Experiencing the Art of Photography with the Hasselblad 500cm Film Camera

As a young teenager, I was first drawn into the allure of photography when I watched the iconic film "Blow-Up". There, David Hemmings, with effortless cool, stood behind his Hasselblad 500, a timeless symbol of the photography world. Set against the vibrant art and fashion scenes of 1960s London, I couldn’t help but imagine myself as a photographer just like him. But reality soon set in—the notion of a 13-year-old, pimple-faced kid owning a Hasselblad was as unlikely as the movie’s plot itself, where an actor no more skilled in photography than I was, wielded the legendary camera. Still, the imagery and that distinctive shutter sound became forever etched in my mind, the ultimate aspiration for any aspiring photographer.

David Hemmings in “Blow-Up” 1966

Years came and went, and so did cameras—each one more modern than the last— however, I found myself yearning for the simplicity of a mechanical camera, the raw, tech-free experience I hadn’t encountered in my early days of photography.  Now, nearly 50 years later, I finally achieved my dream of owning a 1983 Hasselblad 500CM, just like "Blow-Up". But by now, I was already wielding the latest Hasselblad X2D digital camera, and that’s when the bubble began to burst. Holding the 500CM in my hands and hearing that iconic shutter fire for the first time was exhilarating, but then came the moment of truth: flipping up the hood to reveal the focusing screen. The image that greeted me was a watery, inverted image, nearly impossible to focus on—a far cry from the crisp, sharp viewfinder and back screen of my X2D. What was once state-of-the-art in the '60s now felt totally outdated, especially in the fast-paced, tech-driven world of 2025.

But I wasn’t giving up that easily. I loaded some film into the camera’s 120 back and took it out for a beach walk to put it to the test. In hindsight, I should have remembered that in "Blow-Up", Hemmings always used his Hasselblad on a tripod, while I was determined to hand-hold my shots. While it’s possible to shoot without a tripod, it requires a level of intimacy with the camera that I wasn’t quite ready for. My attempts were a struggle, and I quickly realized how much more challenging it was to compose and focus without the steadying platform of a tripod. The next time out, tripod attached, things started to click into place. I slowed myself down, embraced the process, and took my time. Using a handheld light meter and manually measuring distances to assist with focus, I rediscovered a photography experience long absent from modern digital world. The 500CM wasn’t the issue; I just needed to adapt to it, revert, and that’s when the real magic and joy of using it begins.

With a few rolls of HP5 Plus film in the bag, I set about developing and scanning them myself. The results weren’t spectacular, but I noticed a clear improvement with each roll. I persevered, shooting more black-and-white film, and after months of practice, I felt more comfortable with the camera. But something still didn’t look quite right—I couldn’t shake the feeling that my processing wasn’t doing justice to the images I had captured. So, I sent two rolls of film to a professional lab for development and scanning, hoping to figure out if it was my technique or the camera to blame. The difference was like night and day—the scans I received back were crisp, sharp, and full of beautiful tones. It wasn’t the camera; it was me.

From that point on, I knew I’d always rely on a professional lab to process my 120 film. It was a lesson learned the hard way, but it made all the difference in the world. With the right processing, those images were everything I had hoped for—deep blacks, broad tones, and a level of clarity that I’d been chasing all along. The 500CM had lived up to its legacy, and I had finally found my rhythm with it.

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