Vicksburg with Color Film 2017 (test of a Hasselblad)

Clay Street, Vicksburg (also known as the ugliest street in America), 150mm Sonnar lens.

My friend generously loaned me his Hasselblad camera and gave me some Fuji NHG400 color film to try. The Hasselblad is a 6×6 film camera, like my older Rolleiflex, but instead has a modular design. The reflex mirror is in a rectangular box. A lens mounts on one side, a film-holder on the opposite, and a viewfinder on top. You can switch and swap components as needed, and all these parts click together with remarkable tolerances (similar to how 50-year-old Leica lenses work perfectly on a new body).

Hasselblad 501CM, A12 film back, and Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 CB lens (all 1999 production).

Kansas City Southern railroad line from the Confederate Avenue bridge, Vicksburg Military Park, 150mm lens.

The Hasselblad has a big advantage over the Rolleiflex: you can change lenses. My friend's 150mm Sonnar lens, although about 40 years old, has beautiful color fidelity. It gave a field of view approximately equivalent to an 80 mm lens in 35mm terms.

501 Fairground Street, 150mm lens.

503 Fairground Street.

The five matching houses on Fairground street are typical 1920s cottages. They are wider than shotgun houses but similarly intended as inexpensive housing for urban working families. I have photographed them before many times.

Fairground Street bridge, 150mm lens (flare is from a  light leak in the film back).

The Fairground street bridge is now closed to car or foot traffic and is deteriorating. One span was built by the Keystone Bridge Company and was erected here in 1895. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988.

KCS railroad cut from Washington Street, 150mm lens.

Gent with his bicycle, 150mm lens.

I often like to photograph the Kansas City Southern railroad line where it passes under Washington Street and runs through a deep valley between Belmont and Pine Streets. The gent on the bicycle was coming down the sidewalk and we chatted. He graciously let me take his portrait.

Tri-State Tire, 2209 Washington Street, Vicksburg.

This building with its Spanish motif was once an ice cream shop but has been a tire store since the 1970s.

Stairs on the east side of the unused Mercy Hospital, Grove Street, 80mm Planar lens.

The former Mercy Hospital is closed and locked, but must have a lot of photographic potential. Some background on the hospital is in this Preservation Mississippi post.

2314 Grove Street, Vicksburg, Mississippi, 80mm lens. (Update Dec. 2019: the house is empty but still standing)

This is a typical early 20th century cottage. This was once been a duplex, but one door has been removed.

Thank you, Bob, for letting me use your camera and lenses. But now that I have sampled a Hasselblad, I want to buy one (Hmmm, an element of Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) at play here.....).