Hasselblad 500EL

Hasselblad · Hasselblad V mount · 56×56mm nominal on 120 (12 frames); 6×4.5 with the 16-exposure magazine, 24 frames of 6×6 on 220 with the 24 magazine, and 70 frames on perforated 70mm film with the 70 magazine — the NASA cameras ran thin-base 70mm Kodak stock for 160 colour or 200 black-and-white frames per magazine (Apollo Lunar Surface Journal) · 1965

Known as “the Moon camera”

Also known as: Hasselblad 500 EL · 500EL · 500 EL · Hasselblad 500EL chrome · Hasselblad EL · Hasselblad 500EL motor · Hasselblad 500EL NASA · Hasselblad Electric Camera · Hasselblad Data Camera · HEDC · ハッセルブラッド 500EL

Variants & identification

Variant	Mount	Years	Serial ranges	Production
500EL, chrome	Hasselblad V	1965–1970	8000–15074 — the whole run per Japanese Wikipedia, citing 『クラシックカメラ専科No.4 名機の系譜』 p.151; the 500EL/M is said to start at 15075 Two-letter year code plus E, e.g. TEE 14222 = 1969 (a NASA body sold by Leitz Auction)	7,074 — Japanese Wikipedia, citing 『クラシックカメラ専科No.4 名機の系譜』 p.151 and 『ハッセルブラッドのすべて』; no figure from Hasselblad or Hasselblad Historical
HEC — Hasselblad Electric Camera (NASA, black, Planar 80mm)	Hasselblad V	1968–1972	—	Not published; NASA's account has two cameras on Apollo 8 and three 500ELs on Apollo 11, two of them identical to the Apollo 8 and 10 cameras
HDC / HEDC — Hasselblad (Electric) Data Camera (NASA, silver, Réseau plate, Biogon 60mm)	Hasselblad V	1969–1972	—	About 50 — the only figure found, in Leitz Auction's lot description; Hasselblad and NASA give none

Model years from Hasselblad Historical's tabulated history (Heymann and de Bakker), which gives 1965–1970 for the 500EL and 1970–1984 for the 500EL/M.
Serial span and production from the Japanese Wikipedia list of Hasselblad products, citing 『クラシックカメラ専科No.4 名機の系譜』 p.151 and 『現代カメラ新別冊ハッセルブラッドのすべて』.

How to tell them apart (expand)

Taller than a 500C by the depth of the motor housing beneath the body; same lens mount, magazines and finders
Selector dial AS · A · O · S · SR on the right side, where the 500C has its winding knob
Battery compartment cover with a slotted quarter-turn catch on the left side
Detachable release button in one of two front sockets; DIN side socket for cords and charging; T–L–O time lever
Nameplate 500 EL on the side panel; listing trap: an EL/M plate reads 500EL/M, and a body with spring-clipped screen under a 500 EL plate is a late transition camera, not a fault
NASA cameras: matte black with no mirror or finder (HEC), or silver with a Réseau plate (HDC) — any offered for sale should be checked against the Leitz Auction and museum examples

500EL, chrome:

A 500C-sized upper body on a second, motor-and-battery housing that makes the camera roughly half again as tall; no winding knob or crank on the body — the magazine's own crank winds off the leader
Selector dial on the right side marked AS · A · O · S · SR, with a red triangle index (500EL/M instruction book, fig. 9–11 — the same dial)
Battery cover on the left side of the lower housing, released by a slotted catch turned with the Hasselblad key disc or a coin; two DEAC NiCd cells and a 5×20mm fuse behind it
Detachable release button screwed into one of two release sockets on the front of the lower housing; a side socket takes release cords, the intervalometer and the charger
Time lever on the side of the housing marked T (time exposure), L (locked / charging) and O (normal)
Nameplate on the side panel reads 500 EL; the successor's reads 500EL/M | MADE IN SWEDEN BY VICTOR HASSELBLAD (500EL/M instruction book, fig. 22)
Focusing screen held by screws, not spring clips — the user-changeable screen is what made an EL an EL/M (Hasselblad Historical); Japanese Wikipedia says the last 500ELs already had it, as with the late 500C
Chrome trim and black leatherette only; no black 500EL is documented in the sources consulted — black arrived with the EL/M (Japanese Wikipedia)

HEC — Hasselblad Electric Camera (NASA, black, Planar 80mm):

Leatherette, auxiliary shutter, reflex mirror and viewfinder removed and the exposed metal painted matte black to kill reflections in the spacecraft windows (Hasselblad's history page)
Special large locks for the film magazines and levers on the aperture and distance rings of the lenses (NASA, Still Photography During Apollo)
Black Zeiss Planar 80mm f/2.8 as standard; a Sonnar 250mm f/5.6 was carried on Apollo 8 (NASA)
70mm film magazines — 160 colour or 200 black-and-white frames of thin-base Kodak stock

