How Hasselblads ended up on the moon

Steve M. said:
It's a mystery to me why they took blads there in the first place. Those things will jam, you know, and they're heavy and big to bring to the moon and back. I myself would have brought a Rollei TLR or a 35mm camera like an AE-1 or something.
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Sarcophilus Harrisii said:
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As a Hasselblad (and Rolleiflex) user I think the risks of a body jamming are overstated in practice. ...
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dourbalistar said:
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The Canon AE-1 wasn't released until 1976, and I believe by that time, the Apollo Program had ended.
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I have never had any of my Hasselblads (two SWCs, two 500CMs, as many as 10 film magazines... many many rolls of film) jam or otherwise malfunction at all.

As someone said before, NASA stripped and lightened the cameras to some degree, particularly for the flights after Wally Schirra's Mercury flight. Exactly how much weight was saved I don't know.

Towards the end of the Apollo program, Nikon Fs were used as well as the Hasselblads IIRC. Canon didn't have a competitive pro-grade camera available at the time. Nikon F2 and F3 cameras and lenses were still commonly in use at NASA when I worked there a decade and some later; I don't recall seeing any Canons or other brands of 35mm SLRs. Nikon F, F2, and F3 cameras were a good choice because they were very available, had easily acquired 250 frame film magazines and motor drives, had good lenses, and they were both durable and relatively inexpensive to service. They also had removable prism heads which allowed easy reconfiguration for different purposes.

G
 
I agree, the likelihood of the moon camera jamming is negligible. In addition to what has already been mentioned, each camera was fitted with either a 60mm Biogon or a 100mm Planar, so there was apparently no lens changing needed; further reducing the risk of jamming.

None of my three Hasselblads have jammed in the last 20 or 30 years. The last jam was, I think, sometime in the 1970's. I fixed it easily in a few moments.
 
Rob-F said:
I agree, the likelihood of the moon camera jamming is negligible. In addition to what has already been mentioned, each camera was fitted with either a 60mm Biogon or a 100mm Planar, so there was apparently no lens changing needed; further reducing the risk of jamming.

None of my three Hasselblads have jammed in the last 20 or 30 years. The last jam was, I think, sometime in the 1970's. I fixed it easily in a few moments.
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If it did jam, they would have had a major space jam on their hands. And we all know that only Michael Jordan, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and the rest of their Tune Squad can fix a Space Jam. :D
 
Very interesting article and the photos were outstanding. Don’t ever recall seeing those particular pictures. Stunning.
Jon
 
I’ve never seen before the bent foot plate probe in the famous photo of Aldrin. And the one of the command/service module seemingly close to the moon’s surface is remarkable. Even more so the Apollo 11 LEM and earth-rise all in the one shot.

On Apollo 8 they used a special thin emulsion Ektachrome 160 ASA for outdoor colour. This was made so as to get the maximum number of frames in the 70mm magazine. Likely they would have used the same for Apollo 11. References to Kodachrome in other sources are most likely a mistake. Too many reasons not to use Kodachrome. Having developed the special format thin Ektachrome there would have been no call to duplicate the task with slow high-contrast fussy processing Kodachrome.
 
Looks like I had a mental jam. It is indeed Ektachrome, and any mentions of Kodachrome are my mistake. :bang: I'll edit my posts above, apologies for the confusion (or should I say chromefusion).
 
retinax said:
I wonder why NASA engineers didn't cobble together some brilliant finders like on old folders, but larger and viewable at an angle. Would have beat blind aiming.
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I think that must have been the reason for developing the special 60mm Biogon. Its wide-normal angle of coverage apparently enabled them to shoot without critical aiming. After all, the Hasselblad was chest-mounted so he could have both hands free. And they had the 38mm Biogon along for some of the shots.
 
Canon AE-1 in space

Canon AE-1 in space

dourbalistar said:
Perhaps they used Ektachrome on other missions, but I cut and pasted directly from the article that I linked. The details about the film are about halfway down the page, right above the Apollo 11 section.

EDIT: Brett is correct, I meant to say Ektachrome.



The Canon AE-1 wasn't released until 1976, and I believe by that time, the Apollo Program had ended.
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In space, no one can hear your shutter squeak
 
Interestingly, NASA had numerous challenges to solve for the space program to be successful but decided to use film and cameras to make photographs, at the beginning and into the space program. Evidently they figured photographic film would work for their needs. Too bad they didn’t arrange a team to help develop and use digital capture as the link below outlines some snippits of the development of digital technology.

Back in my sales rep days, I worked with a company named Century Spring, located in Los Angeles on East 16th Street. They made a gadzillion different types of springs. I remember, during a factory visit, showing me the springs they supplied for the LEM which is still on the moon.

At any rate, here is an interesting read on digital photography development. Note how a couple of gents from Bell Labs helped with this trchnology.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_photography
 
CharlesDAMorgan said:
I was too young to remember the moon landings, but I recall my father talking reverently about Hasselblads as the great cameras that went to the moon. The images are just iconic - I didn't know about the cross hair screen, so that was wonderful to learn.

I'm assuming the film was Kodachrome? 18,000 sounds a lot, but nowadays it would be millions.
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Kodachrome wasn't made in 120 format then. Briefly in the 1940's, I believe, and then again for a couple of wonderful years in the 1990's.

And spare a thought for the Ranger spacecraft, which face-planted on the moon while broadcasting his-res (for the day) video of the moon's surface, which helped NASA pick landing spots for Apollo. Rumor has it that NASA used Summicrons for the Ranger cameras.
 
Sarcophilus Harrisii said:
The article failed to mention that the Electric Data Camera used during the Apollo 11 EVA featured a special low production volume 60mm f/5.6 version of the Zeiss Biogon (not the 38mm type which had long been fitted to Hasselblad's production Supreme Wide Angle and its subsequent Super Wide descendants).
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It never made it to the moon, but it's worth mentioning that the 38mm Biogon did make it to space, with the SWC flying during both the Gemini and early Apollo programs.
 
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