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The wonderful thing about Camera Electronic is the opportunity you get to see the legends of photography in the flesh, so to speak.
I don’t mean the staff. They’re legends but their flesh is their own business. I mean cameras and lenses - and accessories - that have been the pinnacles of design and desire for the last 50 years.
Some, like the Leica M series, are brand-new pinnacles that closely resemble their ancestors. Some, like this Hasselblad 500ELX have been supplanted by sleeker shapes in the digital era - though their companies still make the most desirable gear.
This camera is entirely familiar to me, and to many other studio and wedding shooters. It was a nostalgic delight to push, pull, and pop all the latches and controls to make it come apart on the photo table. Each one of the actions had a solid feel and real purpose - the Hasselblad was built for work and did nothing for play.
It was a camera that needed care in feeding - film backs were available for 120, 220, instant pack, and 70mm film. The last-named was a dying evocation when I was shooting with my 500ELX - I obtained a number of rolls of 70mm Kodak film from B&H and scouted cartridges on the internet. You could crank through 56 6 x 6 exposures on one large 70mm back and then swap it just once during a wedding. It wasn’t quite the freedom to overshoot that we have now with digital - and every shot cost dollars - but it was nice to have the freedom from film changes.
The electricity was also an issue - the original nickel- cadmium battery packs had an electrical memory that was always better than mine and I never managed to charge them properly. Fortunately there are nickel metal hydride packs available as an after-market buy that work very well.
That’s a 50mm lens on the camera now, but the prospective buyer can choose from a wide variety of Hasselblad lenses of the period - they are still going well on the S/H market and are imminently serviceable when needed.
The interesting thing I noticed when using the 500ELX was the reaction from the client. Universally, they paid better attention to direction and their behaviour when this sort of camera was directed at them - particularly with a large Metz flash or on a sturdy tripod. The very appearance of it gave them the impression that I knew what I was doing.
And as the old cartoon said: stop laughing - this is serious.
Want to keep reading about Hasselblad? Check this other post out!
Text and Image by Richard Stein
