I DON*T get hasselblad!!

Greg_E · Sep 20, 2008

BrianShaw said:
Hassy is a quirky system, not weak.

Quirky devices and students DO NOT MIX! You would probably be better off with an FP shutter like a Mamiya 645 as the operation is more simple. I understand trying to provide high level tools, but I think a compromise is in order.

Also you can not blame the instructor. In the past 5 years I have seen the ability for students to deal with even simple problem solving dive to an incredibly low level. Things like problem solving skills are no longer taught in the lower levels of education, and now that the students are older, it is too late. That is the single most popular thing that is discussed at every faculty meeting at work.

Uncle Goose said:
It doesn't matter if they are kids or adults. I used to work as cabdriver in a big taxi company with all adults but you should have seen some of the cars. They were company cars and that showed, some people just don't have any respect for others stuff.

This is the other problem with students. Many of them could care less if they break something. I care for video equipment that the students take out for projects... Less than 1/3 actually care if the equipment comes back in decent condition. Many think it is just fine to leave $8,000 worth of gear in their car over night or parked in the lot at school for hours. I have a hard enough time trying to get them to tell me when a lamp has been replaced so that I can put a new spare in the kit. To actually get them to admit to breaking something is nearly impossible.

Paul. · Sep 20, 2008

Well as these cameras and lenses are not suitable for your needs and need repairing, what is the asking price on them and will you ship to UK for cost? I will gladly give them a good home and they can keep my 500CM company.

Regards Paul.

gandolfi · Sep 20, 2008

Paul. said:
Well as these cameras and lenses are not suitable for your needs and need repairing, what is the asking price on them and will you ship to UK for cost? I will gladly give them a good home and they can keep my 500CM company.

Regards Paul.

as much as I think selling might be a solution, I am not sure I can..

we got this equipment together with a nikon camera and an 4x5" durst enlarger with 8 lenses - 4 flood lights and more for such a cheap price, that it might count as a donation (or gift).

could I sell a gift?

at least I have to speak with my headmaster about it first...

Andrew O'Neill · Sep 20, 2008

Don't blame the camera. Blame the students. I see it all the time at the school I teach at (not hassies, we use K1000's which are built like a tank). It's not theirs so they don't care. I saw one female students walking down the hallway and swinging it by the neckstrap like it was a handbag. They sure take good care of their iPods, though. You have to constantly DRILL it into them about how fragile the cameras are and how expensive it is to maintain them.

Jersey Vic · Sep 20, 2008

Students destroy equipment they are not financially responsible for.
I worked at a prestigious photography school in NYC that has both part-time adult education students and full time students ($25K + housing per year) . The P/T students had to pay for equipment they broke, the full time did not.
The P/T students rarely returned equipment in less than perfect shape or late, the F/T students destroyed it and held it long after it was due back. Same goes for the darkrooms- 45 brand new LPL 4500 enlargers, a greater number of 11x14 through 20x24 easels, several 16x20 and 20x24 archival prints washers, Seal presses - all beat to hell, fithy and needing repair after a semester. And God forbid you leave your prints on the drying racks overnight.

Allan Swindles · Sep 20, 2008

Hasselblad 500's are excellent precision built cameras used by professional photographers for many years for just that reason. They do however, suffer one of the same problems also encountered by other manufacturers - the little nut on the shutter release.

gr82bart · Sep 20, 2008

One of my brother's (ex-)girlfriends once nearly stripped his Porsche's gears. I don't think it was the car's fault. Or the company that built it.

Regards, Art.

gandolfi · Sep 20, 2008

so - in the end of the day, if it is not the camera that's to blame (I still do..), but me, and the students, what camera(s) in medium format would you recommend?

John Koehrer · Sep 20, 2008

Don't expect people to be familiar with unfamiliar equipment. If the student hasn't driven a car with a standard transmission you wouldn't be real surprised if they damaged the trans or clutch. That's exactly what you're doing by handing them that camera. You assume some basic familiarity that dosn't exist. It's not the camera, it's your assumption. Give them your Rollei & you'll most likely get the same result.

BrianShaw · Sep 20, 2008

John has a good point about lack of familiarity being a problem no matter what camera/car one operates, but here's my recommendation:

1. Hassy (which I know seems odd considering the thread, but for many people over many years it has been "the answer".)
2. RolleiCORD, preferably Vb model

Phillip P. Dimor · Sep 20, 2008

Breaking a mamiya 645 or bronica etrsi is much less painful. I've a pentax 645 that will not quit. I bought it from a rental house in New York City and it had seen very hard use. It still works perfectly and I doubt it has ever seen a CLA. From what i've read there is nothing to clean, lube or adjust on them.

