Help with a Hasselblad 1000f

kimmy14 · Nov 7, 2014

Hi everyone. I'm completely new to film photography so please bear with me! I recently acquired my grandfather's old Hasselblad 1000f and it seems like the shutter curtains (?) are sticking. When I try pressing the shutter, the curtains manage to pop open maybe about a half an inch and then they just sort of stay like that. Is this something I could deal with myself? Or does anyone have any recommendations for a repair place? I really would love to be able to get this camera working. It looks to be in beautiful condition, no dust, no scratches or marks anywhere, but I know it hasn't been used in decades. It just seems like such a shame to not at least try to get it working again. I don't know a whole lot about this camera so I would really appreciate any help I can get!

flavio81 · Nov 7, 2014

If it has not been used, then it's just dried-up lubricants. The camera needs a good CLA (clean, lube, adjust) before it can be used. Should be able to work again afterwards.

pgomena · Nov 7, 2014

Start by contacting Hasselblad USA, they have a full-service repair facility.

From everything I've read about them, 1000Fs are not easily repaired for lack of parts if they are repairable at all. Good luck, they are really neat old cameras.

snapguy · Nov 7, 2014

classy

A classic camera. A keeper.

bdial · Nov 7, 2014

Service options for a 1000f may be limited. If you're in the US, I'd send it to Zacks; http://www.zackscamerarepair.biz

frank · Nov 7, 2014

This is not something that you can fix yourself, with no prior camera repair experience. If you want it to function again, send it out to a recommended camera repair shop, and confirm that they have experience with your model, which is quite old and fundamentally different from current Hasselblads.

Sirius Glass · Nov 7, 2014

Hasselblad 1000Fs are very delicate. Do not try to fix this yourself find a Hasselblad repairman.

Mustafa Umut Sarac · Nov 7, 2014

Kiev 88 is a Hasselblad 1000 f copy. If you dont change the camera speeds with great care , the main gear breaks. You must play with your camera with thinking that after some repair technician helped to the curtain problems. Victor Hasselblad was a Russian and after factory discovered the gear problem , he decided to gift the machinery to CCCP. Few years ago , that factory closed down at ukraine and rest been history.

The most expensive part of your camera is the lens , if there is no haze , fungus , scratch at your lens , get a new hasselblad body and use the lens with it.

you can not fix it. And repair costs money , may be 250 or more or less.

cowanw · Nov 7, 2014

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
Victor Hasselblad was a Russian.

Sweden will be dissapointed

Sirius Glass · Nov 7, 2014

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
Kiev 88 is a Hasselblad 1000 f copy. If you dont change the camera speeds with great care , the main gear breaks. You must play with your camera with thinking that after some repair technician helped to the curtain problems.

This is a truly bad recommendation. Do not fiddle with the camera. The shutter is very delicate and there are not shutter blade replacements. If you break the shutter it cannot be repaired.

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
Victor Hasselblad was a Russian and after factory discovered the gear problem , he decided to gift the machinery to CCCP. Few years ago , that factory closed down at ukraine and rest been history.

More miss information! Victor Hasselblad was a Swede from birth. Hasselblad means "Hazel leaf" in Swedish.

Know the poster before taking advice!!!

RalphLambrecht · Nov 7, 2014

Sirius Glass said:
This is a truly bad recommendation. Do not fiddle with the camera. The shutter is very delicate and there are not shutter blade replacements. If you break the shutter it cannot be repaired.

More miss information! Victor Hasselblad was a Swede from birth. Hasselblad means "Hazel leaf" in Swedish.

Know the poster before taking advice!!!

I don't care if he was a swede russion or from Mars.he was a great camera maker and fine engineerbut the Hasselblad 1000was not his best design. aim for a V500 instead.They seem to be more robust and reliable.But what your post proves is;leaving mechanical cameras unused in drawers for decades is the death of them.I make all of mine 'work' several times a year just to keep them running when neededPlease do that to yours and the lens.afteer you've got them CLAed

Dan Fromm · Nov 7, 2014

Mustafa Umut Sarac said:
The most expensive part of your camera is the lens , if there is no haze , fungus , scratch at your lens , get a new hasselblad body and use the lens with it.

Bad, bad suggestion. Ain't no new 1000Fs. 1000F has focal plane shutter in body, no leaf shutter in lens. 500c has leaf shutter in lens, no focal plane shutter in body. And the two have different lens mounts.

wiltw · Nov 8, 2014

kimmy14 said:
I recently acquired my grandfather's old Hasselblad 1000f and it seems like the shutter curtains (?) are sticking. When I try pressing the shutter, the curtains manage to pop open maybe about a half an inch and then they just sort of stay like that.!

