Camera School
Everything you need to know about the Hasselblad 503CX: how it works, how to make a well-exposed picture with it, where it came from, who made famous pictures with it, and how to buy and look after one. You learn it on a working camera in your browser, then take it to a studio and to Yosemite.
Short illustrated readings on history, technique and ownership. Each one can be read aloud to you.
Hands-on lessons on a 3D 503CX that behaves like the real one, right down to the things it refuses to do.
Assignments in a Brooklyn loft studio and in Yosemite Valley, with the same camera and a light meter on your phone.
The modules
Take them in order the first time through. Each bench lesson takes two or three minutes, and the camera remembers what you've finished.
- 01
The square
What the 503CX is, why it makes square pictures, and why you look down into it instead of holding it to your eye. Then you take your first picture.
- 02
From Gothenburg to the Moon
Victor Hasselblad, a captured wartime camera, the 1600F, the 500C, Mercury and Apollo, and the long life of the camera you're about to learn.
- 03
The machine
The release and the crank, the two shutters, the dark slide, lenses and film, and every lock between them. By the end you can get the camera out of any state it gets into.
- 04
Light
The camera has no meter, so you bring one. Metering with GlassMeter, Ansel Adams's Zone System, depth of field, and trading aperture for shutter speed.
- 05
Seeing in squares
The pictures this camera made famous, from Earthrise to Abbey Road, and the photographers who chose it. Then you make your own, in the studio and in the valley.
- 06
Owning one
Which model to buy, how to date it from its serial number, how to inspect one before you pay, what goes wrong, who can fix it, and what film to put in it today.
- 07
The final
Five timed challenges on the bench, done from memory, and a twenty-question exam on everything else.
What you'll be able to do
- Load, meter, focus and fire a 503CX from a cold start, and get the exposure right.
- Explain every lock in the mechanism, and free the camera from any state it gets stuck in.
- Meter a scene with spot, averaging and incident readings, and place a tone with the Zone System.
- Choose an aperture and shutter speed for a reason, and trade one for the other.
- Tell the camera's story, and recognize the photographs it's famous for.
- Inspect a secondhand camera, judge its condition, and know where to have it serviced.
The course works as a two-week unit for an introductory photography class, with session plans, discussion questions, assignments and a rubric. See the guide for teachers.