Square Form, Wide Vision: A Hasselblad SWC Love Story
This is a blogpost I never thought I’d write - mainly because I thought I would NEVER buy a Hasselblad SWC.
But here I am. I’ve owned my SWC for a little over a month now and have shot several rolls through it. How did I get here? And what do I think about it? The title of this post is a bit of a spoiler, but read on to get the full story.
First, the reasons why I had no plan on buying this camera ever.
It’s freaking expensive
It’s a one-trick pony with its fixed lens
Zone focusing (ugh)
I already own three 500 series Hasselblad bodies - isn’t 50mm wide enough?
I can get wide-angled medium format shots with less expensive alternatives on different MF cameras
OK, so all of the above are valid reasons to not NEED an SWC.
To the last point, I’ve owned the 37mm lens for the Mamiya RB series for a few years now, and while that is an incredible lens, there is a lot of distortion. I mostly use it for shooting 35mm panoramas in the RB. The distortion is still there when shooting panos, but only at the far edges. It’s a huge lens, weighs a ton, and when combined with the RB body its really meant for tripod-only work. Earlier this year I bought the Zodiac 30mm lens for my Kiev 88, but I just can’t make myself like that lens because of the huge amount of distortion. It’s far worse than the Mamiya 37mm lens, and when mounted on the Kiev it’s barely hand-holdable. Plus the screen is so dim, I basically have to just zone focus for most of the shots.
Speaking of zone focusing, I’ve had a love/hate relationship with that method. It took me a long while to get to the point where I am good at it, and along the way my opinion of it was tainted by a few cameras that left a bad taste in my mouth - mainly the Goodman Zone and the Presspan. To be fair to the Goodman Zone, it was much better than the Presspan and I did make some great shots with it, but it just never fully grew on me. Both of those cameras moved on to new homes eventually.
I’ve been shooting my Hasselblad 500cm a lot lately, and I started craving something wider for it than my 50mm lens. There is a 40mm lens available, but they are pricey, with the cheapest, lower grade ones fetching around $700, with nice pristine T* examples going for $1500. I’ve read many reviews that compare it to the SWC’s 38mm Biogon lens, and the takeaway is that its not quite as sharp, and has more distortion.
Adding to that, I’ve started working out the details of my Fall trip to Hocking Hills, and one of the things I want to do while I’m there is shoot a lot of the old churches in the area with the Fall colors. Most of the churches in the area are jammed right up against the road, so the need for a wide angle is real.
As thoughts about the SWC were swirling in my head, my Catholic guilt about spending money on it kept me from pulling the trigger. But when the Tariffs were announced last month for imports from Japan and other countries, the fear was that it would also affect used camera gear. Whether or not that was going to happen, I came across a very nice SWC on eBay for about the same price I’d pay for a T* 40mm lens, so I jumped on it.
When the camera arrived at the house, I took it out immediately to shoot some images. I put a roll of REFLX Labs 100 color (Aerocolor IV) film in 220 format and headed to one of my favorite bridges near Xenia, Ohio. These first shots were all on a tripod. For most of them I zone focused, but there were a few that I put the ground glass accessory on the back o fthe camera, and used an eye-level prism to see the image and nail focus before putting the back on and shooting the image. This is a lot like using a large format camera. Click on the first image to view larger and scroll through.
After the bridge, I drove to Xenia and spent some time walking around the downtown area. These shots were all handheld. It was a bright, sunny day so I shot everything at f/11 with a 1/125 shutter speed and just set the focal range to where everything from about 10ft to infinity was within focus. This made for a very easy shooting style, and allowed for me to just be there and shoot. Click on the first image to view larger and scroll through.
The next weekend, Renee and I made a trip to the Dublin area near Columbus, Ohio and I carried the SWC around like a point and shoot camera. Another bright, sunny day with Kodak Gold loaded in the back meant that I could just set the zone focal distance and just forget about it. This made for a very easy shooting style, and allowed for me to just be there and shoot. Click on the first image to view larger and scroll through.
The last shot in the series above was shot with the camera just sitting on the bar top and guessing the distance. I missed focus slightly, but I should get better with that over time. What I am really enjoying about the SWC is the flexibility it offers. It just seems to get out of the way and let me shoot, without the crutch of the overly distorted fisheye look. Its very easy to handhold and shoot, and weighs less than my 500cm with any lens on it. It renders color images nicely, in spite of being the earlier version without the T* coated glass.
It also does great with black & white film. Below are a few images shot hand-held with a few rolls of FP4+ film. Click on the first image to view larger and scroll through.
People always talk about how sharp certain lenses are, but I have to say that I really think the Biogon lens on the SWC is one of the sharpest lenses I’ve ever used on medium format film. Below is the first shot shown above, zoomed in at 100%. Remember, this was just zone-focused and hand-held.
To say that I am pleased with my decision to purchase the SWC would be an understatement. I’m super excited to add this to my gear bag and think it will be something that will be used a lot for landscape, architecture, and maybe even street photography. I’m now wondering why I didn’t buy one sooner! This camera, along with my 500cm, will probably stay with me for years to come!
As always, thanks for reading.
Jeremy
Below are some images of my SWC from different angles.
