Camera Romance

[Sirius Glass]

I realize that this could be potentially an awkward subject but,I'm actually serious.I have determined the reason for my Hasselblad images to be better than my digital images.I don't mean this in a technical quality kind of way but in an artistic kind of value.whenever I take the Hassy,I can be sure of having a much better chance of creating something worth while but,when I take the digital equipment,the trash can is having a feast.the reason?I'm having a romantic relationship with my Hasselblad.Yes, I actually love it,even hug it every day and have been known to sniff it to make sure it is mine.I don't have those feelings for my D800(yet)Am I alone?Good thing is, I don't have to confess to my wife,She knows!:confused:

Hasselblad - I have used a few cameras over the years, and none of them feel as natural to me as the Hasselblad. Soul mates, you could say...

Thanks for the GAS Thomas

Those that have know. The others wish that they could have so that they too could know.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

...but I don't know anything that smells better than a Hassy or a brand-new Carl Zeiss lens.

Kodachrome smells better.

But into the weeds I digress...



Ken

 

[Tom1956]

I'm starting to get pretty good at working on these Hasselblad bodies. The lenses can be pretty tough, and I haven't even touched a Hass shutter yet. But I'm getting to where I can do a pretty respectable job on the bodies. I've got a 1996 553 ELX, and an original 1957 500C with the original piston that was never converted, up on the worktable now. I'm sitting here waiting on a new metric dial caliper to come in the mail today, so I can make sure my body lengths are all on the mark. I don't want to put them back together with a short or long body and have infinity be off.
If you don't get a Hasselblad back to specs, it's no better and probably worse that a box camera. You can't fool around with these one bit--they have to be right or you've got a big fat nothing.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hasselblad repairmen have a jig to calibrate and align the bodies.

 

[Tom1956]

Proper Hasselblad repairmen have a jig and a fixture of some sort for everything. And they have factory training. It would be like me thinking I could walk in to Eastman Kodak and do PE's job. Nevertheless, good work CAN be done on more rudimentary tools, if those tools are accurate. I've been in touch with a factory-trained independent on another site, and a getting a feel for what I can and cannot do. The number one rule I have for myself is DON'T fool with a particular adjustment if I don't have the right jig, fixture, or tool to undo my "adjustment" and put it back to spec.
Within my limitations, I am getting a lot of things right, though I might have to make a forge to build a hammer, to hammer a nail.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Proper Hasselblad repairmen have a jig and a fixture of some sort for everything. And they have factory training. It would be like me thinking I could walk in to Eastman Kodak and do PE's job. Nevertheless, good work CAN be done on more rudimentary tools, if those tools are accurate. I've been in touch with a factory-trained independent on another site, and a getting a feel for what I can and cannot do. The number one rule I have for myself is DON'T fool with a particular adjustment if I don't have the right jig, fixture, or tool to undo my "adjustment" and put it back to spec.
Within my limitations, I am getting a lot of things right, though I might have to make a forge to build a hammer, to hammer a nail.

Tom, is this your way of describing your romance with the Hasselblad cameras? If yes, it's a bit awkward...

 

[Tom1956]

I don't have any "romance" with inanimate objects. The closest I've been to one is the 1968 Camaro Convertible I got in Feb 1974, as my first car. And it's sitting all sweet and fine in my driveway now.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I don't have any "romance" with inanimate objects. The closest I've been to one is the 1968 Camaro Convertible I got in Feb 1974, as my first car. And it's sitting all sweet and fine in my driveway now.

Yah, it's all tongue in cheek and fun this thread, but with a valid point that we maybe make the best photographs with the cameras we love best. Hence the thread title 'Camera Romance'.

I bet that Camaro looks sweet.

 

[markbarendt]

Tom, is this your way of describing your romance with the Hasselblad cameras? If yes, it's a bit awkward...

