A video showing use of V-System Hasselblad at major events?

Does anyone know of an online video (I have searched YouTube) that shows a photographer using a V-System Hasselblad for shooting a big event like a wedding or similar? I'd like to see how people go about "for real" instead of reading about the theory.

I know two wedding photographers who used the hasselblad system for wedding back in the day. I talked with then for a very long time about it. Both did the exact same thing and it went like this.

500cm, grip/flash bracket, fully manual flash, 50 80 150 lens, 45 prism.

They would never shoot tight and would always crop afterwords.

150 during the cermony

50 for most everything else

Flash set for a per determined distance and say 4m at 1/125 at f8 and just shoot away.

Go to htv.hasselblad.com for many Hasselblad based videos. I hope you find what you are looking for there.

I'm not sure why anyone would think it would be significantly different shooting a wedding with a Hasselblad versus any other camera. Years ago I was shooting weddings with a 35mm and a MF format Bronica EC. The Bronica was setup similarly to the 35mm with a flash bracket and a Vivitar 283. Attached image is of a photographer I know that I caught a shot of during a wedding around 2008. It was rumored he was going to go digital. Not sure if he ever did or not.

I'm not sure why anyone would think it would be significantly different shooting a wedding with a Hasselblad versus any other camera.

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Maybe not, for the unitiated. But the only experience I have of shooting weddings is with the quite remarkable Nikon F5, which of course takes care of a lot of the metering, max fps of 8 frames, automatic wind on, automatic focus etc etc. These are all things that one has to do manually with a Hasselblad (light meter or Sunny 16, manual wind, manual focus, 12 frames a rolls vs 36 etc etc). So I was curious to see, visually, a photographer 'in action' in those kind of circumstances. I've watched one of a Mamiya photographer, but that's a very different camera to the Hasselblad 501CM.

Go to htv.hasselblad.com for many Hasselblad based videos

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- good resource for H Systems, but not many videos that I could spot for V-Systems other than two here (http://htv.hasselblad.com/video/me-and-my-hasselblad?current-channel=me-and-my-hasselblad).

I shot weddings with very manual 35mm range finder cameras with stunning results. And I did not need to shoot at 200 frames per second, because I have used cameras enough to get the moment in one shot. I fact I still cannot see the need to shoot weddings and most other things at the blindingly fast digi-snapper rates of 10,000 frames per second to do the job right. One shot says it all; I don't need no stinkin' machine gun camera.

I am with you I shot weddings in the 60’s with 4x5 Speed graphics and flash bulbs I was send out with 12 holders ( 24 shots) and had better come back with 24 good sharp well exposed pictures of the pre wedding, ceremony and reception.. no excuses!

@ted

To shoot a wedding just took some pre-planning and working with the couple. Everything that needed to be shot was planned, if necessary right into the wedding script, no seat of the pants "journalistic" style shooting.

The actual shooting wasn't that difficult.

For things like the procession, you prefocus on a spot, set the exposure for that distance, and shot when they reached that spot. Quite simple. I still use that method today, prefocus and set the camera to manual focus. This is because I cannot rely on the AF to track focus on the subject. Which of the X many focus points will the camera choose to focus, on the person walking down the aisle, and not someone in the audience. I use single point focus, because I have had the AF choose the wrong focus point and thus the wrong subject a few too many times.

For activities, such as cake cutting, boquette toss, etc., the key was to shoot at "the key moment," rather than a burst of shots in continuous mode.
So you had to learn/know the event to be able to anticipate what will happen.
Even now, I shoot my D70 in single shot mode. I can probably count on one hand the times that I have shot anything in continuous mode.

Use of a foldout crank rather than a knob to advance film works for a fast 2nd shot. A few used the ELM, ELX motordrive bodies.

Event coming up (ie. cake cutting), you are near the end of the roll of film. What do you do?
You plan.
Same as with a 35mm camera near the end of a roll. If an even is going to happen, such as cake cutting, you don't wait to end the roll to change film. Otherwise you end up stopping the event while you change film...BAD scene. Instead, you change film in advance, so you have enough frames for the next event.

BTW, it was/is 24 exposures per roll of 220 film. 12 exposure only if you are using 120 film.
Changing film on a Hasselblad is faster than for you with the F5, even with power rewind to help.
On the Hasselbad, you swap the backs, the next back is already loaded and set to frame 1, ready to go.
You could switch to a 2nd F5 camera, and that would be faster, but so can the Hasselblad photog.

Thanks all.

I wasn't suggesting that "spray and prey" was a better technique at all - I was just saying that I am having some difficulty adjusting to the manual nature of my Hasselblad over my F5. For example, I shot some pics of my kids in the garden the other day (have just sent the films off) using my Blad and by the time I'd focussed on my 1.5yr old, he'd moved! So I was constantly trying to get him in focus. I realise its a control of "forseeing" issue - I've just not yet developed those skills. I am all in favour of controlled, single shots, but adjusting my technique for a Blad is proving harder than I thought.

IMHO, I think that spending more time working with the camera in different situations will get you farther than watching a video. Especially for the sort of situation you've described, I'm not sure a video would help more than "just doing it", then doing it some more.

