Why Hasselblad Left a Dozen Cameras on the Moon

On 20 July 1969, two men packed up to leave the Moon. They carried the film home in its magazines and left their Hasselblad cameras on the surface. Hasselblad's own count of the cameras left there across the Apollo landings is twelve, and other tallies say eleven. So why leave some of the best cameras in the world in the dust, and how did a camera you could buy in a shop end up there at all? 📷 Shoot real film looks on your phone with Simul Studio. Pay once, no subscription. iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/apple-stor... Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/de... This is the story of Hasselblad: Victor Hasselblad and the captured aerial camera that started it in 1940 the 1600F, the 500C and the modular system idea Wally Schirra's shop-bought 500C on Sigma 7 in 1962, as usually told what NASA actually changed, and what it didn't the Hasselblad Data Camera and its Réseau plate of tiny crosses the Armstrong photograph that took until 1987 to identify why the film came home and the cameras stayed Hasselblad's later owners, the Lunar and DJI If you enjoyed this, watch how colour film works (the kind of film behind many Moon photographs) and the story of the Olympus Pen. Subscribe to Camera Lore for cameras, photographs and the stories behind them. CHAPTERS 00:00 Tranquility Base, 20 July 1969 00:53 Gothenburg: the family firm 01:29 The captured camera 02:39 The 1600F 03:47 The 500C 04:07 Wally Schirra's shop-bought camera 05:40 Did NASA build special space cameras? 06:33 Apollo 8 and Earthrise 07:04 The Hasselblad Data Camera 08:00 The Réseau plate 08:55 The missing photograph of Armstrong 09:53 Why the cameras were left 11:26 Afterwards: owners, the Lunar and DJI 13:05 The answer The number of cameras left on the Moon is Hasselblad's figure (twelve camera bodies, Apollo 11 to 17); other tallies say eleven, and the history of at least one camera said to have been on the Moon is questioned. Schirra's Houston shop purchase is the story as usually told by Hasselblad and NASA, and some accounts date his first Hasselblad earlier. Magazine capacity, the overexposed Mercury pictures and the DJI stake are attributed on screen to Hasselblad, reports or "reportedly". The diagrams, exploded views and schematics are simplified, and the measurement demonstration is illustrative. Illustrations marked ILLUSTRATION are AI-generated and are not archival images or likenesses. PHOTO CREDITS NASA images (public domain): AS11-40-5902, AS11-40-5903, AS11-40-5886, AS11-40-5868, AS08-14-2383 (Earthrise), AS12-49-7278, AS12-48-7133, AS15-88-11866, AS16-113-18339, AS17-134-20380, AS17-140-21496 and AS17-148-22727 (Blue Marble), plus NASA photographs of Wally Schirra and Sigma 7 and of the Hasselblad 500 EL/M. Victor Hasselblad, 1955 — Hasselblad — public domain. Full list in the pinned comment. CC-LICENSED IMAGES Hasselblad 1600F — Eugene Ilchenko — CC BY-SA 3.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Hasselblad 500C (51026812302) — Nicolas Buffler from Guilherand Granges, France — CC BY 2.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... 20180502 Apollo 14 camera Cosmosphere — Balon Greyjoy — CC0 (courtesy credit) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi... Adaptations of CC BY-SA images (cropping, scaling, grading and animated framing) are offered under the same licence. NASA imagery is used as public-domain material; this video is not affiliated with or endorsed by NASA or Hasselblad, and no logos are used. The drawings and diagrams are original, and the sound effects are synthesised. The narration uses a synthetic voice. Sources and the full list of public-domain image credits are in the pinned comment. #Hasselblad #Apollo11 #CameraHistory