Geek love

 

[Tom1956]

It has all new quarter panels, floor pans, door panels--all original GM parts, that I welded in myself. Beautiful job. The old was dented and rusted and no good. Now that car doesn't have a thimbleful of Bondo in it. I'm putting it up for sale one day. Any potential buyers can inquire at my occupied cemetery plot.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

Ouch!

Those that have know. The others wish that they could have so that they too could know.

 

[pstake]

It has all new quarter panels, floor pans, door panels--all original GM parts, that I welded in myself. Beautiful job. The old was dented and rusted and no good. Now that car doesn't have a thimbleful of Bondo in it. I'm putting it up for sale one day. Any potential buyers can inquire at my occupied cemetery plot.

Sounds an awful lot like Camaromance, to me.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

Hasselblads are beautiful cameras, no doubt.

They are all about image. The images you take with them. And the image you get wearing one.

Their biggest asset, however, apart from the mystique (or even romance), is the Zeiss lenses.

That's what sets them apart from other MF cameras, I think.

Also, back in the day a lot of wedding photographers preferred the Japanese variants, because they were cheaper, sometimes more robust and had good lenses too.

Today, if you want good MF photography you can buy any of the classics for a lot less than a Hasselblad.

And a person who's not a very good photographer won't get any better pictures with a Hasselblad anyway.

 

[benjiboy]

Proper Hasselblad repairmen have a jig and a fixture of some sort for everything. And they have factory training. It would be like me thinking I could walk in to Eastman Kodak and do PE's job. Nevertheless, good work CAN be done on more rudimentary tools, if those tools are accurate. I've been in touch with a factory-trained independent on another site, and a getting a feel for what I can and cannot do. The number one rule I have for myself is DON'T fool with a particular adjustment if I don't have the right jig, fixture, or tool to undo my "adjustment" and put it back to spec.
Within my limitations, I am getting a lot of things right, though I might have to make a forge to build a hammer, to hammer a nail.[/QUOTE

I was an apprentice trained precision mechanical engineer as a young man who worked for many years at a company who made turbine blades for Rolls Royce jet engines and I have the service manuals for all my cameras, but the more I look at them the less inclined to attempt to service them, modern cameras are such complex electro-mechanical devices they are not designed to be repaired by the man in the street on the kitchen table. I feel that part of being a serious photographer is paying to have your equipment serviced by professionals which is why although I don't have a houseful of cameras like some members of this site I have had all of mine for more than 25 years and they are all in good working order, and I can pick them up and know they will work.

 

[Eric Rose]

That may be because having three focal length of Rolleis hanging around your neck is in your mind is "just too cool for school". But after you climb out of the river and get your pants back on, in your heart you know that you love the Hasselblad the best. [Reference to a photograph his wife took that was posted on APUG. Go find it yourself.]

Ha ha. I have only one Rollei, 75mm. If I want WA I back up, for TF I move closer. For commercial work I used my Blad and had a 50mm, 80mm and 150mm. If I needed anything else I would rent it.

The think what really bugs me was after freezing my nuts off in that stream, the photo was crappy. Oh well nothing ventured nothing gained. Already had my kids and am married so no need for them anyway

 

[Tom1956]

I'm a self-employed offset printer. Not only do I have to have the color judgement of PE and the guys at the Big Place, but I have to be a rocket scientist of a repairman. Because nobody else is going to do it--I don't make enough money to get service guys to fix things. And it would be sort of stupid--since I've seen the kind of work some "factory-trained techs" do, and have had to fix it right after them. Back in the 80's my employer paid to have a tech flown in all the way from Germany and he worked on that big Koenig-Bauer press for 3 weeks. After he left that was the water-slingingest piece of junk I ever saw. And if we're talking about a genuine German technician, then that proves nobody else could not have done better.
The trick to working on something is to get ALL the facts, THEN work carefully and methodically. Anything else is just knucklehead work, which I do not tolerate.

 

[Jaf-Photo]

In Ralph's hands, a Hassy knows it has to do its best.

Well, I wasn't thinking of you, if you are Ralph.