If you're planning on doing paid work with the Hasselblad, you may want to shoot both with it, and your F5, until you gain more confidence. Use the Hasselblad for some of the set up shots where you have a little more time, and the 35 for candids and such.

Kids are a challenge, trying to keep up with my 3 YO nieces and get some good pictures on a play ground was quite an exercise, in every way!

From own experience in shooting weddings in a previous life and owning a 500 C/ M in present life I can tell it would be a hell of a challenge to keep up and do a wedding from start to end with a Hasselblad. Most weddings I have seen done professionally the photographer has an assistant shooting a second camera, different angles, etc. I can see using Hasselblad as second camera in a wedding scenario like it was shown above just for the special moments.

ted_smith said:

I was just saying that I am having some difficulty adjusting to the manual nature of my Hasselblad over my F5.

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Understandable. After auto-everything, getting used to a focus ring can be quite the challenge.

ted_smith said:

For example, I shot some pics of my kids in the garden the other day (have just sent the films off) using my Blad and by the time I'd focussed on my 1.5yr old, he'd moved!

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As was said, this simply takes practice. Do you have an eye-level prism finder? In my opinion, such a thing is an absolute must for action shots. Yes, infants and toddlers fall in that category! I've not used a Hassy before, but I imagine you can still set up your hands so that one supports camera and has a finger poised over the shutter release, while the second is manning the focus ring. Preset your aperture and shutter speed based upon lighting conditions (or flash distance/guide number). Natural light photography will require faster shutter speeds.

Just a case of learning a few more skills. You can practice also by setting your F5 into full manual mode.

I must admit, I wish I had your problem… Of owning a Hassy, that is.

naeroscatu said:

From own experience in shooting weddings in a previous life and owning a 500 C/ M in present life I can tell it would be a hell of a challenge to keep up and do a wedding from start to end with a Hasselblad. Most weddings I have seen done professionally the photographer has an assistant shooting a second camera, different angles, etc. I can see using Hasselblad as second camera in a wedding scenario like it was shown above just for the special moments.

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I shot weddings for years with a Mamiya C330 but no assistant.

You get fewer shots, but a higher ratio of keepers.

Takes a bit of practice though.

The last wedding I shot was with a hassy and 3 a12 backs. Shot 12 rolls which was 108 frames and I presented 105. (flash did not fire) They were not looking for a high volume shooting and liked my work. They could not of been happier.

hgernhardt said:

I must admit, I wish I had your problem… Of owning a Hassy, that is.

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He has a tough life, but someone has to live it.

Depending on which Hasselblad lens you have, focus can be hard.
In the old C lenses, especially if not serviced, the grease is 40 years old, and probably dry. So turning the focusing ring will be hard and slow, it needs a CLA.
For action, you use depth of field to compensate for focusing errors. You also try to prefocus on a location where you thing the subject will go.

Like learning a new skill, it just takes practice, to get your brain and muscles working together.

Also knowing some of the tricks would help.
We used to use the "sunny 16" and practice shooting w/o using a meter. We would walk about look at a scene and based on the sunny 16 rule set the exposure.
We also trained our hands.
- which way to turn the aperture ring for min and max aperture
- set the aperture to a specific setting w/o looking
- Which way to turn the shutter speed dial
- set the speed w/o looking at the camera
- as you walked about, we would adjust the aperture and shutter speed for the lighting, so the exposure was set before we raised the camera

- which way to turn the focus to infinity
- from infinity how much to turn to reach 10 feet w/o looking at the lens
- you look at a subject and turn the focus ring, the focus was pretty close before the camera is raised, and all you do is fine tune the focus. Or just shoot and let depth of field take care of the focus miss.

- you learned to estimate distance with your eye. (another perishable skill)
- Then set the focus on the cameras w/o looking thru the viewfinder. Like on the old folding cameras. Looking thru the viewfinder was just to confirm or fine tune the focus.
- This also how we set the exposure for manual flash. Estimate distance, set the aperture based on the distance, shoot. This was actually more reliable than the auto flashes, as distance was independent of the scene, which could/did and does fool an auto flash.

You also had to train your eye to know what a focused image looks like.
And to focus the lens quickly, not take minutes hunting back and forth trying to get the lens focused.
I found that many people cannot focus a camera or projector for a SHARP image. They get close, but it still is NOT in focus.
For these people, autofocus is a blessing.

You were one with your camera.

But these were/are perishable skills, you had to keep practicing or you would loose some of the skills.
I can still set the shutter speed and aperture, but I can't set the focus w/o looking.
Today I cannot look at a scene and tell you the exposure. I can only do that for bright sunlight, the easy part of the sunny 16 rule. Shadow, shade, deep shade, overcast, etc, I can't do it.

The sunny 16 rule was easy to remember if you observe the light according to the clouds and shadows cast by the sun generally from mid morning to mid afternoon
Bright sun hard edged shadows f/16
Hazy sun soft edged shadows open one stop f/11
Cloudy bright no shadows open another stop f/8
Cloudy dark dim open another stop f/5.6
But at this point hard to judge, might need to meter
Open shade open one stop from f/16
Closed shade open two stops f/11
Sidelight open one stop f/11
Back light open two stops f/8
This is especially useful when working on the run or if the camera metering is questionable. The sun is a constant one can count on.