Hasselblad SWC
Supreme for 50 years... and counting
The Hasselblad SWC was the first roll-film camera I bought. No camera has been in production for so long and because, no doubt, it's inscribed on many a photographer's wish-list I thought it worth looking at why this odd box remains a both current model and classic camera.
In 1954, six years after the launch of the world's first 6 x 6 cm square Single Lens Reflex with interchangeable lenses and film magazines and three years before the same Swedish company brought out what has arguably proved to be the best if not most famous studio and fashion camera of all time, the 500C, Hasselblad created a different legend... and named it the "Supreme Wide Angle".
The new camera was a radically different design being neither a TTL nor a rangefinder and having a fixed Zeiss lens. Zeiss has been quoted as saying, "First we'll design the lens, then Hasselblad can build the camera around it." Whatever happened and in what order, Carl Zeiss and Hasselblad together created a very special camera using the Dr. Hans Sauer designed 38mm f/4.5 Biogon lens. This wide-angle optic was so superlative that whilst being the widest non-fisheye lens available for the 6 x 6 cm format, with a 91 degree diagonal angle of view, it also displayed an incredible degree of distortion-free accuracy, less light transmission loss than any high quality "standard" lens and a close focusing capability of just 30 centimetres.
How many of us, had we been in Germany at the photokina launch in 1954, would have thought that the same basic camera and lens package would be still going strong, largely unchanged apart from a few design and handling details, 50 years on? The answer is, considering most of today's AF (and even worse, digital) cameras have a life span of perhaps only two or three years... very few of us!
Evolutionary Changes
The changes to the original Supreme Wide Angle have been minimal but important. In 1959 the camera's film advance knob was changed to a crank and the lens' shutter cocking action was linked to the film advance mechanism... so becoming the "Super-Wide C" or "SWC."
In 1980 the SWC was modified to take a Polaroid magazine and so became the "SWC/M." This conversion can still be retro-fitted by Hasselblad service centres and provides a modified viewfinder seat and tripod coupling plate to accept the Polaroid back as well as a film winding crank with ratchet action.
In 1988 the SWC/M became the 903SWC and in this millennium with more radical changes became the 905SWC which is the current model... sporting an improved finder with a spirit-level bubble inside the finder rather than on the camera body. This combined with the previously improved cosmetics of the "CFi" 38mm Biogon enabled the lens distance, aperture and depth-of-field scales to be directly read through the viewfinder to speed up handling. At the same time the lens was substantially upgraded with a redesign using only environmentally optimised glass containing no lead or arsenic in the elements... but I don't think the resulting image quality can have been improved (and I say that as a compliment!)
Incidentally, back in the 1970s a number of modified SWC/M cameras were fitted with a reseau plate for photogrametric use. Using 70mm perforated film in magazines for either 70 or 200 (Estar thin-base film) exposures this special became the "MKW" camera for use by astronauts. However, this was not the first SWC camera to be used in space. In the 1960s SWCs were carried on the Gemini 9, 10, 11, 12 and Apollo 9 missions... and as a fact more applicable to the "Trivial Pursuits" game Sweden was able to claim a "satellite launch" in 1966 after American astronaut Michael B. Collins dropped his NASA Hasselblad modified SWC whilst on an EVA (space walk) outside his Gemini capsule! Here's some more Hasselblad "moon" information.
Also available from the current catalogue, but to special order only, is the "SWCE", a motorised version of the 903SWC fitted with a built-in motor winder similar to that of the EL series.
What's the Attraction?
I first became acquainted with the SWC in the late '70s when commissioned to photograph all of the practical and much of the studio and museum located items for three BBC TV Publications... "The Craft of the Potter" with Michael Casson, "The Craft of the Weaver" with Peter Collingwood and "Patchwork Quilting". Most craft studios and museums are notoriously small, cramped, have no facilities for photography or all three... and I needed to take many environmental portraits as well as working close-ups. The 20mm, 24mm and 28mm lenses on my 35mm cameras could have answered the first problem... but my Nikon F2 bodies had a sync speed of only 1/80th of a second and flash was needed almost exclusively. So being a "wide-angle" type of photographer I bought an SWC first, rented a 500C as and when I needed it... and bought a 500C system shortly afterwards because I used it more than I imagined I would.
I got my priorities right because apart from photographing cramped interiors for money I also photographed architecture and landscapes for a stock picture library... as well as for pleasure. To me, visually exciting architecture was either classical or modern and it certainly didn't need to be photographed in a traditional way with "verticals" vertical. And to me landscapes were vistas... and the wider the vista the better the photographic opportunity. With the SWC's 38mm Biogon taking in a diagonal angle of 91 degrees (72 degrees horizontally and vertically) I was able to photograph both architectural and landscape subjects as my "wide-eyed" vision saw fit. Sometimes I succeeded in this quest... but many times I didn't because the SWC, even with it's all-embracing and dramatic angle-of-view was not an easy camera to master.
