I want A Hasselblad. Talk Me Out Of It!

[chuckroast]

OK @Andrew O'Neill, it's time to come clean.

You've tormented us long enough.

Are you buying the nice Swede or not? Hrrrrm?

 

[MattKing]

Ask him after Saturday .
Hope to see you at the meeting Andy.

 

[Pieter12]

Electrical system in the old British cars require disconnecting the battery at night . My old MGA that I had in high-school was so much fun.
Hasselblad is like a German clock, it will keep ticking for decades with regular winding

A buddy of mine had a MGB GT that wouldn't start on damp mornings. Amazing, given its country of origin. Old Lucas, Prince of Darkness at work.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Ask him after Saturday .
Hope to see you at the meeting Andy.

Matt,
Ah, the big day is near! One thing we all know about Andy, and it's one of the things I really value, is that he will give us an honest evaluation of his new camera. Good or bad! No fanboy "fake news" B.S.. Just cold, hard facts, like it or not.

 

[chuckroast]

A buddy of mine had a MGB GT that wouldn't start on damp mornings. Amazing, given its country of origin. Old Lucas, Prince of Darkness at work.

The Lucas legend of electrical malfeasance was monumental.

It was apocryphally told that the very first thing to do with these cars when restoring them was to rip out all the wiring harnesses and start from scratch.

 

[chuckroast]

Matt,
Ah, the big day is near! One thing we all know about Andy, and it's one of the things I really value, is that he will give us an honest evaluation of his new camera. Good or bad! No fanboy "fake news" B.S.. Just cold, hard facts, like it or not.

I predict fanboy in less than 30 days ...

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Queue Queen's, Under Pressure! I still need to do two more sub teacher shifts.
Matt, I'll be at the meeting. I'm hoping you do your demo...
When I do make the purchase, you all will be the first to know! Still time to talk me out of it!

 

[John Wiegerink]

I predict fanboy in less than 30 days ...

Oh, I don't know about "fanboy", but I do believe Andy will become a very avid user of the new rig. It's really hard not to like the Hasselblad 500CM with its fine selection of backs and lenses. Plus, tons of other accessories to keep you happy. Many of the people that dis the Hasselblad cameras have never used them or got a very used, near worn out one and then blame the whole camera system when it breaks down.

 

[John Wiegerink]

Queue Queen's, Under Pressure! I still need to do two more sub teacher shifts.
Matt, I'll be at the meeting. I'm hoping you do your demo...
When I do make the purchase, you all will be the first to know! Still time to talk me out of it!

Talk you out of it! Nope, I'm saving my breath. You'll have to talk yourself out of it Andy, you're a big boy. All I can say is have fun with it and enjoy!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Just the manual transmission makes cars theft deterrents in my part of the world. Unfortunately the manual Hasselblad is not a theft deterrent, but maybe if we spread the word about expensive and often you have to service them... would be a theft deterrent...

I have a story about Hasselblad repair bills

Back in the day (mid-1990s) I had a 500C. I think the date code on the serial # indicated it had been made in 1963 or thereabouts. The previous two owners to me had both been wedding photographers. I had it for several years, then I upgraded to a much newer 500CM, so the 500C sat unused as my backup for a while. I then sold it to another student at Maryland Institute College of Art. At the time he bought it, he knew it had an issue with the light baffles that close the body when the mirror is down. I told him to take it to the pro repair shop in Baltimore and get a quote on getting it fixed. If it was not expensive, I would pay to fix it; if it was going to be prohibitive, I would refund his money. I never heard back from him directly, so I assumed all was well, and spent the money he gave me for the camera. Several months later, I started hearing back from folks at other camera stores and from one of my professors at MICA that he had been running around town badmouthing me about how I sold him a dud, and hadn't paid to repair it, and every time he told the story of how much the repair cost was, it escalated. I think the real-world price would have been somewhere in the $300-350 range. By the time he was done telling the story, it was somewhere near $800 (he paid $1000 for the camera, a film back, and the 80mm C chrome lens).

My takeaway was that A: selling to an individual is risky, B: Hasselblad repairs get more expensive with time, and C: be wary of 500C bodies. The last one was because of the nature of the problem, and the most valid of the three. What failed on it was a rubber air bladder that controlled the opening and closing of the baffle doors. It had dry-rotted due to age, and the fix to replace it basically required complete disassembly of the body to remove the failed part, thus the expense of the repair. Even then, in the 1990s, warnings were being issued for the chrome C lenses and the 500C and earlier bodies as Hasselblad (and Compur) were not making spare parts for some of the things that were starting to fail on them. Now, I would be even more reticent to buy into the system given what some of the vintage stuff is going for - it would be very easy to spend over $1K on buying a camera that could be rendered a doorstop due to lack of parts.

So there's your justification for not buying one.

The reason TO buy one despite that is they're A: iconic cameras, B: they have some of the best glass you can get, and C: there's something about the form factor that makes them very easy to shoot hand-held, even with some of the longer lenses (Not the 350 or 500, of course, or the 140-280 zoom).

