Blad the Impaler-Hasselblad 1600f

One of 3300 made, this is Blad the Impaler, a Hasselblad 1600f from 1952. The 1600f is the first commercial camera from Hasselblad, released in 1948, and the world's first modular SLR system that included interchangeable magazines, lenses, and viewfinders. The 1600f is fairly scarce now due to a somewhat fragile shutter assembly-the 1/1600th (where the camera gets its designation) maximum shutter speed combined with the massive 6x6 steel shutter curtains wrought havoc upon the intricate clockwork in the shutter mechanism.

When I purchased this camera, the Kodak Ektar 80mm f2.8 lens was filled with old grease that had turned into something more approaching tar, and the slow shutter speeds (1/10-1 second) caused the camera to lock open until it was rewound. After careful disassembly and cleaning, the lens focus ring now turns incredibly smoothly, and after a little lubrication (and a small impact) the slow shutter speeds work as intended. Cosmetically, it's not perfect-there's some leather shrinkage, and the back could use recovering, but it gets used, and I intend on acquiring a digital back to get even more use out of it. In fact, I took it out last night and got a few fog shots. The photo of the rose was taken with it. Note the light leak on the left-that has since been repaired.

Since initially posting this, I've upgraded the focus screen (holy massive improvement Batman!) and swapped the old style finder for a late style I had laying around. Also snagged a slightly newer C12 film back.