Flickr user Chris captured this remarkable photograph of the Eiffel Tower at night by panning his medium format film Hasselblad 500CM while snapping a long exposure photograph.
(via Photojojo)
Image credit: 10160008 by chrisdigsdesign and used with permission
In this social media age, companies are constantly dreaming up all kinds of random ideas for demonstrating the benefits of their products, and hoping that the videos will go viral (an example would be this bulletproof glass CEO that literally stood behind his product). A couple of years ago, Phase One wanted to demonstrate the durability of its digital backs for medium format cameras, so they came up with the “African Elephant Durability Test.” The test proved conclusively that if you’re going into environments where elephants might be looking to stomp on your camera, don’t bring along your $14,000+ Hasselblad back — bring a Phase One back instead!
Camera review sites should start subjecting the latest DSLRs to this test. It’d certainly be an interesting addition to camera reviews.
(via Fstoppers)
Last week we shared about how astronauts left some Nikon DSLR gear to burn up in the atmosphere instead of having it brought back to Earth, but it certainly wasn’t the first time cameras were left in space. Did you know that there are 12 Hasselblad cameras currently sitting on the surface of the moon? The cameras that shot those iconic images of the moon’s surface between 1969 and 1972 were left there to allow for the 25kg of lunar rock samples that were brought back instead. Only the film magazines were brought back.
Sigma’s upcoming SD1 uses a special Foveon sensor that captures red, green, and blue information at each pixel by stacking three separate 15MP sensors, giving the resulting images 46 million pieces of information. Hasselblad’s new H4D-200MS medium format DSLR also captures each of the three colors at every pixel, but with a different method — it shoots 6 separate photos with its 50MP sensor, but shifts the sensor by 1.5 pixels for each shot, giving the resulting photos 200MP of resolution.
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Samsung just published a followup to the NX lens engineer interview video that we shared a couple weeks ago featuring Q&As with the planners, marketers, and designers behind the lenses. Included on the page was this interesting photograph that appears to show a bunch of prototype cameras developed in the company. Check out the cube-shaped camera and another one with three retro dials at the top!
How the NX Lenses are launched into the World (via Photo Rumors)
With the recent craze on mimicking retro photography through phone apps, it’s only natural that someone would take it a step further and design a retro way to shoot with the phone as well, right? The Slow Photography camera concept by photographer David McCourt is a medium format-style box that lets you use your phone as a digital back.
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You can now build you own version of the cardboard Hasselblad pinhole camera that we featured a couple days ago. Kelly Angood has released a PDF with the template and detailed instructions for putting the pieces together. The finished product is a working pinhole camera that takes 120 35mm film.
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Designer Kelly Angood created this cardboard pinhole camera that looks exactly like a Hasselblad medium format camera. The design is screen printed onto the cardboard, and the camera accepts 120 film. See sample photographs shot with this camera over on Angood’s website.
Pinhole Hasselblad (via Make)
Update: Angood published a PDF with templates and instructions for those of you who want to make your own.
NASA has a long history of using Hasselblad cameras in space and, interestingly enough, you can download the Astronaut’s Photography Manual used to train astronauts from Hasselblad’s website. It covers everything from operating the Hasselblad 500EL/M to composition, using situations unique to astronauts in its examples and illustrations.
Who knows — perhaps if space tourism starts taking off you might soon find this manual invaluable!
“Space Program” is a project by artist Tom Sachs featuring 1:1 models of various space related objects, including an Apollo lunar module, a mission control unit, space suits, and handmade space suits. He also included the above NASA Hasselblad camera as part of the exhibition. Note the stylish wooden crank.
Space Program (via Photojojo)
Image credit: Photograph by Tom Sachs and used with permission