HDC / HEDC — Hasselblad (Electric) Data Camera (NASA, silver, Réseau plate, Biogon 60mm):

Silver (aluminium-coloured) finish for thermal stability between full sun and full shadow on the lunar surface (Apollo Lunar Surface Journal); Leitz Auction describes its example as grey paint
Glass Réseau plate fitted at the back of the body close to the film plane, engraved with crosses 10mm apart to a tolerance of 0.002mm, its film side carrying a thin conductive coating against static (ALSJ)
Zeiss Biogon 60mm f/5.6 designed for NASA, later sold commercially (ALSJ); the Leitz Auction example carries a NASA-marked Planar 80mm f/2.8 no. 4867375 instead
Chest-mounted on the suit bracket; no viewfinder, mirror or auxiliary shutter

500EL, chrome: The production camera for the whole run. No list price in any currency was found. The figure of 7,074 is consistent with the serial span 8000–15074 quoted beside it, and a 1969 NASA body numbered TEE 14222 falls inside that span; whether the count includes the NASA cameras is not stated.
HEC — Hasselblad Electric Camera (NASA, black, Planar 80mm): Electric Hasselblads flew for the first time on Apollo 8 in December 1968, when the motor "largely automated the picture taking process" (NASA); William Anders' Earthrise was made with one (English Wikipedia). Hasselblad's own history therefore says the 500EL went to the Moon in 1968, meaning lunar orbit. The black HEC with the 80mm Planar worked inside the lunar module and in the command module on Apollo 11 and on every later Apollo flight. Skylab and the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz camera are described by German Wikipedia as a 500EL/M, so the HEC years here stop with Apollo 17.
HDC / HEDC — Hasselblad (Electric) Data Camera (NASA, silver, Réseau plate, Biogon 60mm): Apollo 11 carried one for the surface and it had never been used in space before (Hasselblad); the body and lens stayed at Tranquility Base and only the magazines came home (NASA). Hasselblad's history counts twelve bodies left on the Moon between Apollo 11 and 17; English Wikipedia says eleven while citing Karlsten (1981), whose sentence — two left by Apollo 17 joining ten others — adds to twelve. Naming is unsettled: Hasselblad writes HDC, Leitz Auction HEDC, NASA "Data Camera" or EDC. A 1969 example, TEE 14222, sold at Leitz Auction for €33,600 including premium against an estimate of €20,000–25,000.

Serial-range notes

8000–15074: The span Japanese Wikipedia gives for the 500EL, with the EL/M starting at 15075 — both from 『クラシックカメラ専科No.4 名機の系譜』 and 『ハッセルブラッドのすべて』, neither consulted directly. The count of 7,074 is exactly this span, so the run appears to have been numbered continuously; no year-by-year breakdown is published.
Two-letter prefix plus E, e.g. TEE 14222: Body and magazine serials carry a two-letter year code read through VHPICTURES (V=1, H=2, P=3, I=4, C=5, T=6, U=7, R=8, E=9, S=0), so TE = 1969, TC = 1965, US = 1970. Q.G. de Bakker adds that up to 1978 an E was appended to the code on EL and EL/M cameras — and the 1969 NASA body TEE 14222 shows it already in place, so on the EL the third letter is not confined to the 1977–79 window seen on other models.
Zeiss lens date codes: C lenses carry a red-ink code inside the rear mount: before 1980 the last two digits are the month and the leading digit(s) plus 1957 the year, so 805 = May 1965 (Hasselblad Historical). A NASA Planar is additionally marked as such.

