Hasselblad Booklets

Several weeks back, fellow blogger, Shaun Nelson of http://www.utahfilmphotography.com, kindly sent me some Hasselblad booklets.

Shaun had originally received the booklets from one of his friend’s, who used to own a camera store, so a lot of these booklets were only available at the time to Hasselblad dealers.

Shaun had read my recent blog posts about the Hasselblad 500 C/M camera I had recently purchased so thought I’d enjoy them.

When the parcel arrived, I was extremely happy with the booklets he sent me.

Most of the booklets were from the 1970s with information about the black lenses which, matched my Hasselblad camera since it was made in the 1970s.

I knew over time, I would like to add some accessories to my Hasselblad but I was struggling to find online the right information about certain accessories I was potentially after and which one’s would fit my particular camera and 80mm lens.

A prime example of this was when I recently wanted to purchase a lens shade for my camera. I initially spoke to the London Camera Museum from where I purchased my camera but at the time they only had one extremely scratched one in stock and I was after one that was in cosmetically good condition.

After receiving these booklets, I found some helpful information in one of the Hasselblad catalogues which, enabled me to confidently purchase the right lens shade online for my 80mm lens:

This brochure has been extremely useful in helping me to understand what other accessories I may like to purchase/use on my camera and I’ll be blogging about some of these over the next few weeks.

I also found this Hasselblad System photo at the front of the brochure quite interesting:

Another interesting leaflet that I found inside one of the booklets was a Hasselblad price list from 1976:

Shaun had also sent me some booklets which provided information on how to use the Hasselblad system for tackling a wide variety of photography projects:

Most of these booklets were included in what was sent to me. I did note that the Polaroid Instant Film Photography one isn’t showing on here although I’m not sure why as most of these booklets date from 1975 including the Polaroid one. I can only think that maybe the brochure was released a few years later and perhaps the polaroid publication was out of print?

There was also a great booklet included by Shaun of the Black-finish Lenses which is very relevant to my year of camera and it gives some great information on how an image will look under different lenses used:

Some other useful booklets were on individual lenses that can be purchased for the Hasselblad. One of the booklets was on the Zeiss T* F-Distagon 30 mm f/3.5 ”Fish-eye” lens:

I would one day love to own this lens for my camera as I love the fisheye effect which can be seen in this photo:

However, after looking into potentially buying one, I found that not many of them were ever made so they tend to go for a lot of money now (around £1,500.00 upwards) that I’ve found for sale so far. Even back in the 1976 Hasselblad price list they sold for around $2,325.00 when they were brand new!

So for now, this lens will go onto my wish list and I’ll need to have a long, hard think about how often I would use this particular lens in my photography projects before I feel I could justify spending this amount of money.

Lastly, in the brochure, I came across a section in the back which mentioned the Hasselblad House Magazine:

Again, I’d never heard of this before and after looking on eBay, I found somebody in the UK was selling a couple from the 60s-70s which were £4 each so I bought them to read out of curiosity and I’ve really enjoyed the content in them:

If you’re a vintage Hasselblad owner and would like some more information on accessories that are right for your camera or would like some advice on best lenses/kit to use on a particular photography project using your Hasselblad, then please contact me as I may be able to give some advice with the booklets I now have. I’m always happy to help anybody out who may have had similar problems to me with knowing what to get for their Hasselblad.