories for the 1600F/1000F series , i think that some guy around nils peterson in sweden could have got access to never sold parts and they now come on the "market" via E-BAY . i have one of these "mint" extension tubes (20mm)

Now back to the general discussion .
I believe that many of us came to HASSELBLAD via Rollei , Mamiya , Yashica and similar brands . So did i .

But i did not go for HASSELBLAD because of the 6x6 format .
At the time i made the decision for my first 500C/M i was only driven by the idea of the bigger format , best quality of the camera and there were almost no other formats on the market anyway , except 6x9 or even bigger .
I was fascinated by the design .
Using a rolleiflex or a mamiya c330 i found that holding the camera in my hands i always felt , the camera will fall out of my hands , tilting away from me to the front .
now looking at a HASSELBLAD i think as long as you dont use a lens longer than 150/180mm you have a wonderful balance in you left hand . Lens in front , body in the middle and magazin in the back. View finder on top . what a design . i think the versatility of that design keeps us all a bit fascinated again and again . and after i had the chance to see the HASSELBLAD lens production at CARL ZEISS in germany , i was so fascinated that i could hardly breathe .
friends , we are using and might be also collecting an absolute outstanding design of a camera .
just great . nothing to add but open for any discussion .
best regards to you all (am i too emotional ?????? )

 

[qnu]

Jürgen,

Have you told Richard Nordin the serial number of your early C 80 mm Planar lens (and that of the shutter)? And can you share it with us?
As you know, info like that is important to collectors. And it would be much appreciated.

A pitty it is not a 1600/1000 F Planar. I'm still trying to figure out if there ever was such a thing. Perhaps not.
And whether the Planar replacing the Tessar as 'standard' lens had anything to do with the film-to-flange-distance reduction in the 1600/1000 to 500 transition. We know the Planar was responsible for the too-short mirror in the 500-series Hasselblads. So maybe?

Your source for mint 50 year old parts appears to be different from mine, though both are in Sweden.
Where did they stash this stuff away, and why was it untouched for so long? Perhaps it came from the Hasselblad building when they vacated the premisses? I wish i could have been there, pick up some crumbs too...

Anyway. Very off-topic.
Sorry!

 

[jotloob]

Yes Qnu i have informed Rick Nordin about that lens .
The serial number is









Yes Qnu
I have informed Rick Nordin .
The serial number is as follows: CARL ZEISS PLANAR 2,8/80mm NR.: 1594923 (obviously 1956)
There is a protection ring around the back lens (element) which was obviously mounted in later years . the number of the shutter is a SYNCHRO COMPUR Nr.: 2955871 .
Engraved and layed out with wite colour . All times of the shutter run very well but i have no profing results .
if you are interested in details of my 2 1600f bodies , give me a note .

 

[qnu]

Jürgen,

Thanks for the numbers!

 

[simonpg]

Qnu, I was fascinated by your fortunate "collection" of classic Hassy equipment. They must be wonderful tools enabling enjoyment of them in their own right as well as the practical use you can also enjoy.

I collect some old folders and early rangefinders not because they have great value (mine don't that much) but because their designs fascinate me and because I just enjoy the engineering that went into them. I do occassionally use them and get some pleasure out of their imaging characteristics.

My comments about "Gates getting in the road of my passion" was my more colourful expression. Please don't take such colour in my expressions that seriously.

But, what I do mean to get accross is that while like you I get much benefit from the digital technologies in photography as well as in business and other persuits; I do not get the same "pleasure" form it in creating images. My passion lies in the process of seeing and recording images I make, what ever their type and I hate the thought of all that digi stuff "in my face" at the time. With film I understand how the film I use will resolve images; how I may need to compensat the exposure etc..

I loath situations like "fatal error...OK?"; I loath plugs and leads and batteries and bugs and cards and the whole user unfriendly stuff that just p....s one off big time. This may be in part a natural intollerance that developes in one a couple of years away from the big 50; and certainly is an intollerance now that my chronic pain requires incresing levels of narcotics. So, the KISS principle gets more and more important to me.

These days I am lucky to very rarely get a surprise when my positives and negative come back. But at the comfort of my desk I am happy to use these remarkable software applications to fine tune and crop my images - a lot of which "fine tuning" is necessitated by the way film is "translated" when scanned.

I even find that I draw the line when fine tuning at not making my images something the were not in the fist place. I have had nice comments about landscape images punctuated with comments like "you might even lift the colour saturation a bit to make it more appealing"! No, I won't do that when the image was our Australian outback and it's naturally so "bleached". But that's all a separate discussion about our individual preferences for "tweaking" images digitally, now that we have the tools to do that.

Like you I had an aversion to clunky 6x7 gear although I quite like the format. I had concerns about Rollei gear and saw that lots of fora were littered with all sorts of electronics complaints and simply the feel of the Hassy connected with me. But the use of Zeiss glass was a big "comfort factor" to me as well.

I think you or Jurgen said something about a preference to buy the "best" (eg a lens) and just work out the numbers rather than penny pinch and make a purchase only to be regretted later. I 100% share that view.

When I discovered joy in Leica M, I could only afford one (hell of a good one at that) lens - I was satisfied that it may be the only lens I ever have on it; but was content that I may "get lucky" and be able to add others if the need arose and the resources were available. In a way, just as Wayne said in another thread, that helps to make you get the best out of what you have.

 

[simonpg]

Qnu, I do also 100% agree with your comments about "peeping" through a 90 degree prism and finding the image you are seeing.

It's also why I get so much enjoyment from my 4x5 and its relatively huge ground glass, and that a reversed, upside down image is actually a joy!

 

[jotloob]

Simon
I have friends which enjoy looking at an upside down and also left and right reversed image as you do
I use an ARCA SWISS 4x5 inch metric model and i hate an upside down image . i always tried to turn my head around and thats why i bought the "image mirror box" and i am very happy with it .