Once the safety interlock(s) fail and you ignore the rule of 'go slow, go easy and do not force it', it is relatively easy to turn a hasselblad into a fancy paperweight. I'm sure most other cameras are the same as well, at least the mechanically complicated ones.

gr82bart · Sep 20, 2008

gandolfi said:
so - in the end of the day, if it is not the camera that's to blame (I still do..), but me, and the students, what camera(s) in medium format would you recommend?

For kids? Holga. Break'em all you want. May get awesome images too.

Regards, Art.

Greg_E · Sep 20, 2008

Mamiya 645 Pro would be a good choice as it is easy to use, very much like a larger 35mm camera. Doesn't matter if you wind the film or not before removing a lens, or winder, or back. The only thing that might trip people up beyond recovery is that you need to press a button to get out of the auto exposure modes. Probably should get a good stock of darkslides as I could see those getting lost or damaged very easily if put in a pocket.

Or make the students buy their own cameras. The cost is low enough that this is possible.

notmatt · Sep 20, 2008

A brief suggestion on deposits and students: I was once in charge of some computer head-tracking and stereoscopic vision stuff; this was before you could do it with a Wii and some spare change and the cost was about as much new as a (new) Hasselblad. The first time around, we did the deposit-by-use thing, but we ran into trouble quite quickly. E.g., if someone comes back and complains about a fault you know you wouldn't have noticed when you were signing the equipment back from the last person, how do you know who did it? And the deposit wasn't anywhere near as much as the repair cost anyway, so no real help from keeping it.

The way we set it up the second time around was to check the equipment on sign-in and sign-out to catch anyone being particularly careless, and encouraging the students to check it in the lab before they left. At the end of the course, any repair costs (over what the department allocated) were deducted from the pool of deposits, and the rest returned equally. It worked a lot better than we expected; one new set of equipment stayed essentially pristine. It seemed to encourage a different attitude towards the equipment more like collective ownership than rental, and a couple of students told me they liked how it avoided the 'wear and tear lottery problem' – when something has been barely holding on, and lots of people have contributed to its wear and tear, but you're stuck with the bill if you're holding it when it breaks.

Neil Souch · Sep 21, 2008

gandolfi said:
so - in the end of the day, if it is not the camera that's to blame (I still do..), but me, and the students, what camera(s) in medium format would you recommend?

Hi,
As touched on before use Bronicas if you want something like the Hasselblad system. I have used both systems (now exclusively Hass) and would say the Bronica is almost fool proof to use whereas with Hasselblads you have to be experienced in using them. The only point on a Bronica you would need to watch is inserting the darkslide, as with all cameras with this feature one has to do this precisely otherwise you will wreck the light trapping.

Cheers,

Neil.

Philippe-Georges · Sep 21, 2008

gandolfi said:
so - in the end of the day, if it is not the camera that's to blame (I still do..), but me, and the students, what camera(s) in medium format would you recommend?

A tea can with a little hole, a pinhole camera.
And have them made it, so it will bee their very own 'object'...

Philippe

Videbaek · Sep 21, 2008

Once I got over my surprise at your students being given Hasselblads to learn on, I wasn't surprised that they were jamming and perhaps even breaking them. When I bought my first, I received a whopping 5 minutes of usage instructions from the seller. Within a few days of playing with it I had jammed it conclusively, hadn't a clue how I had done it, and took it to the friendly Hasselblad repairman. When I picked it up, I asked him to show me the mechanical ropes, which he did with a smile. It's very simple but you have to do things right -- calmly, evenly, without forcing anything. My Hasselblads are totally reliable, I trust them utterly, with a few provisos. There are a few annoying things -- the film cassettes don't keep proper frame spacing long enough to my mind; at the first hint of uneven spacing, they're off to the repairman for service. One needs at least 6 cassettes if two cameras are in regular, hard use. Also, I have heard from pros that, with many hours of sustained use e.g. at school photo sessions (which are done digitally these days anyway), the bellows curtain has been known to jam and break. They are mechanical devices, and moving parts wear and eventually break. Rgds, Svend

Sirius Glass · Sep 22, 2008

André E.C. said:
Nothing new, you're a natural Hasselblad hater, why didn't you got some of those limited fixed focal lenght cameras named Rollei?:confused:

Hasselblads are for individuals who respect the device modus-operandi, Rolleiflexes are as simple as possible, therefore, a best option for children or adults with some problems to learn and follow an operating formula.

