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May I introduce myself...

SWCler

New Member
My name is Ulrich, I'm a 59 years old photographic veteran (amateur), who, thinking of retiring within the next 4 years, is looking forward to refreshing his photographic skills. I live in Germany.

I started photography in the late seventies, mostly 35mm tranparencies, but then I changed to b&w which I processed in my darkroom. Trying to improve quality, medium format came into play, and due to this Hasselblad. In the early eighties, I got a 2000FC with some C lenses and a SWC/M. The latter became my favorite camera, that's why I choosed that name. During the eighties, I did a lot of b&w photography and prints, some cibachrome prints from 6x6 transparencies, too.

I that time, photography as art played an increasing role in Europe, the work of Ansel Adams became popular, and consequently I changed to a 4x5" camera, which was the maximum format affordable to me.

By the end of the eighties, I was infected by a new virus: You may call it "computeritis". I did a lot of programming in visual basic , especially for my job, and photography was pushed back by the PC into the background.

I reduced photography to vacation - and family shots.

Last year we renovated our home from scratch, and during the clean-up I came across the two Hassis, so I noticed that I missed something during the last years. Why not combining photography and computer skills and doing it digitally?

Up to now I'm still in a learning process about digital photography. I wonder if I should use still films and buy a good filmscanner (as the nikon 9ooo) or buy a digital back for my Hassis. In any case I would prefer to do my prints with an inkjet printer and not in the darkroom (my wife would appriciate this, too, as I wouldn't disappear so often into the darkness of my cellar), as I think that the quality of the outcome can be controlled very well. Beside this I would like to do larger prints than I could do in my darkroom; I think the the Ansel Adams times of 13x18" or 24x30" contact prints are gone (even if I'm eager to add one of his prints to my photo collection, I'm still admiring his skills and learned very much from his books).

During the last days, I learned a lot from your discussions, esp. about the cfv back. Thank you for that !
 
Welcome Ulrich to this forum .

I have a very similar photographic background and have given up my well equiped darkroom (for 6x6 and 4x5") last year , because of serious back problems .
I have now fully landed in the digital HASSELBLAD dream land , but still do some film shooting from time to time .
Don't hesitate to ask questions here in this forum . I am shure you will mostly get very good answers .

You mentioned , that you have an SWC .
Just to let you know , that is still a very "modern" camera .
Have a look here

View attachment 1660

Don't laugh . It works and the results are amazing .
Of course the digital back was not designed for that camera , but with a little trick between exposures it works very well .

So you are wellcome here .

Jürgen
 
Hallo, Ulrich!

I, too, have found that the combination of computer skills and photography skills are a superb match for digital photography. When one has a good understanding of both the art and science of the craft, I believe one is well-equipped to produce dramatic, expressive art, without limitations.

I think you might enjoy the digital darkroom very much. I often say to people that they haven't seen their work until they've made a print of it. Please be aware that color management will be essential to getting predictable colors, and it is not trivial. But with some help and guidance, it should not scare you away from making your own digital prints.

Well I won't ramble on too much, but if there is anything I can do to help you with your transition to the digital darkroom, please do not hesitate to ask!

Warm regards,
-Brad
 
Don't laugh . It works and the results are amazing .
Of course the digital back was not designed for that camera , but with a little trick between exposures it works very well .

So you are wellcome here .

Jürgen

We should really ask Gothenburg for a ECO on the CFV series to get that silly missing hole drilled in the factory.... See what a story that would be about backward compatibility!

Lets face it, HB are now actively promoting their H series using the 40 years on the Moon theme (see the Hasselblad.com website). So they should at least extend the offer to go to Kennedy Space Center to new buyers of the CFV39! Would be a much more fair deal than offering it to new H buyers, a camera with 0 (zero) history in the NASA Moon program.

Wilko
 
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