Is that a Hasselblad?

Ever been asked "Is that a Hasselbad?"

  • No.

    Votes: 294 37.0%

  • Yes, while shooting 35mm or smaller.

    Votes: 25 3.1%

  • Yes, while shooting Medium Format

    Votes: 219 27.6%

  • Yes, while shooting Large Format

    Votes: 97 12.2%

  • Yes, and it was a Hasselblad!

    Votes: 227 28.6%
  • Total voters
    794

Sirius Glass

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I was offroading around Sedona Arizona a couple of weeks ago and I was shooting film with a Nikon. In fact, I was the only one shooting film. After a few hours, the scenery has become more interesting and I switched to the Hasselblad. Now that generated a lot of interest and since no one knew what a Hasselblad was they all referred to it as a box camera that took really good photos!

Steve
 

jp80874

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I was shooting my 7x17 camera on my Ohio & Erie Canal project. A man came up to me and asked if the camera shot 35mm roll film. I explained that I was not aware of a roll film back for the the camera, that it used 7x17 inch sheet film. He said he had taken a course at the local community college and used one of their Hasselblads that shot 5x7 inch film. I said that must have been a very large Hasselblad.

John Powers
 

kodachrome64

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I got this the other day with my RB67, someone said, "Oh, you got a Hasselblad!"

That I can understand. But 4x5s and 8x20s? :rolleyes:
 

k_jupiter

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kodachrome64 said:
I got this the other day with my RB67, someone said, "Oh, you got a Hasselblad!"

That I can understand. But 4x5s and 8x20s? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yep, I got a couple of those specially built Mamiya Hasselblads. Just like a regular Hasselblad only with better lens and a bigger negative.

*L*

tim in san jose
 

Lee L

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jp80874 said:
I was shooting my 7x17 camera on my Ohio & Erie Canal project. A man came up to me and asked if the camera shot 35mm roll film.
John Powers
Click to expand...
John,

You need to move into 1x17. Amazing aspect ratio. I think it's close to the extremely golden mean, and you can buy 3 exposure rolls for much less than one sheet of 7x17. I'm sure Grimes could build you one if you can't find it used on ebay.

Lee
 

jp80874

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Lee,

If Art Sinsabaugh were still alive I am sure the 1x17 would be a spin off version of his 1x20, 2x20 and 3x20. I am just not sure how they will do the 35mm sprocket holes. Still that shouldn't be any harder than cramming 5x7 into a Hasselblad.

John
 

nuckabean

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Walking down the street with my canonet over my shoulder yesterday when a man (possibly homeless, probably drunk) stumbled past and shouted "Nice canon film camera, I had a few F-1's". He then disappeared into a store. It was an interesting encounter.
 

archphoto

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I had my share of it when I was shooting with a Linhoff Master Technica.
Is this a Hasselblad ????
Loopt die ??? > is it running ?< like a film-camera
You must be from the press > DDR, Eastern Germany
And at one time a guy that looked like a homeless person: mmmmm, wide-angle, asignment ? Later I heard that he was the most famous
street-photographer from The Hague, the Netherlands, he knew his stuff.

Greetings,
Peter
 

StevenJohn

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About my Mamiya C22...

"Why does your camera have two lenses?"
Only the bottom lens takes the picture.

"Well what does the top lens do?"
It steals your soul.
 

Paul Goutiere

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Last fall I had set up my Hasselblad, and was trying with some difficulty to compose an image. Things weren't going well, I may have misplaced my light meter, and a lens cap ended up on the ground, in the water.

I thought I was alone.

Then I heard a voice, "Hi! Is that a Hasselblad?" I was a little Pi$$ed when I turned around to look at this young guy with his girlfriend both looking at what I was doing rather earnestly. "Sorry to bother you, but that is a Hasselblad isn't it?"

They were both so eager to see my camera, I let them. They asked me a few questions, questions I would have asked 40 years ago. I liked them.

This was the point I decided that from now on, when someone comes up to me and wants to know about the camera, or wants to say something about the camera (even something stupid) I'll do my best to engage them in a conversation. Perhaps encourage them to take up film photography. Be a film evangelist.

It isn't as though our ranks are growing so fast we can afford to be abrupt or unpleasant.
 

removed-user-1

Once, in 1999 (the "dawn" of the digital age), I was asked if my Fuji 645s was a digital camera...

Much more recently, while out on the streets of Boone, NC with my tripod-mounted RB67, I was asked by two different people if I was 1) an insurance adjuster, and 2) from the local paper. Nobody said anything about the camera.
 

Q.G.

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So there must have been a strong distraction...
What were you wearing?
 

benjiboy

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StevenJohn said:
About my Mamiya C22...

"Why does your camera have two lenses?"
Only the bottom lens takes the picture.

"Well what does the top lens do?"
It steals your soul.
Click to expand...
I tell them that the bottem lens shoots film and the top one digital.
 

archphoto

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Paul, you are right, that's the way I do it today too, let them see my groundglass (Sinar P2) and explaining them how it works.
The young people love it, the older ones want to own it, get something like that for themselfs.

MF and LF is so far away from people with their Kodaks and nowadays D.
 

Venchka

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I found this thread last week. It had me grinning all week. I was in a Texas State Park yesterday. Preparing the 4x5 Zone VI to ruin yet another sheet of film. I had my back to the tril but sensed people coming up behind me. It was a family unit. When the patriarch got even with me he said,

"Nice camera. Is it a Hasselblad?"

I had arrived!

"No. It's a view camera. A Zone VI view camera."

"Nice camera." And they were gone.
 

Ed Sukach

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I used my "standard" response the other day;

"Is that a Hasselblad"?

"What? Where? --- Holey socks! It IS!! It's a Hasselblad!
I wonder how it got there..."

One can observe some interesting reactions to that answer.
 

Q.G.

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But why?

I tend to reply "yes" when it is, "no" when it isn't a Hasselblad.
 

k_jupiter

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Q.G. said:
But why?

I tend to reply "yes" when it is, "no" when it isn't a Hasselblad.
Click to expand...

Must just be a difference in sense of humors. When the rb67 says Mamiya on the front, right where the Hasselblad sign would be...

I'll tease them all day long.

Now when it's the Deardorff, they usually just get a look like "Are you crazy?"

tim in san jose
 

JOSarff

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Kevin Caulfield said:
The reason they ask that is that Hasselblad happens to be a design icon, like Levi Strauss and Harley Davidson.
Click to expand...

I disagree. It's more like name droping.

The reason they ask 'I don't recognise the camera so is that a hasselblad?" is ignorance. After I explain it is a deardorff ((4x5) or an Eastman (8X10) the are no longer ignorant of the difference.
 
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