Hasselblad isn't a quality camera in the wrong hands, but just a tip, the problem is lack of discipline from the operator, not the machine.

André

André,

I believe the technical tern that you want to relate to Gandolfiis "Operator Assisted Failure". The use of the acronym is thus: The OAF did this and then the OAF did that.

Steve

Nicole · Sep 22, 2008

gandolfi said:
so - in the end of the day, if it is not the camera that's to blame (I still do..), but me, and the students, what camera(s) in medium format would you recommend?

I'd suggest keeping the Hasselblad. If you have 3 lenses, see if you can get 2 more bodies for each lens to lessen the risk of further jams. Make them work with the waist level finders. Your students should feel priviledged to be able to work with this system.

Add 2-3 Holgas for the other end of the spectrum.

I have only ever had one 501cm Hasselblad, one 80mm lens, which I don't have to remove and only one back. This simple system has served me well full time for about 5 years now even after I dropped it onto rocks and in the sand at the beach. That's not something I'd recommend, but shows how tough it is - and it still runs like a dream.

Enjoy what you have.

bnstein · Sep 22, 2008

A general consensus of all of the posters so far seems to be that most students will approach things as "sans cash interest, sans care". Whichever approach you subsequently take needs a financial risk for the student (I liked the pool of cash idea but also sign in sign out checks are helpful as some students seem particularly irreverent with expensive equipment).

As regards which particular camera to use I think the first question is what is the purpose/nature of the course that you are using the hasselblad for? Without knowing that it is hard to know if something like a plastic camera or pinhole would suit. Second what is the financial state of the students? Is it feasible to ask them to pay for their own camera? a plastic camera? a decent deposit? .

Perhaps you can get the best of both worlds: buy a holga and get to grips with film loading/processing etc then use of the hasselblads in a supervised situation eg studio.

gandolfi · Sep 22, 2008

Nicole said:
I'd suggest keeping the Hasselblad. If you have 3 lenses, see if you can get 2 more bodies for each lens to lessen the risk of further jams. Make them work with the waist level finders. Your students should feel priviledged to be able to work with this system.

Add 2-3 Holgas for the other end of the spectrum.

I have only ever had one 501cm Hasselblad, one 80mm lens, which I don't have to remove and only one back. This simple system has served me well full time for about 5 years now even after I dropped it onto rocks and in the sand at the beach. That's not something I'd recommend, but shows how tough it is - and it still runs like a dream.

Enjoy what you have.

nicole: as I have 4 lenses I have to buy 4 houses + a "new" 80mm, as the one here is now stuck to the broken camera...

it will be too expensive, but if I had the money, then it would be a great idea..

HOLGA's? no.
If the students will like to play with those, they can buy their own...
(If a hasselbald is as easy to break as it is, then what would happen to plastic cameras?....:rolleyes: )

I am thinking of buying some Mamiya C330 (or older), as they are quite cheap, and of good quality, and the students seem to like working with them...

the hassy? dunno.

Struan Gray · Sep 22, 2008

Consider the Pentax 6x7. It looks and works like a bigger version of the 35 mm film cameras that the students might reasonably be expected to be familiar with, and they're tough as tanks.

Keep the Hasselblad for indoor studio use (flash sync at all speeds can be your excuse). Or trade it for the Pentax boat anchor.

Paul. · Sep 22, 2008

Have to say I have handed my Hasselblad over to my 4 year old granddaughter to use when she decided it was her turn to take a picture. OK I was supervising her and she was only focusing and pressing the shutter while holding the camera on her lap but goes to show a child can use a Hasselblad IF they have the right attitude.

Regards Paul.

raucousimages · Sep 22, 2008

I was a teacher. Students like to see how far they can push equipment and "let's see what happens if..."

Give me a pinhole camera made of cast iron with no moving parts and one student who has no responsability for the camera and I guarante I will get back a broken camera.

A Hassy is not a basic student model.

Greg_E · Sep 23, 2008

I have a $277 repair for a video camera from a simple broken part because someone put the tape in sideways or backwards. The previous user was using a different size tape and that size works fine, so now the repair comes out of our budget and not the student's pocket.

A complete check out and in is impossible as it would take more than 30 minutes each side, times 12 systems. I can see why most schools make the students buy their own gear and only let third and fourth year students sign equipment out. Normally by then you weed out the losers. Too bad we are a 2 year school

I DON*T get hasselblad!!

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