There may be NOTHING WRONG!!!

At shutter speeds faster than X-synch speed, the two curtains form a SLIT which moves across the film, before the second curtain closes the slit after it has moved across the film plane.
At very fast speeds (like 1/1000) the slit is very thin, at slower shutter speeds (like 1/125) the slit is wider.

Only at X-synch speed and slower does the shutter opening between first and second curtain FULLY OPEN (which is why X-synch is the fastest shutter speed which is usable with the very, very brief emission of light by an electronic flash).

summicron1 · Nov 8, 2014

the 1000 was a model that hasselblad quit making for a very good reason ... it was a bad design concept. The Russian copies are junk.

Take my advice, which i give to a lot of people who have their father's/grandfather/s camera: Don't try to fix it. It will be expensive, frustrating, and yu won't use the camera much anyway. You really want a hasselblad, go buy a more modern one for less than the cost of restoring this one.

Do this: Clean it up on the outside. A little metal polish, some shoe polish, windex for the glass. Then find some pictures that your grandfather took with this camera, a coupla of pictures of your grandfather, some of his old letters, maybe his pen, watch, whatever. Be sure some of the pictures show his wife, his kids, you.

Take the whole mess to a frame shop and have them make you a shadow box with all that stuff displayed in it. Hang the result on your wall.

You have an instant heirloom that will be handed down and treasured for eons.

Xmas · Nov 8, 2014

summicron1 said:
the 1000 was a model that hasselblad quit making for a very good reason ... it was a bad design concept. The Russian copies are junk.

Take my advice, which i give to a lot of people who have their father's/grandfather/s camera: Don't try to fix it. It will be expensive, frustrating, and yu won't use the camera much anyway. You really want a hasselblad, go buy a more modern one for less than the cost of restoring this one.

Do this: Clean it up on the outside. A little metal polish, some shoe polish, windex for the glass. Then find some pictures that your grandfather took with this camera, a coupla of pictures of your grandfather, some of his old letters, maybe his pen, watch, whatever. Be sure some of the pictures show his wife, his kids, you.

Take the whole mess to a frame shop and have them make you a shadow box with all that stuff displayed in it. Hang the result on your wall.

You have an instant heirloom that will be handed down and treasured for eons.

This thread has some very bad advice.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasselblad

is your friend...

Cleaning any camera with metal polish, shoe polish and Windex is not a good idea.

It also is prejudicial that it needs cleaning. Lenses are sold with cleaning marks because owners have compulsive disorders.

The shutter was and is delicate don't remove the back.

The 1000 series was replaced cause the replacement 500 series could use flash more freely an advantage for out of door shooting and some studios.

The focal plane metal shutter was reintroduced in the 2000 series just as delicate and just ads expensive to repair.

The spares will be/are difficult even for decades older early 500 cameras and lenses you need a locked glass case.

You could sell the camera as a cannibal or a fix up or have a pro refurbish.

Note some backs will destroy the shutter if they are mated with the camera they came with warning stickers which may have been removed by the remove all label brigade.

Noel

pdeeh · Nov 8, 2014

Xmas said:
This thread has some very bad advice.

Cleaning any camera with metal polish, shoe polish and Windex is not a good idea.

That suggestion wasn't made as part of a "home CLA" though was it?
It was offered as part of a suggestion not to bother with a CLA at all.

Xmas · Nov 8, 2014

pdeeh said:
That suggestion wasn't made as part of a "home CLA" though was it?
It was offered as part of a suggestion not to bother with a CLA at all.

Correct but metal polish and windex are both fine abrasives and are prejudicial to reworking and using the camera some/any time in the future.

And not every one will have read it properly as you have.

There are some people who do (sic only) clean lenses and outside surfaces of cameras.

And others who only clean the insides of cameras.

Any 1000 with an intact shutter is a collector...

There are lots of lenses that have been destroyed...

itsdoable · Nov 8, 2014

The Hassselblad 1000f gets quite a bad rep due to the abundance of the Keiv-88 copy. The 1000f is as reliable as any 60 year old camera (probably more so). It uses an air govenor instead of the more common clock work oscillartor to time the shutter curtains, which required higher precision and lower friction. It was not "delicate", but It was more suseptible to contamination. It required a precision in manufacture to make it reliable, which it was.

