Glass Bodies a variant-level encyclopedia of vintage lenses and cameras by iwillpat

Hasselblad 1000F

Hasselblad · Hasselblad 1600F mount · 2¼×2¼ in (nominal 6×6) on 120, 12 exposures with the Magazine 12; 16 exposures of 1⅝×2¼ in (6×4.5) with the Magazine 16 and its ground-glass mask; a cut-film adapter took 6.5×9 cm sheet film in single holders, with a Hasselblad cutter to trim 2½×3½ in stock to size (the Dunne & Rundle brochure of c.1955) · 1953

Also known as: Hasselblad 1000 F · 1000F · Hasselblad 1000F Tessar 80mm · Hasselblad 1000F Ektar · Hasselblad 1000F Kodak Ektar 80mm · Hasselblad HK-1 · ハッセルブラッド 1000F · ハッセルブラッド 1000 F

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
1000F, early production with Kodak Ektar 80mm f/2.8 standard lens Hasselblad 1600F 1953 — —
1000F with Carl Zeiss Tessar 80mm f/2.8 standard lens Hasselblad 1600F 1953–1957 — —
HK-1 outfit (1000F with Dallmeyer Dallon 508mm f/5.6, Swedish forces) Hasselblad 1600F — — 20 sets per Japanese Wikipedia and Leitz Auction; Leitz adds that 10 of the 20 went to the Swedish forces. Japanese Wikipedia says the sets were for the Swedish Navy, Leitz says the Swedish army.
  1. Model years from Hasselblad Historical's tabulated history (Heymann and de Bakker), which gives 1948/1949–1953 for the 1600F and 1953–1957 for the 1000F; the 1952 start given by Japanese and German Wikipedia is recorded under disputed.
  2. No 1000F list price was found. Willoughby's of New York advertised the 1600F in Modern Photography for November 1951 at $548 with the 80mm Ektar and one magazine, the 135mm Ektar at $282 and the 250mm f/4 Zeiss-Opton Sonnar at $480, federal tax included (scan at Mike Eckman); Hasselblad's own 1953 brochure says the 1000F 'is offered at a lower price' and gives no figure.
  3. No factory weight or dimensions were found in the instruction books or brochures consulted; the numeric fields are left empty.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Black-leatherette cube with the winding knob on the right, speeds engraved to 1000 (a 1600F knob reads 1600); black knob with clockwise speed engraving, as on second-series 1600Fs (Nordin, Hasselblad Historical)
  • 1000 F on the front nameplate and HASSELBLAD 1000F engraved on the synchroniser bracket on the left side, with its 1–5 dial and two flash sockets
  • Three-lobe bayonet with a red index dot, lens fitted with a third of a turn; lenses carry a preset-aperture trigger under the barrel (pull left to open, push right to stop down)
  • Two round signal windows next to the release; hood and magazine buttons on the top plate
  • Listing trap: 1600F and 1000F bodies look alike from the front — read the winding knob. Salyut and Kiev 88 copies share the outline and a compatible thread-and-bayonet, and their lenses can be adapted (Eric Constantineau)

1000F, early production with Kodak Ektar 80mm f/2.8 standard lens:

  • Standard lens a chrome Kodak Ektar 80mm f/2.8, engraved MADE IN U.S.A. BY EASTMAN KODAK, with the Lumenized L-in-circle coating mark and a CAMEROSITY-coded date (e.g. ET = 1949) — the same lens the 1600F carried
  • Outfit literature of the year: the June 1953 instruction book (code 6953) and the November 1953 brochure (code 241153) both show the Ektar 80 as standard, the Kodak Ektar 135mm f/3.5 as the long lens, and the black Zeiss-Opton Sonnar 250mm f/4 as the telephoto — three lenses in all
  • Body otherwise identical to later production; the model name 1000 F appears on the front nameplate and on the synchroniser bracket, which the 1600F body did not carry (mediajoy)

1000F with Carl Zeiss Tessar 80mm f/2.8 standard lens:

  • Chrome Carl Zeiss Tessar 1:2.8 f=80mm with preset-aperture trigger; earliest examples engraved Zeiss-Opton, the Oberkochen name still used on the Sonnar 250 in the 1953 brochure and advertisement, later Carl Zeiss
  • Lens range on the December 1955 instruction book: Tessar 80 standard, Zeiss Sonnar 135mm f/3.5, black Sonnar 250mm f/5.6 (the 'Big Bertha' of that edition — the 1953 book gives the same nickname to the 250mm f/4); the Dunne & Rundle brochure adds the Distagon 60mm f/5.6, the Dallmeyer Dallon 508mm f/5.6 and the Super Wide with its Biogon 38mm as system companions — six lenses in all
  • Filters: the same Hasselblad screw-in set fits the 60, 80, 135 and 5.6/250 lenses (1955 instruction book); the 1953 book specifies Series VII for the Ektar 80 and 135