Specifications

Format: 56×56mm nominal on 120 (12 frames); 6×4.5 with the 16-exposure magazine, 24 frames of 6×6 on 220 with the 24 magazine, and 70 frames on perforated 70mm film with the 70 magazine — the NASA cameras ran thin-base 70mm Kodak stock for 160 colour or 200 black-and-white frames per magazine (Apollo Lunar Surface Journal)
Finder: waist-level, interchangeable (prism and meter-prism finders available)
Shutter: none in body — auxiliary rear flaps; exposure by the lens leaf shutter · Synchro-Compur in each C lens: B, 1s–1/500; the EL/M book warns against the A (automatic) setting at 1/15s or slower, because the motor cycle would cut a long exposure short · flash sync all speeds (leaf shutter) · self-timer
Film advance: Motorised: after each exposure the motor advances the film, cocks the lens shutter and returns the mirror to the viewing position, so the finder image comes back without a hand on the camera; in A the cycle repeats at about one frame a second for as long as the release is held (500EL/M instruction book; camera-wiki gives 1 fps for the EL). Japanese Wikipedia gives the EL/M motor as 11.5 rpm through Delrin reduction gears, running a 70-frame magazine through in 60 seconds. No manual wind on the body.
Back: interchangeable magazines — 12, 16, 16S, 24 (220), 70mm from 1966; A12 from 1970; NASA 70mm magazines for 160–200 frames
Meter: None built in; the 500C's knob-mounted Gossen meter has nowhere to go, the EL having no winding knob
Motor drive: Compatible — Built in, not an accessory: the lower housing carries the motor, the transmission to the upper body, two rechargeable DEAC 5/500 DKZ nickel-cadmium cells (6V, each good for about 1,000 exposures) and a 1.6A slow-blow fuse. Recharge unit I was standard, 14 hours for one cell or 28 for two; a battery case holding five dry cells could charge one cell in the field. Release is by the detachable button, by cord, by the Intervalometer II (2s to 12 min) or by radio — closing the circuit between pins 1 and 3 of the side socket through no more than 6 ohms fires the camera (500EL/M instruction book, whose electrical section describes the shared motor unit; the 500EL's own book was not found online). The original DEAC cells are long out of production and Japanese owners report 006P and AA adapters, the 9V type driving the motor harder than intended (Photo of the Life).
Country: Sweden
Accessories: Recharge unit I (supplied) and Recharge unit III with timer; battery case for five dry cells; spare DEAC 5/500 DKZ cells · Intervalometer II — impulses every 2s to 12min, powered from the camera's cells · Radio release with the radio case on the accessory socket · Release cords for the front sockets, longer cords for the side socket · Double handgrip and tripod quick-coupling on the tripod plate (3/8″ bushing) · Magazines 12, 16, 16S, 24 and 70mm; prism finders, magnifying hood, sports finder and spirit level

Same hoods, prisms and magnifying hood as the 500C; the hood slides off backwards once the magazine is removed (500EL/M instruction book). The screen is fixed on the 500EL — Hasselblad Historical's one-line difference for the EL/M is "screen changeable by user".

Where sources disagree

First

1965 — Hasselblad Historical's model table, Hasselblad's own 500-series history, camera-wiki, Japanese Wikipedia, and the body text of English Wikipedia
1964 — German Wikipedia and the V-system and EL-series sections of English Wikipedia

Better supported: 1965

The 1964 date appears only in uncited list entries; every source that attributes its date gives 1965

Cameras left on the Moon

12 — Hasselblad's history page and PetaPixel
11 — English Wikipedia, citing Karlsten (1981) p.91, whose own wording — two left by Apollo 17 joining ten others — sums to twelve

Better supported: 12

The eleven appears to be an arithmetic slip in the Wikipedia text rather than a competing count

500EL/M succession year (context)

1970 — Hasselblad Historical and German Wikipedia
1971 — camera-wiki, English Wikipedia and Hasselblad's 500-series page
1972 — Japanese Wikipedia, which lists all three years with their sources

Fixes the end of 500EL production only loosely; the serial boundary 15074/15075 is the firmer marker

Lens added to the lunar-surface kit on Apollo 15

250mm — NASA, Still Photography During Apollo
500mm — English Wikipedia

Recorded because both are repeated in accounts of the Data Camera; the 500mm Tele-Tessar was a catalogue C lens by then

What reviewers say

Photo of the Life (HASSELBLAD 500EL/M — 1970年発売 — 重戦車) (blog) — Of the EL/M, the direct successor sharing the motor housing: a heavy tank of a camera, extremely loud, whose one real gain over a manual body is that the motor returns the finder image by itself; 9V 006P adapters overdrive the motor and 4×AA packs suit it better; kept for the collection despite its impracticality, and the author regrets selling the later ELX. via machine translation — corrections welcome

History

Why this camera matters

The first motorised Hasselblad and the camera the Apollo photographs were made with. It put a motor and its NiCd cells under a 500C without changing the mount, the magazines or the finders, so the whole leaf-shutter system carried over; Hasselblad's history traces the idea to Victor Hasselblad's wish for a radio-released bird camera and says few in the company believed in it, while English Wikipedia credits NASA's requests. Stripped of mirror, finder and leather it flew from Apollo 8 in 1968, and with a Réseau plate and a Biogon 60mm it made every photograph on the lunar surface from Apollo 11 to 17, twelve bodies staying behind so that the film could come home. Its civilian run was small — 7,074 per the Japanese references — but the EL line it began stayed in the catalogue until 2006.