60 year old mechanical mechanisms like this require the occational CLAs to keep them working - no different than the C serise shutters (which probaly required more frequent CLAs than any of the hasselblad focal plane shutters). Infact the Synchro Compur and Protor shutters used in the Hasselblad lenses often required more servicing than the comparable Sekors and Copals. Metal was used in the 1000f focal plane shutter to prevent pin holes being burned in them if the sun was in the frame after the shutter was tripped, something that Leica service techs are familiar with. They are however more prone to permanent damage if you stick your finger through them (no different that a film era copal shutter used by Nikon).

If you would like to use it, by all means, get it serviced. That will not be cheap though, and there are not that many people who work on 60 year old cameras. There is a chance that a bushing, armature, part has broken, and if so, that will be most dificult to replace. It would be a shame to mothball a 1000f that is in servicable condition, using them is how you keep them in working. Ofcourse, it is yours to do what you like.

(PS: You might find this interesting: http://www.camapart.com/home/hasselblad-1000f)

Sirius Glass · Nov 8, 2014

summicron1 said:
the 1000 was a model that hasselblad quit making for a very good reason ... it was a bad design concept.

The design used metal focal plane shutters to avoid the sun burnt holes that Leica's cloth focal plane shutters suffered. The problem is that the metal focal plane shutters were too damage sensitive. This would have been less of a problem if Hasselblad had continued making focal plane shutter spare parts, but they did not.

benjiboy · Nov 8, 2014

Sirius Glass said:
The design used metal focal plane shutters to avoid the sun burnt holes that Leica's cloth focal plane shutters suffered. The problem is that the metal focal plane shutters were too damage sensitive. This would have been less of a problem if Hasselblad had continued making focal plane shutter spare parts, but they did not.

Steve in any SLR camera surely the mirror reflects the light path from the lens to the viewfinder, and stops the sun burning a hole in the shutter.

benjiboy · Nov 8, 2014

RalphLambrecht said:
I don't care if he was a swede russion or from Mars.he was a great camera maker and fine engineerbut the Hasselblad 1000was not his best design. aim for a V500 instead.They seem to be more robust and reliable.But what your post proves is;leaving mechanical cameras unused in drawers for decades is the death of them.I make all of mine 'work' several times a year just to keep them running when neededPlease do that to yours and the lens.afteer you've got them CLAed

The Hasselblad was developed from a German Luftwaffe aerial camera a Handkamera HK 12.5 / 7x9, http://www.novacon.com.br/odditycameras/GXN.htm that the Swedes found in a military aircraft that was impounded when it crash landed in Sweden in WW11, and the government asked the company to develop an aeriel camera based on the design for the Swedish air force.

itsdoable · Nov 8, 2014

benjiboy said:
Steve in any SLR camera surely the mirror reflects the light path from the lens to the viewfinder, and stops the sun burning a hole in the shutter.

That is true with the advent of instant return mirrors, which did not appear in a Hasselblad until the 2000 series. And you'll note that the 200 series went with a cloth shutter (which was partly because Victor was no longer involved with the design of the cameras).

Consider a Hasselblad on a tripod with the sun in the corner of the frame. What happens after the shutter is tripped?

Xmas · Nov 8, 2014

The story I was told

Military Intelligence appeared in Victors office with a package and asked could he copy 'their' camera.

After an interval Victor said 'no but I can make you a better one'

If a shutter repair is necessary for a 2000 series

https://www.flickr.com/groups/hasselblad/discuss/72157605449098374/

But the 1000 series were ok cameras today if your Nikon F2 shutter is damaged you get another body same problem.

Xmas · Nov 8, 2014

itsdoable said:
That is true with the advent of instant return mirrors, which did not appear in a Hasselblad until the 2000 series. And you'll note that the 200 series went with a cloth shutter (which was partly because Victor was no longer involved with the design of the cameras).

Consider a Hasselblad on a tripod with the sun in the corner of the frame. What happens after the shutter is tripped?

Nothing with a Leica unless you are careless why would a blad be worse?

You shoot a blad with one hand on lever, ...

Though Exaktas 2nd blinds get surn burn and crack...

wiltw · Nov 9, 2014

Xmas said:
Nothing with a Leica unless you are careless why would a blad be worse?

You shoot a blad with one hand on lever, ...

Though Exaktas 2nd blinds get surn burn and crack...

On a Hassy, press the shutter and
1. mirror goes up
2. shutter opens, then closes
3. mirror stays up until film is advanced and shutter is cocked

On a SLR with instant return mirror, press the shutter and
1. mirror goes up
2. shutter opens, then closes
3. mirror goes down even with film not advanced and shutter not cocked

With a Leica RF, press the shutter and...shutter opens then closes...since you do not SEE THROUGH the lens on any rangefinder camera!

Help with a Hasselblad 1000f

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