I’ve always been a sucker for something interesting. Add a little foreign mystique and we have a real winner. What are we talking about? The one and only 1600F Hasselblad? Close, but not quite. Even better (not really), a rare Kiev 88. A real legitimate Russian knockoff of the Hasselblad 1600.
This little gem of a camera that caught my eye at the Photographica show, which is a giant photo swap meet, hosted by The Photographic Historical Society of New England (PHSNH), was perhaps purchased in a bit of haste and maybe with a little pressure from some other potential buyers at the swap table that were expressing interest. I couldn't help myself–I jumped at it. $200 ain't nuthin, but it’s cheap for even a fake Hasselblad. Besides, there was no way I was going to let those other camera nerds beat me to this! I did have a little hesitation: it wasn't perfect by any means. The focal plane shutter (the only shutter, unlike the ‘Blads leaf shutter in the lens) was a bit lazy at the slower shutter speeds. And for light leaks? I had no idea what the shape of the light gaskets were in.
Photo of me in Midtown NYC. Taken by Susan Cook.
Fast forward a week later and here I was in Midtown Manhattan attending the AIPAD show. For what was going to be a long-ish weekend in NYC, I decided to throw caution to the wind and put a few rolls through this thing.
B&H was closed due to one of the many jewish holidays. I realized this, of course, after a long walk across town, so I headed over to 42nd Street Camera, which was actually on 32nd street and grabbed 5 rolls of film: 3 rolls of Ilford FP4 and 2 of HP5. Might as well ruin a bunch of film if you’re feeling like ruining film.
After a little brush up “how to” video on youtube, the camera was loaded and ready. What's that, you say? I should know how to load one of these? Cut me some slack…It’s been a few years (about 20) since the last time I had to load a film back.
Three days of tooling around the city and all 5 rolls were spent. Got into the darkroom to develop these right when I got back and low and behold they were perfect!
Well…Not so much…. Terrible light leak from where the dark slide goes in. Not all was lost but some frames were definitely gone. Minus the massive light leak on some of the frames, the images overall looked pretty good. My takeaways are, I need to use a faster shutter speed for a larger handheld camera and I love a waist level viewfinder. It makes for discreet street photos. I am by no means a street photographer. I will leave that to all the Gary Winogrand wannabes. But I think I made some ok photos.
Was there any buyer’s remorse? No way. I had a blast shooting this thing in all its simplicity. Just need to import a new film back from the Ukraine and we are good to go!