I was thinking of amateurs and photo-kids who pick up Hasselblads because they think it will make them serious photographers.

The result is thousands of flickr posts of pets, pals and pot plants that are not very well framed, focused or exposed. Often they are shot on expired film for extra low quality.

The other day I saw a book of extremely bland and boring portraits. It was shot by a minor celebrity who had photographed other minor celebrities. The whole point of the book was that these dull portraits were shot with a Hasselblad, as if that would automatically make them any better.

These people would be much better off with digital compacts. At least they would be able to get the shots they want with minimal effort.

The Hasselblads wouldn't suffer such degrading fates if they weren't surrounded by such mystique and cool.

 

[ME Super]

It's not just the viewfinder. For me, at least, there's just so many settings and options on a dslr that it's easy to focus less on the image than the technology. Maybe because I don't use the dslr enough.

You really only NEED (as in absolutely positively can't live without) two options on a camera - three if it has a built-in meter. Shutter speed, Aperture, and in the case of those with a built-in meter, ISO. All the rest of the options/settings are there to manipulate two of the three I just listed. This includes all AE modes, AF, exposure compensation, etc...

For example, when shooting Rollei IR400, I use all three options, in completely manual mode. I set the ISO to 25 (that ISO gives me the results I want with the process I use and the IR filter I have in full sun). I compose, focus (hyperfocal distance and f/16 usually), and manipulate shutter speed and aperture until the camera tells me it's correctly exposed for an ISO 25 film. Then I screw on the IR filter and release the shutter. If I'm shooting any other film, I usually pick an aperture and let the camera pick the shutter speed in Av mode, though occasionally I do it in Tv mode. About the only time I use a Programmed AE mode is if I'm using flash indoors.

 

[cliveh]

The Leica II is the wife and the M2 is my favourite mistress. The other mistresses tend to be irregular in their attraction. The Leica IIIg is the biggest flirt and never content with any attention I may give her. The Voightlander IIICS is a dominatrix I try and avoid. The Vitomatic IIb is far too young for me and very innocent. The Hasselblad is more like my mother and the Werra as a mistress is very nice but has a very minimal dress sense. The Voigtlander prominent has many complicated issues and I avoid her like the plague. The Zeiss Contax IIa is far too old for me and the Zeiss Contaflex is very expensive to take out. The Nikon FM2 is too demanding, but nice to look at. I can’t rally comment on the others.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hasselblads are beautiful cameras, no doubt.

...

Also, back in the day a lot of wedding photographers preferred the Japanese variants, because they were cheaper, sometimes more robust and had good lenses too.

I have gotten laid for photographing weddings with a Hasselblad. I cannot say the same with the "preferred the Japanese variants"!

 

[cliveh]

I have gotten laid for photographing weddings with a Hasselblad. I cannot say the same with the "preferred the Japanese variants"!

How do you know it was because of the Hasselblad?

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I have gotten laid for photographing weddings with a Hasselblad. I cannot say the same with the "preferred the Japanese variants"!

Those Swedes... They know what they're doing.

 

[Sirius Glass]

How do you know it was because of the Hasselblad?

Each of them told me the Hasselblad was the attraction.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I think you'll get better photos with a camera that you are familiar with.

I would call it trust rather than love. You trust a familiar camera to deliver the images you want. This gives you a sense of freedom and confidence in your photography, which translates into better pictures.

Even if I shoot more film than digital these days, I am still more familiar with my digital gear. I get many more keepers with it than with analog cameras.

Analog is much more fun and I am gradually learning how to treat the cameras and films to get better images.

The greatest difference between digital and film is that you are much more restricted by the choices you make before pressing the shutter button with film. With digital you get second chances.

I did not want this to be yet another tiring analog vs digital discussion.I just wanted to kno if others also have formed an emotional bond with their camera and if that influences their photographic work?

 

[cliveh]

Each of them told me the Hasselblad was the attraction.

Wow, were you using the Hasselblad Zeiss Tele-Tessar 500mm?