First Roll - Hasselblad 500 C/M

Intro

Film has long been a favorite of mine for personal work and I’ve recently started introducing it more and more into weddings and engagement shoots. I typically have a film camera (or two or three) with me anytime I’m on the road. I almost always have some backlog of digital photos to edit for work so shooting film, and its relatively simpler workflow, can often feel like a breath of fresh air. It means I can enjoy the practice of photographing without feeling like I’m necessarily creating more work for myself.

I also have a bad habit of shooting rolls of film and then sort of forgetting about them. So let’s change that!

Hasselblad 500 C/M

Ok, this has been something of a dream camera of mine for quite some time. It’s such a beautiful camera and I really enjoy how it forces you to think differently when working with the waist level viewfinder as it requires you to look down in to the top of the camera body and see a left-to-right inverted scene.

The Scene

I headed out to Maine for a lovely fall wedding a few months back and I couldn’t resist the temptation to bring this new camera along. I’ve always loved the ocean and big, open beaches and they are one of my absolute favorite locations to shoot at. A good friend joined me and we took a few days to explore the Maine coastline which never fails to amaze me. We jumped out here at York Beach and I loaded up a roll of Kodak Gold 200 in the Hassy and giddily started snapping.

Initial Thoughts

Again, the actual act of shooting with the 500 C/M is a lot of fun. It’s obviously still a film camera so what you know about shooting film all translates and is applicable but the process is tweaked a bit. Looking down through the waist level finder, popping up the magnifier, dialing in the focus, adjusting your exposure settings on the lens, pressing the shutter button on the face of the body rather than the top. All of these elements build a very satisfying tactile experience. Also, that shutter sound is so damn good! Kla-Chunk!

Most of the beach shots were underexposed by a stop or two. I metered with an app on my phone but need a bit more practice with it to nail tricky lighting.

On the downside, I realized after receiving the scans back that I had the viewing screen installed wrong so several of the photos are out of focus. Was a little worried that there as an issue with the camera body but after adjusting the screen, the more recent rolls have all looked sharp.

So in conclusion, the results of this first roll are kind of so-so. A few that I like but overall they all have things that could be improved upon. I’m pretty happy with the camera although it isn’t the smallest package so it’ll probably be one that I reserve for some of the more exciting projects or locations going forward but I am excited to keep playing with it.