HK-1 outfit (1000F with Dallmeyer Dallon 508mm f/5.6, Swedish forces):

  • Fitted wooden outfit box holding a 1000F body, the Dallmeyer Dallon Tele-Anastigmat 5.6/508mm made by Cooke & Perkins, a grip with cable release, a dedicated frame finder for the 508, three matched magazines, magnifier, three filters and both lens caps (Leitz Auction lot 380)
  • Some sets carry military engravings, some do not — the Leitz example (body CT 21486, lens 487410, 1956) has none

Serial-range notes

Two letters + five digits, e.g. CP 14xxx, CT 21486
The two letters before the number encode the year through VHPICTURES (V=1, H=2, P=3, I=4, C=5, T=6, U=7, R=8, E=9, S=0): CH = 1952 on a late 1600F, CP = 1953, CI = 1954, CC = 1955, CT = 1956, CU = 1957 (Q.G. de Bakker, Hasselblad Historical; the HK-1 body CT 21486 dates to 1956). Japanese Wikipedia puts the 1000F numbers at 13,821–24,216, continuing straight on from the 1600F's CS 10501–CP 13823 block. No year-by-year serial table is published outside Nordin.
Kodak Ektar lenses
Kodak coded its lenses through CAMEROSITY (C=1, A=2, M=3, E=4, R=5, O=6, S=7, I=8, T=9, Y=0), so ET = 1949 — most Ektars on 1000F bodies predate the body, having been stockpiled for the 1600F (Hasselblad Historical). The Zeiss lenses of the period carry no red-ink date code: de Bakker says the stamp appears on all but the very earliest C lenses, which places these pre-C lenses before the practice.

Specifications

Format
2¼×2¼ in (nominal 6×6) on 120, 12 exposures with the Magazine 12; 16 exposures of 1⅝×2¼ in (6×4.5) with the Magazine 16 and its ground-glass mask; a cut-film adapter took 6.5×9 cm sheet film in single holders, with a Hasselblad cutter to trim 2½×3½ in stock to size (the Dunne & Rundle brochure of c.1955)
Finder
waist-level, interchangeable (magnifying hood and sports frame finder available)
Shutter
horizontally running focal-plane shutter, corrugated Swedish stainless-steel foil curtains 6/10,000 in thick (instruction book) · B, 1s–1/1000 — ten speeds, set by pulling the winding knob out and turning it; on the 1600F the same knob ran to 1/1600 · flash sync Focal-plane bulbs at all speeds via the 1–5 synchroniser dial on the accessory bracket; electronic flash (strobe) only at 1/25 or slower, when the shutter is fully open (instruction book). Two circuits, American (A) and German PC (D) contacts. · no self-timer
Film advance
One full clockwise turn of the large right-hand knob lowers the mirror, tensions the shutter and advances the film; no instant-return mirror, so the finder is dark until the next wind. The knob pulls out to set speeds. Two signal windows beside the release show white (ready) or red (exposed), and the magazine has its own signal; the instruction book insists the two agree before a magazine is fitted. The slide interlock stops the release with the slide in and the magazine coming off with the slide out.
Back
interchangeable roll-film magazines — Magazine 12 (6×6) and Magazine 16 (6×4.5) on 120, with a loading key and an automatic stop after the 12th frame; cut-film adapter for 6.5×9 cm sheet film. Magazines carry over to the 500C; the lenses do not (Hasselblad Historical)
Meter
None built in; the large Swedish fitted case No. 301 has a compartment for a hand meter (instruction book)
Motor drive
Not compatible — Knob wind only. The motorised Hasselblad is the 500EL of the next decade, on a different lens mount.
Designed by
Sason Sixten — industrial design of the body, credited for the 1600F by the German Wikipedia article and by the Nasjonalmuseet's record for the 500C; the 1000F kept the 1600F body unchanged, so the credit is inherited rather than stated by any source for this model
Country
Sweden
Accessories
Magazines 12 (6×6) and 16 (6×4.5); cut-film adapter for 6.5×9 cm · Magnifying Hood, 2½× with adjustable eyepiece; sports viewfinder with parallax slide and flash contacts · Flash/strobe attachment for the accessory bracket, American (A) or German PC (D) contacts · Extension tubes No. 20 and No. 40; extension bellows with sunshade/slide holder · Filters in black aluminium mounts (Y, YG, G, O, R, HZ, POLA); Series VII on the Kodak lenses · Cable releases, 6 in locking and 10 in standard; Swedish eveready case No. 101, combination cases No. 301 and 302, American combination case

