 Yo, what up? Welcome back to another episode of my dog doesn't respect me. Sit. Baxter. Sit. Baxter. Sit. Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. The Hasselblad 501C. I swore an oath to one day own a v-system camera ever since I made a video about how NASA shot them to the moon. I always thought maybe it would be the ever elusive gold blad, but I didn't want to have to sell my body to pay for it. Not again. So I ended up settling for the next best thing, the Hasselblad 501C. So why was I initially interested in this camera? Well, to be honest, my man Carl is back at it with his usual bulls***. I think that just about anyone would agree that the opportunity to use Carl's Ice lenses on medium format is hard to pass up, just asked the contact 645 and literally every wedding photographer. What also attracted me to the 501C is that it is a mechanical camera, so if it were to break or I was run over while using it, theoretically it might still be fixable to some degree. Hasselblad as a company is still ballin' out in the world. But before we get into it, I think I should address the 6 ton by 6 ton elephant in the room. Square format. I don't like it. I often have confusingly horrific but erotic dreams about being forced to only use that format. I think that there's a lot of people out there that actually make incredible work with 6x6. I just can't compose with it because I guess I haven't leveled up yet. Thinking all that existed for the V system were 6x6 square format backs, I figured that the fate of me ever owning a 500 series camera was furious. I mean, clear. It was never gonna happen. Luckily, I discovered that Hasselblad made a very special A16 back which shoots 645 on the system and suddenly I was horny for Hasselblad again. But with anything good there's always a catch which I'll get into later. With the 501C in hand, I decided it was time to test it in some real-world film photography scenarios, like gas stations or coffee shops. But since I don't drink coffee nor do I have any sinus still, I was completely f***ed. Besides a quick test roll that I shot to make sure that the camera wasn't working order, I decided I would bring it with me on an upcoming camping trip that I have with my buddy Tim. We decided to leave our lovers behind on this one, so I said Aztela Vista de Monica and Tim said goodbye to cinema lenses. We went to a nearby lake that was apparently filled with slimy diarrhea water, but that didn't really matter to us because we were really out there to cook up some campfire food and get our hot grill summer started. Loading the Hasselblad isn't what I would call quick or easy, but it does give you the opportunity to load multiple backs ahead of time if that's something you're into. I imagine with time in practice it'll get a lot easier, but that can be attributed to a lot of things in life. Like murder, probably. The A16 back is a bit rare to find, but I guess it's a fair option if you suck ass at square photography. The A16 back even shoots a full 16 shots, so an extra four shots for me to hate when I get them back. To compensate for the format change, I have this drop-in mat that goes into the viewfinder and frames up 645 accurately. This mat came with one of the A16 backs when I purchased it, so I'm not sure if it's made by Hasselblad or just some crafty asshole in their basement. As night fell, I set up the camera on my tripod, plugged in the shutter cable, and aimed it to the sky hoping to get some sweet star trails. Luckily, I did, but I also got a passing airplane or a UFO. I don't know. It seems like pretty much everyone's accepted that aliens are here, but no one cares. I guess we have too much of our own to deal with. So let's discuss what to expect when you're expecting to buy a Hasselblad. Let's start with ergonomics. They're perfect. Everything just makes sense, and it's incredibly satisfying to use. If I were to compare it to something, I think I would compare it to a Bop It, where you're just cruising along and pressing your friends, twisting and pulling shit. One of the biggest strengths of the Hasselblad V system is that it's modular, meaning everything on it is interchangeable. In fact, I bought this entire camera in pieces. The body, the focusing screen, the waist level finder, the A16 back, and of course the lens. Speaking of the focusing screen, probably one of the best features on this camera is the acute matte screen, which is basically just a piece of glass that acts as a ground glass for you to compose your image on. And yeah, it's gorgeous to look through. When the 501C was originally released, it actually came with the acute matte screen. So I felt like it was only right to re-implement it. However, the greatest gift of all is something that I didn't really expect from the camera, that it makes possibly the best shutter sound of any camera that I've ever used. Literally, it's become my personal endorphin machine. Not entirely satisfied with my camping photos, I decided it was time to shoot some color. So Caleb and I headed out to the Venice Canals to shoot some boats and shit. It had kind of been a while since we'd gone out and shot, so it'd be good to stretch our legs and take some bad photos. I loaded up some Fuji Provia 100F, which is a film stock I've never shot before. Needless to say, I was excited to lose my Provia virginity as I descend further and further into the madness that is color-positive film. So is Provia cool? Let's f*** around and find out. If you're worried about me holding my camera sideways like this without a strap over an open body of water, all I can say is how do you expect me to uphold my film photography bad boy reputation? Without a little danger. You might be wondering what lens I'm using on this beast. It's the Zeiss 60mm 3.5, which on 645 is roughly equivalent to a 37mm lens. But above all, I gotta say that the spatial rendering on this lens is top-notch. The focus fall-off is buttery smooth and the lens is pretty sharp across the board, especially at f8 of the Furious. However, the best feature of the lens in my opinion is the shutter and aperture lock. Once you choose your exposure settings, you can actually hold this button down and it keeps your exposure constant, but allows you to quickly switch to whatever you want, whether you want to go wide open or with a faster shutter. I mean, I'm no portrait photographer but I'll admit it has come in handy every time I snap a quick portrait. Anyway, eventually we made our way on over to the pier and slayed some gorgeous sunset light, all the while amongst a mechanical camera's worst enemy, sand. Turns out Provia is actually kind of a cool film stock when it's not overexposed to hell and back. But speaking of slaying stuff, how about slaying your photography website with today's sponsor Squarespace? It's a good idea for every photographer to have some sort of medium to display their work and why not put it out there in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Squarespace offers hundreds of professionally designed templates for you to choose from and of course build from. For my own photography website, I use the Wells template because it offered a simple and visually calming approach to a website layout. It was the perfect way to minimize the surrounding information on the page and draw the viewer's eye straight to the work presented. If you're not well versed in coding or building a website, don't worry, neither am I. Squarespace's UI is incredibly simple and easy to navigate which makes building your dream website a walk in the park. Whether it's photography, the culinary arts, mountaineering, or even a website dedicated to your perfect dog, Squarespace has you covered. So what are you waiting for? If you're ready to build a website, you can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainydays and if you use the code grainydays at checkout, you can get 10% off your first purchase. So is the Hasselblad 501c smash or pass? I mean, I love it. I think it's damn near perfect for all the aforementioned reasons, but no camera is perfect and the 501c is not without its own faults, though they may be subjective. To put it simply, the waist level finder is a bit of a challenge for me. I mean, so is simple algebra, so I guess that's not really saying much. I'm just struggling a bit to compose everything on the fly with a flipped image. This outright confusion only gets amplified when I try to do a vertical composition. I guess I could kill two birds with one blad by getting a metered prism for the 501c, but I don't know. In my head, it just kind of feels like it kills the spirit of the 500 series camera. Maybe I'm over analyzing it though and should just grow up that and I'm afraid if I got a metered prism, the camera would start to look kind of like a bong, which would actually be perfect if I wanted to smoke through some dank perp. Lomo perp. Another potential downside is the bayonet filter mount, Hasselblad slash Zeiss, I guess. Why'd you have to go and want to be different? I mean, I use square filters so I just went and bought an adapter ring, but imagine back in the day Hasselblad pissed off a lot of people who already own screw mount filters. Lastly, my only other gripe with this camera is that putting a camera strap on this thing seems like it probably wouldn't lend itself well to the design and functionality of it. So yeah, that's pretty much my last gripe with this camera, aside from the fact that if somebody sees you shooting this on the street, they will definitely stop you to talk about it.