BrandSwedish
Hasselblad
2 active items
The story of Hasselblad begins not with cameras but with commerce. Fritz Wiktor Hasselblad established F. W. Hasselblad and Co. in Gothenburg in 1841 as a general trading company. The family's connection to photography deepened when Arvid Hasselblad, while on honeymoon, met George Eastman, founder of Kodak, and the firm became Kodak's sole Swedish distributor in 1888. By 1908, the photographic operations had grown large enough to be spun off as Fotografiska AB.
It was Victor Hasselblad (1906-1978), grandson of Fritz, who transformed the family business into a camera manufacturer. After years studying the optics industry in Dresden, Rochester, and across Europe, he returned to Gothenburg with a comprehensive understanding of how cameras were made and sold. In 1941, Victor founded Victor Hasselblad AB specifically to produce reconnaissance cameras for the Swedish Air Force. The first camera, the HK7, used 80mm film and was fitted with a Zeiss Biotessar lens. Seven years later, in 1948, Victor traveled to New York to present the first civilian Hasselblad, a medium format camera that would eventually reshape professional photography.
The Hasselblad 500 series, introduced in 1957, moved away from a focal plane shutter in the body and placed a leaf shutter in each individual lens instead, providing flash synchronization at all shutter speeds. This modular architecture, where backs, bodies, and lenses could be swapped freely, became the defining logic of the system and allowed professional photographers to adapt the camera to virtually any shooting condition. The 501C, among the most widely traded models at Nordic auctions today, carried forward this philosophy into a refined, long-running production run.
In 1962, NASA began using Hasselblad cameras during the Mercury program. The partnership deepened through the Gemini and Apollo missions. Modified 500EL bodies, stripped of viewfinders, mirrors, and leather covering, were strapped to the chests of astronauts and left functioning on the lunar surface. Across six Apollo lunar landings, twelve Hasselblad bodies were left on the Moon. The photographs those cameras made, including the Earthrise image and the first steps of Neil Armstrong, are among the most reproduced images in history.
Victor Hasselblad, a committed ornithologist and naturalist, sold the company in 1976. When he died in 1978, he directed much of his fortune toward the Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation in Gothenburg, which continues to support natural sciences research, photography, and wildlife conservation. The Hasselblad Award, given annually by the foundation, has become one of the most significant prizes in international photography.
Hasselblad cameras circulate actively on the Nordic secondary market. The 501C with Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm lens, the 203FE with its electronically controlled focal plane shutter, and the 2000FC appear regularly at Swedish auction houses, where they attract both working photographers and collectors drawn to the precision and longevity of the V-system.