Folding hood with a spring-loaded magnifier, both released by the smaller of the two buttons on top; the whole hood slides off backwards once the magazine is removed. Under the ground glass a Kodak Ektalite Field lens (Fresnel) that the instruction book credits with 250% more overall brightness and 1000% in the corners. The screen is not user-changeable. The accessory Magnifying Hood gives 2½× with an adjustable eyepiece (the 1955 book gives its focal length as 80 mm, the 1953 book 95 mm); the sports viewfinder clips into the universal accessory bracket, has a parallax slide, blue masks for the 135 and 250, and flash and strobe contacts in its base. Finders carried over to the 500C (Hasselblad Historical).

Where sources disagree

First
  • 1953 — Hasselblad Historical model table (Heymann and de Bakker); Nordin's packaging article on the same site ('introduced in mid-1953'); the earliest dated instruction book is coded June 1953
  • 1952 — German Wikipedia (1952–1957); Hayata Camera column; Japanese Wikipedia gives an announcement in 1952 and sale from 1953; Cameraworth 'introduced in 1952'

Better supported: 1953

The two are compatible if 1952 is the announcement and 1953 the first deliveries, as Japanese Wikipedia states; the 1600F's own serial block runs to a 1953 (CP) code.

Flash sync (electronic flash)
  • 1/25 or slower — 1953 and 1955 instruction books; Japanese Wikipedia; Photo of the Life
  • About 1/50 — Eric Constantineau's spec table
  • 1/30 — zonelightmeter.com

Better supported: 1/25

The instruction book is the primary source; the others may be reading a particular body or rounding. The 1600F synchronised at 1/90 per Japanese Wikipedia.

Modern Photography test date
  • 1952 — Hasselblad's own history page ('the American magazine Modern Photography field-tested the new Hasselblad 1000F' in 1952)
  • December 1954 — Mike Eckman (Keppler's Vault 53, reproducing the eight-page article) and English Wikipedia

Better supported: December 1954

Eckman reproduces the article itself; Hasselblad's 1952 date would also put the test before the camera's dated literature.

Production (total)
  • 10,395 (serials 13,821–24,216) — Japanese Wikipedia, citing the Japanese book Hasselblad no Subete; repeated by Photo of the Life
  • No count — Hasselblad Historical, camera-wiki, Hasselblad's history page

A single lineage of sources; Nordin's Compendium is the likely origin but was not consulted.

HK-1 recipient
  • Swedish Navy — Japanese Wikipedia
  • Swedish army, 10 of 20 sets — Leitz Auction lot description

Both agree on 20 sets. The HK designation follows Hasselblad's wartime military nomenclature (HK 7 was the Ross hand-held aerial camera).

What reviewers say

History

The 1000F is the 1600F with a shutter that could be built in numbers. Victor Hasselblad’s first civilian camera, shown in New York in October 1948, ran its corrugated stainless-steel curtains to 1/1600 s, and Rick Nordin’s account of the Series One cameras on Hasselblad Historical records what that cost: 153 of the 269 first-series bodies came back for repair, some within days. The second series of 1950–1953 revised the mechanism, and the 1000F carried the revision to its conclusion by dropping the top speed to 1/1000. Japanese Wikipedia puts it plainly — production trouble with the 1/1600 parts led to substitute components — and Hasselblad Historical’s model table records the result as the 1953–1957 successor that “replaced the 1600 F”. The same table notes that only the finders carry over to the V-System that followed; the German Wikipedia article adds the magazines. The lens bayonet, with its three lobes and third-turn lock, did not.

The camera itself changed little. The 1953 instruction book (print code 6953) and the 1955 edition (B 520e, 451255) describe the same body: a single right-hand knob that lowers the mirror, tensions the shutter and advances the film in one clockwise turn, and pulls out to select ten speeds from 1 s to 1/1000 plus B; two signal windows that show white when ready and red when exposed; a slide interlock that blocks the release with the slide in and the magazine with the slide out; and a 1–5 synchroniser dial on the left-side bracket that delays focal-plane bulbs to match each speed, with electronic flash confined to 1/25 or slower. The curtains, the book says, are “selected Swedish stainless steel 6/10,000ths of an inch in thickness”, and Kiyoshi Hayata’s repair column explains why they matter to a buyer: the corrugated foil is its own spring, cannot be adjusted like cloth, and a dent from a finger puts the camera out of service. The ground glass sits over a Kodak Ektalite Field lens that the book credits with 250% more brightness. Nothing in either book mentions a self-timer or a weight, and no factory weight was found anywhere.

