Hasselblad 101

[KatFan]

This stands for Cleaning, Lubrication, and Adjustment. This is one of those terms that camera guys like to throw around. Unfortunately, it can mean almost any degree of maintenance (or non-maintenance) that a repair service wants to define as their version of a CLA. If you are in USA and send your camera to one of the better-known Hasselblad repair services or to Hasselblad-Bron in New Jersey, the CLA will be quite thorough.

Thanks for the expanding my lexicon!

 

[KatFan]

Re digital backs:

mcrokkorx,

Thank you for your support and knowledge. The digital back considerations you made will help me decide to perhaps forego that option altogether and work with digitizing the negatives. I have to tackle that area as well.

-K

 

[KatFan]

Excellent advice above! If you do not have these accessories, let me suggest (urge):

1. Hood. You need the Bayonet B50 size.
2. For B&W film, yellow, green, and orange filters, and possibly red. These will be B50, and not too expensive.
3. If you already have 52mm color filters from another camera, get a B50- 52 adapter ring. I trust Tim at Filterfind.net for such items.
4. Cable release.

I will not go down the rat hole of whether you should use a "protection" filter.

Have fun!

Hi Kodachromeguy,
I'm curious, why do I need a hood, filters and protection filter?

 

[mcrokkorx]

One excellent advantage of Hasselblad's body design is it doesn't use nearly as much perishable foam for light seals as most other cameras. Really the only seal that regularly wears and needs to be replaced is the dark slide slot seal in the film back. You will know if this needs replacing when your film shows strange spurious lighter streaks and patches: general practice is to replace the dark slide seal yearly or every two years (even if it still seems OK) to make sure that never happens unexpectedly on an important shoot.

There are countless tutorial posts and youTube vids that show how to replace the film back dark slide seal. In a nutshell, you just carefully remove the 8 or 9 screws holding the faceplate to the back, gently lift it off, and you'll see a trapezoid shaped narrow folded plastic mylar foil enclosing a strip of foam located at the dark slide entrance. Take that out: if the plastic foil is intact just clean any dust off of it. Replace the foam strip with a new foam strip, put everything back together, done.

Example of illustrated instructions here: http://www.hasselbladhistorical.eu/ht/htseal.aspx

The foam strips can be cut easily from most common thin sheets of hobby foam, new plastic foils can be cut from expired 120/220 film etc, or you can purchase pre-made foil+foam strip kits on eBay for about $13 apiece. If the thought of DIY is off-putting to you, this is/was the single most common easy servicing task at every camera repair shop: most will do this for approx $50 or so.

 

[Pieter12]

Are the foam light seals costly to replace? What indication should I look for?

Not tremendously expensive, but since it is a Hasselblad, not cheap either. You really can't tell much by visual inspection, but if you see light leaks on one side of your film, it means the seals are shot. An emergency work-around is to put a narrow piece of gaffer's tape over the slot where the dark slide has been removed. You will not be able to remove the back but if you only have one, that is not a problem. The back does not get removed to reload film.

 

[Duceman]

Are the foam light seals costly to replace? What indication should I look for?

I replaced a set of seals on a back about ten years ago. Wasn't all that difficult. Check eBay... there are sellers selling these for ~$15.

 

[bdial]

The indication that the seals are bad is negatives that have fogging along the right hand side if you view them with the images upright, and with the base side facing you.
Leaking seals allow light in through the dark slide slot.
I have three backs, and have owned them for roughly 10 ish + years, only one has needed a seal replacement, so far, knock on wood. If you only have one back, and don't have a need to remove it to change the finder, for example, then storing it without the dark slide will help keep the seals from getting compressed.

The last time I bought seals, I bought them directly from Hasselblad, because it wasn't obvious which ebay sellers had a good product. The cost was slightly more, but only slightly.

Oh, and welcome to APUG/Photrio!

 

[KatFan]

[QUOTE="mcrokkorx, post: 2470081

Thanks for the tip!

 

[KatFan]

[QUOTE="bdial, post: 2470140

Much appreciated and hello.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I'm so paranoid about this preventative maintenance that I bought a cheap motorized 500ELX body just for easier quicker exercise of all the shutter speeds/apertures in all my lenses every couple months (if I haven't been using them). Its a lot easier than manually crank cocking repeatedly, OTOH the stress on my wrist from palming that dense heavy brick up to a bright window and pressing the electric shutter button 200 times an hour is probably not doing my tendons any favors.

