Fwd: A camera that went to the moon

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From: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Date: October 23, 2013 7:44:00 PM EDT
To: "Gary Johnson" <gjohnson144@comcast.net>
Subject: FW: A camera that went to the moon

 

 

A STUDY OF BRANDS / A camera that went to the moon

October 23, 2013

 

The history of Hasselblad dates back to 1841, when a trading company handling general merchandise was established in Gothenburg, Sweden's second-largest city.

In 1887, Arvid Victor Hasselblad, son of the company's founder, established a division to handle such items as photographic film. It was around the time when people were beginning to take pictures, and the division was said to have been founded out of Arvid's personal enjoyment of photography.

However, things completely changed after Arvid met George Eastman, the founder of U.S. film maker Eastman Kodak, on a trip. Hasselblad began importing Kodak's products in 1888.

Hasselblad started to make cameras in 1940, during World War II, because the Swedish government asked the company's fourth-generation president, Victor Hasselblad, to manufacture military cameras.

Victor, who had learned camera manufacturing in Germany, developed the HK7, the first Hasselblad model.

After the war ended, the company released the 1600F, a medium-format camera to be sold on the market, in 1948. Outfitted with such state-of-the-art features as a 1/1,600-second high-speed shutter, the 1600F created a huge buzz at a launch event in New York, as the United States was then the world's largest camera market.

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration formed a business alliance with Hasselblad in 1962, praising the company's technological ability to render clear images in fine detail. When NASA's Apollo 11 made the first moon landing in 1969, the astronauts on the mission used cameras developed by Hasselblad.

In 2004, the company released a medium-format digital camera equipped with a powerful sensor. With its enhanced focusing functions and other features, the model appealed to a new range of consumers.

The firm has also provided a wealth of support for cultural activities. In 1980, an affiliated foundation established the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography. Japanese photographers Hiroshi Hamaya and Hiroshi Sugimoto are among recipients of the award for internationally active photographers, which has been dubbed "the Nobel Prize of photography."

 

© The Yomiuri Shimbun.

 

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