Hasselblad

If you're strictly a family snapper, chances are you haven't even heard of Hasselblad cameras. You might have seen one or two, though, on TV. Like, on the Moon, for example. Everywhere mankind has been, Hasselblad has been.

The last time I had my hands on a Hasselblad camera, and had the privilege of taking one out and shooting with it, I was young enough to have harbored hopes of buying one, one day; but then, well, you know. And a lifetime later, I still remember the old Hasselblad 500cm with much affection even though I'm even less able to afford one now than I was then. I might make a deposit on the lens cap. And film? Whatever happened to that?

Hasselblad is famous for its medium-format cameras, which took photos on negatives two and a quarter inches square, as opposed to those tiny 35mm ones. They were generally used at waist level, rather than held up to the eye, not only for technical and compositional reasons but because the eye level viewfinder was an extra which you had to get a bank loan to afford.

Hasselblad moved on from film, of course, and somewhat ahead of the crowd. Ten years ago, while you were buying a top-of-the-range 2.1 Megapixel camera from a high street store, and people were saying anything over about 5 megapixels was probably impossible, and in any case digital was never going to take the place of film, Hasselblad was already selling a 39-megapixel camera and not making that big a deal about it.

Today, the Hasselblad HD-40 is their basic 40 Megapixel job, but go looking at the description and you won't find the price. If you have to look, you can't afford it anyway, and if you don't already know the price, you aren't in the market for one because the pros who are, already know.

OK then, I'll tell you. It's going to set you back $20,000. But damn, it takes good pictures. Maybe not quite as sharp as the 50 megapixel or 60 megapixel models, but not at all shabby all the same.

Not good enough for Hasselblad to just leave things there, though. In the works is a 200 megapixel - yes, you read that correctly - image capture device. It has a 50 megapixel sensor built into a frame that takes six shots in rapid sequence, moving the sensor a tiny amount for each shot. And then the images are overlaid and turned into a true 200 megapixel photo that is still going to be razor-sharp at, well, house size.

If you have any serious interest in photography, and its past and its future, you should take some time to visit the Hasselblad site regardless of whether you think you could ever afford one. The history of Hasselblad is a fundamental part of the history of photography, and will certainly play an equally significant role in its future. There's not a design or modeling or advertising or even space agency that doesn't want to work with Hasselblad-equipped photographers.

Take the time to look at the history, and the Masters photography, as well as drooling over the cameras themselves. There is also a fairly new online magazine which you can view for free, though at reduced size, but even so, the quality of the images shines through. Do remember though, that however much these images could be enlarged on your screen, they are still intended to be viewed way bigger than that, and will still be as bright and sharp as ever. If you're ever taking snaps at the beach and wish you could get photos as big as, well, the beach, then you need to find someone with one of these beauties. If you thought Volvo was Swedish engineering at its finest, you may need to think again.