"I am the camera": How a Swedish birdwatcher built the ultimate photographic workhorse that got taken on a one-way trip to the Moon
The iconic range of medium cameras that were so rugged they were taken on chronicle first lunar space missions
In 1966, a customs officer in New York made an amusing remark about a visitor's name, which turned out to be the same as a renowned camera brand. The man, Victor Hasselblad, had a fascinating background. Born in 1906, he grew up in a family that ran a large trading business in Sweden, with a division dedicated to distributing Kodak products.
Despite his early success in the photography industry, Hasselblad remained deeply passionate about photography, eventually becoming an accomplished bird photographer and camera expert. His expertise in photographic manufacturing led him to form a new company, Ross AB, after the Swedish military asked him to build a better camera for them during World War II.
The name Ross AB was chosen for its nondescript nature, as it was a defense contractor in neutral Sweden and did not reveal its purpose.
Hasselblad's innovative spirit led him to design his dream camera, the Rossex, which was a waist-level SLR that captured 6x6 photographs on 120 film. In 1948, the camera was ready, and the company was renamed Victor Hasselblad AB. Renowned for its modular design and interchangeable lenses, film backs, and viewfinders, the Hasselblad 1600F marked the world's first SLR for 120 film and stood out for its exceptional quality despite being smaller and lighter than most medium format cameras of the time.
However, the camera's shutter reliability was a concern, prompting Hasselblad to redesign the internal "gear stack" for the 1000F model in 1952. Even with these improvements, the shutter proved unreliable over time, leading to the introduction of the more dependable Hasselblad 500C in 1957, which replaced the focal-plane shutter with a Compur leaf shutter built into each lens.
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