Still On The Square - Hasselblad

After all these years we can still proudly take one of the Hasselblad 500 C/M cameras out into the winter sunshine and do something that we can't do with the digital camera - see the damn screen. Note that the waist-level finder has been erected and has shaded the image of Stirling Street. Did I want it, I could have popped up the magnifier lens and put my eye down for a closer, brighter view - essentially a built-in loupe.

So simple - yet even with all the swivelling screens that proliferate on DSLRs or enthusiast compacts, none of them have thought to give us a folding hood. Hoodman do make the HD Camcorder hoods which may do the trick - they come in different sizes from 200 to 450, so it is worth the effort to come in and test them out. Not quite as quick to flick as the Hasselblad, but then you never do get quite as much convenience from the digital as the film cameras...

You'll also note that the Hasselblad is easier to charge when you are overseas - you need not take a bag of plug adapters and cords when you go to foreign hotels. The recording medium is 120 film and this is not dependant upon electricity. Those of you who enjoy a cocktail will appreciate this - you end up with more time for drinking with a film camera.

Of course there are always trade-offs. Carrying a secondhand Hasselblad for the next twenty years will deprive you of the kewl points that you get when you come out with the latest digital a half-hour after it is announced on DP Review. You will no longer be the focus of envious glances at the camera club when you pull it out and brag. Everyone will be bored with the old film camera - this will leave you more time to go out and shoot photographs. If that is the sort of thing you want to do.

Worse yet - as it is a Hasselblad you will inevitably have to put up with the conspiracy theorist who knows that NASA used Hasselblads but is going to buttonhole you at a party to prove that they never landed on the moon. Take it in good part - wait until their attention is distracted and hit them with the camera - it is stainless steel and will come to no harm.