To say nothing of the contortions I put my hands thru to exercise the leaf shutters in all my Maniya TLR and Mamiya Press lenses.

Ah, just what I needed for motivation and divine inspiration to run out and buy the EL.

T*H*A*N*K Y*O*U!!​

 

[Sirius Glass]

Hi Kodachromeguy,
I'm curious, why do I need a hood, filters and protection filter?

I have skylight or uv filters on all my camera lenses to protect the lenses from bumps and scrapes as well as keep dirt off them. Lens hoods are added protection and cut down on reflections and flares from taking photographs aimed near very bright light sources.

 

[btaylor]

This thread prompted me to get around to buying the Hasselblad lens cocking tool. Thanks for that! I picked up an EL body some time ago as a backup- ridiculously low price. I suspect a lot of the EL bodies are bought for just this reason now that they are much less desirable than the manual bodies.

 

[bdial]

Ah, just what I needed for motivation and divine inspiration to run out and buy the EL.

T*H*A*N*K Y*O*U!!​

You certainly should do that, except for the weight, I prefer my EL over my manual bodies.

 

[mrosenlof]

lots of good info here. I think it's worth stressing Sirirus Glass' note to

make sure both camera and lens are cocked before mounting or removing a lens.

I had heard about the infamous Hasselblad Jams before I bought mine, and one the first day, jammed it. aaarrrrggghhh. I found the unjam instructions online, and have never jammed it again.

I always wind film immediately after exposure, and then check it again before unmounting a lens. There is no harm in storing a lens with the shutter cocked.

Have fun and good light!

 

[Arthurwg]

I usually cover the dark slide slot with black masking tape when I shoot, just to be safe. Solves the light leak problem easily. And BTW, if you look at Ansel's famous Moon Over Half Dome negative, shot with a Hasselblad, you'll see serious light leaks on the right side.of the image, which would have made it impossible to print the full frame. Ansel rarely printed square anyway.

 

[btaylor]

Did you get one of those $25-30 "pens" from China on eBay?

Yep. Hope it works!

 

[Ai Print]

Yep. Hope it works!

They work great, I have three of them, one with me on my trip, had to use it a couple days ago when I forgot the sequence in using the teleconverter.

I even brought some basic tools with me but I can not believe I forgot a spare light trap kit! One of the 4 backs I brought seems to have a dark slide that slides in and out a bit too easily for my liking. I tested all the backs before I left but I might have to pull the faceplate off and at least inspect the seal. I did the phone light test in the shell and saw no light coming through, so maybe it is ok.

Ah, the adventures of working in a far away land!

 

[Sirius Glass]

You certainly should do that, except for the weight, I prefer my EL over my manual bodies.

The weight of the EL plus the PME prism is a bit much before the lenses are added.

 

[drmoss_ca]

This thread prompted me to get around to buying the Hasselblad lens cocking tool. Thanks for that! I picked up an EL body some time ago as a backup- ridiculously low price. I suspect a lot of the EL bodies are bought for just this reason now that they are much less desirable than the manual bodies.

I find a 10¢ coin works rather well.

 

[btaylor]

Of course. But this tool is also used if and when a Hasselblad jams, to cock the shutter when the lens is installed on the camera body and out of sync with the winding mechanism. Fortunately I have not encountered this situation, but I like to be prepared.

 

[KatFan]

Thanks for all the feedback, this is great! I clearly arrived in wonderland. What about film? Anyone have any standard suggestions?
Thanks in advance

 

[BrianShaw]

B&W; Color???

Ilford FP-4+; Kodak Portra 160

 

[KatFan]

B&W; Color???

Ilford FP-4+; Kodak Portra 160

Both. I don't have a darkroom and I am interested in processing the negatives. Where might I start exploring digital negative options?

 

[BrianShaw]

Both. I don't have a darkroom and I am interested in processing the negatives. Where might I start exploring digital negative options?

Well, if you are interested in processing then your answer should have been B&W. Easy to do, even without a darkroom. Color processing at home is possible but more complex. Sending color film to a lab is not inexpensive but a good idea.

 

[Pieter12]

digital negative options?

Clarify what you mean by that.