I recently was lucky enough to gain access to a camera I've been wanting to use for a very long time, the famous Hasselblad 500c.
I have been doing film work in medium format with a few different cameras for my photography class. I have used an old Yashica Twin Reflex and a couple Mamiya 645's, but what I really wanted to use was the Hasselblad.
Now that I'm finally allowed to use it, I've kind of been hogging it (though luckily for me no one else has asked for it). It just works so much better than any other film camera I've used. Once you've used one, especially after using other medium format cameras, you can definitely understand why they're so expensive.
I thought taking pictures of my old car with an old camera was fairly appropriate, even if the Hasselblad was introduced in 1957 and my car is from 1966.
Unfortunately it didn't go as well as I had hoped. What you see above is what I saw through the waist level viewfinder of the Hassy. Looks great right? Should be amazing. It wasn't.
The above is the best shot I got. I like it but 1 decent image out of a roll of 12 that I thought were going to be great is a little disappointing. I feel that if I shot in color I'd have been happier with the results but unfortunately I've only been shooting black and white. I'll have to try again with some color film some time soon.
considering myself to be something of a student of black-and-white photography, i am trying to interpret your result. even with black-and-white film, the result looks muddy and flat- i don’t think color film would have necessarily given it a longer tonal range though. my money is on either the metering of the initial exposure (underexposed, perhaps- notice there’s no detail in the shadows) or the film development process.
what film did you use? also, were you using a spot meter? if not, i might recommend one, as this is a bit of a tricky lighting situation with the hard light source in the frame. it’s fine and all with digital photography since you get instant feedback afterward, but with film you really do have just one shot to get it right.
I think part of the muddiness/flatness you see is the crappiness of the scanner I used. The print does look better in person but I was still disappointed with the result. What I was thinking with the color film was not necessarily not an increase in tonal range, but the fact that if it were color it might be a more exciting image since the sky at the time was so orange and my car is more of a cold tone. It would probably have made for a more compelling image. As far as metering, I was using the crank meter that is attached to the camera. I really should have used the Sekonic I had but I forgot to bring it with me…
These images are amazing. The cool thing about this, it is my fav. Car and camera.
Just keep on trying to get the results you wanted..
Keep on going..