Apollo Approved Hasselblad Cameras
Wow, if you think about the period moon missions were occurring, most cameras were large, bulky and fairly expensive to operate.
But with the Hasselblad Camera, NASA, the camera manufacturer and Kodak all worked together to develop a compact camera that was certainly state-of-the-art for the day.
If you remember the devastating oxygen explosion, these cameras even took a technology that removed spark hazards from the build up of static electricity in larger cameras and transformed that into the small Hasselblad camera for use on the Apollo missions.
This is a story that many do not know (I sure didn’t), so the camera article below is definitely worth a read and a share …
APOLLO-11 HASSELBLAD CAMERAS
by Phill Parker
The camera equipment carried on the Apollo-11 flight was comprehensive. In addition to the usual TV and small-film cameras on board, there was a special camera for near-distance stereoscopic shots of the moon. And, of course, there were also the cameras which, for this article, are the most important, viz., three Hasselblad 500ELs.
Two of the 500ELs were identical to the ones carried on the Apollo-8, -9 and -10 flights. …… Also in the lunar module – and making its first journey in space – was a Hasselblad 500EL Data Camera, which was the one to be used on the moon’s surface.
…… The Data Camera was fitted with a so-called Reseau plate. The Reseau plate was made of glass and was fitted to the back of the camera body, extremely close to the film plane. The plate was engraved with a number of crosses to form a grid. The intersections were 10 mm apart and accurately calibrated to a tolerance of 0.002 mm. Except for the larger central cross, each of the four arms on a cross was 1 mm long and 0.02 mm wide. The crosses are recorded on every exposed frame and provided a means of determining angular distances between objects in the field-of-view.
…… The Data Camera was modified to prevent accumulation of static electricity. When film is wound in a camera, static electricity is generated on the film surface. Normally, this electricity is dispersed by the metal rims and rollers that guide the film, and by the humidity of the air. In a camera fitted with a Reseau plate, however, the film is guided by the raised edges of the plate. As glass is a non-conductor, the electric charge that builds up at the glass surface can become so heavy that sparks can occur between plate and film – especially if the camera is used in a very dry environment or in vacuum. Sparks cause unpleasant patterns to appear on the film and can be a hazard if the camera is used in an atmosphere of pure oxygen. … The Reseau plate, or register glass, is not a new development in photography. What is most remarkable, however, is that the group of Hasselblad staff working on NASA camera projects in collaboration with Carl Zeiss was successful in applying the idea to a small camera ……
Finally, The film used on Apollo-11 was the same type carried on the other flights – a Kodak special thin-based and thin emulsion double-perforated 70 mm film – which permitted 160 pictures in color or 200 on black/white in each loading.
This article was prepared by Phill Parker (UK) from media material supplied by Viktor Hasselblad in 1969.
Constructive editorial comments were furnished by Eric Jones (ALSJ).
There are more details about the camera and film in the article source at the nasa.gov site