In Operation
Firstly, there is the question of holding the camera. The shutter release is in a similar position to that on a 35mm camera... to the right of the top plate, not on the lower front face as on all other 6 x 6 cm cameras, so any similarity ends there. The SWC has not got much bulk to be gripped when hand-held so the traditional method is to hold it cupped between both hands with the left-hand fingers flat against the left side, right index finger on the top shutter release, palms of both hands half under the body and elbows tucked into the ribs... all rather awkward to describe and achieve, especially when trying to keep the camera level with the viewing eye also concentrating on orientating the small bubble via a prism reflector to the left of the viewfinder eyepiece. The alternative holding method is to cradle the lens with the left hand and utilise the right as before... so it is really a matter of personal preference and comfort.
In practice it is far better, if sometimes less convenient, to mount the camera on a tripod and compose carefully, or as carefully as the slightly distorted view through the auxiliary finder will allow... not that complete accuracy will even be achieved in this instance. Although the viewfinder has the same angle-of-view as the lens because the eyepiece is located approximately 13 cms behind the lens front and 7 cms above the lens axis it sees more at the top and sides of the subject... and, the lens barrel hides the immediate foreground, especially with close-up subjects.
Particular attention must therefore be paid to the parallax effect due to the viewfinder's position relative to the lens. Hand-held it is all too easy to frame a close-up subject and take a photograph without remembering or realising the necessity to raise the camera the requisite 7 cms. On a tripod this action can be accurately performed by marking the centre column with a "7 cm" indicator and raising the column that same amount after focusing and framing... you can see the problem with the viewfinder by looking at either of the camera images above.
All this is necessary because the 38 mm Biogon is a true wide-angle and not a typical "retrofocus" type lens which would allow viewing through an eye-level prism or other attached reflex finder as with an SLR. This type of short focal length design always has its rearmost element protruding deep into the camera very close to the film plane and therefore requires that there be no mirror obstruction between the rear element of the lens and the camera shutter / film plane. The resulting near symmetrical design used for the lens produces superb resolution, excellent covering power, no discernible fall-off and edge distortion so small that, to quote a recent product brochure, an image of a 10 metre high flagpole filling the edge of the 6 x 6 cm frame would only show a 1.5 mm (barrel) curvature on a 1 metre square enlargement... in short the eye would be unable to detect any curvature at all. These are remarkable claims for a 1940/50's lens when several other true wide angle designs of slightly later period including, for example, the 2.1 cm f/4 Nikkor (for Nikon F) and 2.1 cm f/4 and f/3.4 Super Angulons (for Leica M) exhibited noticeable vignetting unless well stopped-down.
Incidentally, the Carl Zeiss 38mm Biogon is also listed, uniquely in this case, as an interchangeable wide-angle lens option for the Alpa SW12. My friends and neighbours Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz have both used Swiss manufactured roll-film Alpa's for several years... Roger also owning one of the rarest 38mm Biogon lenses from the very first series that was adapted by Alpa. For a good look at what was announced at photokina 2004 and 2006 for both traditional and digital photography check out Alpa Cameras.
Odd Man Out
Although well established and firmly within the Hasselblad family the SWC, now as the 905 SWC, has always been the odd man out. Like its recent brothers, the Hasselblad FlexBody and ArcBody, it is not a light-tight box in the accepted sense but rather a chassis housing the film winding and shutter cocking / release mechanisms. On the SWC the fixed lens, interchangeable film magazine, optical viewfinder, bubble spirit level, neck-strap lugs and tripod coupling foot are attached to this chassis to form a very cohesive and compact whole. So compact that many Hasselblad users prefer using it to the 500C or 2000F series with a 40 mm f/4 Zeiss Distagon which is more or less the same weight as the SWC/38 Biogon. Of course other considerations are the much smaller filter size, quieter operation and unsurpassed resolving power. Added to that is the "pan" focus capability of the lens... when stopped down to f/22 and focused on 1.2 meters everything is in technically acceptable focus from 0.65 meters to infinity. Hyperfocal distance focusing with the older 38 mm Biogon lens was particularly easy because of the "twin claw" pointers which showed the change of depth-of-field when the lens aperture / EV and / or focusing ring was turned... a very clever and practical interlock.
Conclusions
For a 50-year old camera and lens design to be still going strong, partly perhaps because it's a no-nonsense mechanical camera that is totally free of battery requirements, there have to be not only many things right about it but also many photographers buying and using it. Considering that the SWC is used for all types of photography from architectural heights to archaeological sites, from spacious interiors to interiors of space capsules, from huge industrial complexes to the recording of the blueprints that were drawn up to build them... and countless more applications in both professional and amateur fields... and that it is capable of changing between a wide variety of conventional as well as "special application" black-and-white and colour emulsions in roll-film and sheet film formats within a matter of seconds, then it has to be said that the camera is essentially a proven workhorse. To call it a "classic" does not date it as a "collectible," it simply reaffirms its unique position in photography.
For a more technical overview and for full specifications I suggest visiting Hasselblad's USA or UK websites before walking into a dealer's showroom... a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing in the wallet region!
And for other interesting pages about Hasselblad (and many other fine mechanical cameras) within a very popular and well-written site on photography have a navigate around... Photography in Malaysia.
8:28:52 PM 
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