What changed was the glass. The June 1953 instruction book and the November 1953 brochure (code 241153) still show the outfit the 1600F had shipped with — a chrome Kodak Ektar 80mm f/2.8 marked “Made in U.S.A. by Eastman Kodak”, a Kodak Ektar 135mm f/3.5 and the black Zeiss-Opton Sonnar 250mm f/4 that both books call the “Big Bertha” — and the brochure counts three lenses. By the December 1955 book the standard lens is the Carl Zeiss Tessar 80mm f/2.8, the 135 is a Zeiss Sonnar, the Big Bertha is the lighter Sonnar 250mm f/5.6, and the Dunne & Rundle brochure of the same period lists six lenses including the Distagon 60mm f/5.6 and the Dallmeyer Dallon 508mm f/5.6, a lens that English and German Wikipedia say did not cover the full frame. Hasselblad’s own history page says the 1000F brought “a new lens series that was composed of six lenses”. The Ektar-to-Tessar changeover has no published date or serial, and because the lens was a separate purchase, a body’s original outfit cannot be read from what sits on it now.

Prices and numbers are thin. Willoughby’s of New York advertised the 1600F in Modern Photography for November 1951 at $548 with the Ektar 80 and one magazine, the 135 at $282 and the 250 at $480, tax included (the scan is at Mike Eckman); Hasselblad’s 1953 brochure says the 1000F “is offered at a lower price” and stops there, and no 1000F list price surfaced in any source. Japanese Wikipedia, citing the Japanese book Hasselblad no Subete, gives serials 13,821 to 24,216 and 10,395 bodies — a figure that no Western source consulted confirms or contradicts, and that follows straight on from the 1600F block ending at CP 13823. Dating needs none of this: the two letters before the serial read through VHPICTURES, so CP is 1953 and CT is 1956 (Q.G. de Bakker). The Kodak lenses have their own code, CAMEROSITY, and mostly predate the bodies they sit on.

The camera’s reputation rests on one article. Modern Photography put 500 rolls through a 1000F and dropped it twice, and Eckman, who reproduces the eight pages, dates the piece to December 1954 and calls it the moment Hasselblad became known outside Europe; Hasselblad’s own history page puts the same test in 1952, a date that would precede the camera’s earliest dated literature. Hasselblad’s history also says the 1600F’s watchmaker-built mechanism was “very delicate”, and English Wikipedia says the 1000F “also had shutter problems”, which is the whole argument for the 500C of 1957: a Compur in each lens, synchronised at every speed. One military outfit is documented, the HK-1 — a 1000F with the 508mm Dallon in a fitted wooden box, 20 sets, with Japanese Wikipedia saying they went to the Swedish Navy and a Leitz Auction lot description saying ten of the twenty went to the army.

What remains open: the exact start — 1952 announcement or 1953 delivery, on which the sources divide; when the Tessar displaced the Ektar as the boxed standard lens; the 1000F’s American list price; any factory weight; whether the 10,395 figure is Nordin’s, and how it splits by year; whether the HK-1 sets were all coded CT; and what the 1000F fitted with a Kilfitt/Zoomar 170–320mm f/4 in Jo Geier’s video represents — a factory-supported lens or a one-off adaptation.

Expand Collapse

This history is AI-written, from the sources listed at the foot of the page. Where the record is silent it says so rather than filling the gap — but no human wrote these sentences.

Photographs

Hasselblad 1000F
Hasselblad 1000F in Svensk Fotoindustri, 1950s — Tekniska museet, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

More sample photos elsewhere

These photographers keep all rights to their work — enjoy it at the source.

Live listings

Asking price, USD: a median of $950 across 18 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $570–$1,200). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $950.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$950$570–$1,20018
2026-09-06$950$570–$1,20018

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Related: Hasselblad 1600F · Hasselblad 500C · Hasselblad SWA / SW (Supreme Wide Angle / Super Wide) · Hasselblad 2000FC

Lenses for this body: Dallmeyer Dallon Tele-Anastigmat 508mm f/5.6 · Distagon 60mm f/5.6 (1600F/1000F) · Kodak Ektar 135mm f/3.5 · Kodak Ektar 80mm f/2.8 · Kilfitt Makro-Kilar 90mm f/2.8 (1600F/1000F mount) · Piesker Picon 135mm f/3.5 (1600F/1000F mount) · Sonnar 135mm f/3.5 (1600F/1000F) · Sonnar 250mm f/4 (1600F/1000F) · Sonnar 250mm f/5.6 (1600F/1000F) · Tessar 80mm f/2.8 (1600F/1000F)

Sources (33)

Every page here is assembled from public sources, and the gaps are real ones. If you own this camera, know a serial number I'm missing, or can see where I have it wrong, tell me — corrections, serials and sample photos are all worth having.