 

[John Wiegerink]

I have a story about Hasselblad repair bills

Back in the day (mid-1990s) I had a 500C. I think the date code on the serial # indicated it had been made in 1963 or thereabouts. The previous two owners to me had both been wedding photographers. I had it for several years, then I upgraded to a much newer 500CM, so the 500C sat unused as my backup for a while. I then sold it to another student at Maryland Institute College of Art. At the time he bought it, he knew it had an issue with the light baffles that close the body when the mirror is down. I told him to take it to the pro repair shop in Baltimore and get a quote on getting it fixed. If it was not expensive, I would pay to fix it; if it was going to be prohibitive, I would refund his money. I never heard back from him directly, so I assumed all was well, and spent the money he gave me for the camera. Several months later, I started hearing back from folks at other camera stores and from one of my professors at MICA that he had been running around town badmouthing me about how I sold him a dud, and hadn't paid to repair it, and every time he told the story of how much the repair cost was, it escalated. I think the real-world price would have been somewhere in the $300-350 range. By the time he was done telling the story, it was somewhere near $800 (he paid $1000 for the camera, a film back, and the 80mm C chrome lens).

My takeaway was that A: selling to an individual is risky, B: Hasselblad repairs get more expensive with time, and C: be wary of 500C bodies. The last one was because of the nature of the problem, and the most valid of the three. What failed on it was a rubber air bladder that controlled the opening and closing of the baffle doors. It had dry-rotted due to age, and the fix to replace it basically required complete disassembly of the body to remove the failed part, thus the expense of the repair. Even then, in the 1990s, warnings were being issued for the chrome C lenses and the 500C and earlier bodies as Hasselblad (and Compur) were not making spare parts for some of the things that were starting to fail on them. Now, I would be even more reticent to buy into the system given what some of the vintage stuff is going for - it would be very easy to spend over $1K on buying a camera that could be rendered a doorstop due to lack of parts.

So there's your justification for not buying one.

The reason TO buy one despite that is they're A: iconic cameras, B: they have some of the best glass you can get, and C: there's something about the form factor that makes them very easy to shoot hand-held, even with some of the longer lenses (Not the 350 or 500, of course, or the 140-280 zoom).

Sadly, many of the medium format film cameras are now in that category. Either no repair people or no replacement parts and even worse, both no parts and no repairmen. Even if you can find a repair person to work on one, and he can find the proper parts, the cost can be astronomical. Making almost more sense would be to buy one body to use and another good body to save for a spare. Then, if something goes haywire with your user you have the good working spare to fall back on. When the spare breaks down you have the first camera for spare parts. Of course, my luck would be for both cameras to die for the same illness and now I have two duds on the shelf.

 

[Arthurwg]

Inventors of the three position light switch: off, dim, and flicker

That's funny.

 

[itsdoable]

I just checked. Neither my 500C/M nor 501C/M has a Hurst shifter. Is that something that was available aftermarket?

I think that's just a very expensive repair...

 

[Pieter12]

Just the manual transmission makes cars theft deterrents in my part of the world. Unfortunately the manual Hasselblad is not a theft deterrent, but maybe if we spread the word about expensive and often you have to service them... would be a theft deterrent...

Thief’s don’t steal a Hasselblad because it is one. Thief’s steal such things because they think they are valuable. Many stolen Hasselblads probably end up at the bottom of a lake.

 

[Craig]

Thief’s don’t steal a Hasselblad because it is one. Thief’s steal such things because they think they are valuable. Many stolen Hasselblads probably end up at the bottom of a lake.

I expect an iPhone is far more valuable to a thief than a Hasselblad. It's much easier to turn a phone into cash than a Blad. While there is value in a Blad, the market for one is far, far smaller than the market for a phone.

 

[mshchem]

I expect an iPhone is far more valuable to a thief than a Hasselblad. It's much easier to turn a phone into cash than a Blad. While there is value in a Blad, the market for one is far, far smaller than the market for a phone.

On the machine at Walmart that buys phones just select "medium format SLRs".

 

[mpirie]

When I do make the purchase

Ah, so the cat is out of the bag! It looks like the decision has already been made.....

"When I do make the purchase"......not "if"!!

Congratulations Andy, you won't regret it!

Mike

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Cat's still in the bag.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Sadly, many of the medium format film cameras are now in that category. Either no repair people or no replacement parts and even worse, both no parts and no repairmen. Even if you can find a repair person to work on one, and he can find the proper parts, the cost can be astronomical. Making almost more sense would be to buy one body to use and another good body to save for a spare. Then, if something goes haywire with your user you have the good working spare to fall back on. When the spare breaks down you have the first camera for spare parts. Of course, my luck would be for both cameras to die for the same illness and now I have two duds on the shelf.

Take my Pentax 67 - I have four of them, only one is (mostly) working. The other three all have the same problem- broken film advance. This is a known weak spot on the 67. The other one has the meter chain broken (another known weak spot) but I don't care because I use the non-metered prism. However accurate the meter may or may not be, using it is a pain in the ass so I forego the possible source of battery drain and just use a hand-held meter.