Hasselblad 500C/M Sample Photos
What a Hasselblad 500C/M actually produces — 28 photographs shot on one by members here.
Find one at KEH Hasselblad 500C/M → Affiliate link
The Hasselblad 500C/M is the camera most people picture when they picture medium format: a square 6x6 SLR, entirely mechanical, built in Sweden between 1970 and 1994. There is no battery anywhere in it. A body that has sat in a cupboard since the eighties will generally still fire, and if it doesn't, it can be fixed.
What makes it a system rather than a camera is that almost every part comes off. The film back detaches with the dark slide in, so you can switch from a half-shot roll of colour to black and white mid-session and come back to the first roll later. The waist-level finder lifts off for a prism. The focusing screen — the change that earned the C/M its name over the earlier 500C — comes out from the top without a trip to a technician.
A few things to know before your first roll:
- The shutter lives in the lens, not the body, so flash syncs at every speed up to 1/500. This is why the 500C/M refuses to die in studios.
- The mirror doesn't return until you wind on. After each exposure the finder goes black, which is alarming exactly once.
- The dark slide has to be out before it will fire, and the body and lens must be cocked together. Forcing a lens off while the two disagree is the classic way to jam one.
The standard lens is the Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8, roughly a normal lens on this format. Loaded with Tri-X 400 it is about as close to a default medium-format setup as the medium has.
Images from the Hasselblad 500cm below:
Images taken with the Hasselblad 500C/M
rguzmanphoto · Kodak Tri-X 400
rguzmanphoto · Kodak Tri-X 400
rguzmanphoto · Kodak Tri-X 400
Kelso, CA - fixer upper Chuck Vaughan · Fomapan 100
Another Mirror Portrait Ken Mullinix · Kodak Tri-X 400
Ken Mullinix · Kodak Tri-X 400
Light & Shadow VolkerE · Ilford FP4 Plus
Green ‘61 turkeylegs4lyfe · Fujicolor 200
Abandoned House STMPhoto · Kodak T-Max 100
entered as “Hasselblad 500CM”
Ken Mullinix · Kodak Portra 400
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Econoline turkeylegs4lyfe · Optik Oldschool Opticolour
Low Caddy turkeylegs4lyfe · Optik Oldschool Opticolour
Wachusett Reservoir Hike Ken Mullinix · Kodak Ektar 100
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Main Street Flower SuperS00 · Kodak Gold 200
entered as “Hasselblad 500 C/M”
Wachusett Reservoir Ken Mullinix · Kodak Portra 400
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Solitude Ken Mullinix · Ilford HP5 Plus
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
The old church turkeylegs4lyfe · Kodak Portra 400
The Lone Room turkeylegs4lyfe · Kentmere Pan 200
Old Machinery turkeylegs4lyfe · Kentmere Pan 200
Abandoned turkeylegs4lyfe · Kentmere Pan 200
Starbucks Ken Mullinix · Kodak Gold 200
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Lukie-the emergency back-up son-examining the intricacies of photography PahaPlager · Kodak Ektachrome E100
entered as “Hasselblad 500 C/M”
Firework trident piratebates · CineStill 800T
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
rguzmanphoto · Kodak Tri-X 400
entered as “Hasselblad 500CM”
Reflected Silence rguzmanphoto · Rollei Infrared 400
entered as “Hasselblad 500CM”
Hasselblad 80mm f2.8 Ken Mullinix · Kodak Tri-X 400
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Hasselblad 40mm f4 Ken Mullinix · Kodak Tri-X 400
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Random Self Portrait Ken Mullinix · Kodak Gold 200
entered as “Hasselblad 500cm”
Shoot with the Hasselblad 500C/M? Join free to add your frames to this page, and like and comment on other members’ work. Sharing your own photographs is optional.
Create a free accountLenses people use on it
Taken from what members recorded on the frames above, in their own wording. Counts, not recommendations.
Film shot on it
Each one links through to every frame on that stock, from any camera.