The 500EL is a 500C with a motor underneath, and Hasselblad’s own history insists it was more than that: “much more than a motor attached to a 500C camera”, a new design with the electric motor integrated into the body, launched in 1965. Where the idea came from is told two ways. Hasselblad’s page traces it to Victor Hasselblad’s hope for a radio-released camera for bird photography, adding that “many were not confident about this new design”; English Wikipedia says the first motor-driven camera “appeared in 1965 as a result of NASA requests”, NASA having begun flying Hasselblads in 1962. Both can be true — the bird camera is the old ambition, the space agency the customer who made it pay. Hasselblad Historical’s model table gives 1965–1970 and the one-line delta “contains a built-in film winder”; German Wikipedia and two list sections of the English article say 1964, without attribution, and that is the only dispute about the date.

What the motor does is set out most plainly in the 500EL/M instruction book, the successor’s manual, which describes the motor unit the EL introduced (the EL’s own book is not online). The lower housing holds the motor, two rechargeable DEAC 5/500 DKZ nickel-cadmium cells at 6V, each good for about a thousand exposures, and a 1.6A fuse. After an exposure the motor advances the film, cocks the lens shutter and returns the mirror, so the finder image comes back on its own — the nearest thing to an instant-return mirror the leaf-shutter Hasselblads ever had. The selector dial on the right side, where a 500C has its knob, reads AS, A, O, S and SR: normal, pre-release, pre-release repeated, automatic at about one frame a second, and automatic with pre-release. Release is by a detachable front button, by cord, by the Intervalometer II or by radio; the camera fires whenever two pins of the side socket are joined through less than 6 ohms. Otherwise, as English Wikipedia puts it, the camera is the 500C and takes the same lenses, magazines and finders.

The numbers are Japanese. The Japanese Wikipedia list, citing 『クラシックカメラ専科No.4 名機の系譜』 and 『ハッセルブラッドのすべて』, gives serials 8,000 to 15,074 and a production of 7,074, with the EL/M starting at 15,075 — figures that agree with each other exactly and appear in no Western source consulted. A NASA body sold by Leitz Auction, TEE 14222, sits inside that span and was made in 1969 by its date code, TE read through VHPICTURES; the trailing E is the product letter Q.G. de Bakker records on EL and EL/M bodies up to 1978. Dating is otherwise as for any V body. No list price was found in any currency, and the body weight is not published for the EL — camera-wiki gives 1,424g without batteries for the EL/M, which shares the housing.

The space cameras are what the 500EL is remembered for, and the record is better than for most cameras because NASA wrote it down. Electric Hasselblads flew first on Apollo 8 in December 1968 — two of them, with the 80mm Planar and a 250mm Sonnar, seven 70mm magazines of 160 colour or 200 black-and-white frames, the magazines given large locks and the lenses levers for gloved hands (Kitmacher, NASA History). Hasselblad’s history describes the stripping: leather, auxiliary shutter, reflex mirror and viewfinder off, the metal painted matte black. That is the HEC, the Hasselblad Electric Camera. Apollo 11 carried three 500ELs, two of them HECs and the third the Data Camera: silver for thermal stability, a Biogon 60mm f/5.6 designed for NASA, and a glass Réseau plate close to the film plane engraved with crosses 10mm apart to 0.002mm and coated on the film side to bleed off static (Apollo Lunar Surface Journal). Hasselblad calls it the HDC, Leitz Auction the HEDC, NASA documents the Data Camera or EDC; Leitz says about fifty were made, and no other figure exists. Twelve bodies were left on the Moon between Apollo 11 and 17 by Hasselblad’s count; English Wikipedia says eleven while citing Karlsten, whose sentence adds up to twelve. What was added to the surface kit on Apollo 15 is given as a 250mm by NASA and a 500mm by Wikipedia.

The line ran on after the EL stopped: the EL/M with its user-changeable screen in 1970, 1971 or 1972 depending on the source, the ELX with TTL flash in 1984, the 553ELX on AA cells, the 555ELD with databus contacts until 2006, and the photogrammetric MK70 grown from the EL/M and the NASA work (English Wikipedia). What remains open: whether the 7,074 includes the NASA bodies; how many HECs were built at all; the EL’s own weight and price; whether any late 500EL left the factory with the clip-in screen, as Japanese Wikipedia says; and when in 1965 the camera was shown — which only Nordin’s tables are likely to settle.

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 500EL — Hasselblad 500 EL, the Electric Camera, at Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex — Maksym Kozlenko, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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 $27 across 7 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $19–$28). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 3 days: unchanged from $27.

By day

Date	Median	Middle half	Listings
2026-09-11	$27	$19–$28	7
2026-09-09	$27	$19–$28	7
2026-09-06	$27	$19–$28	7

Asking prices from the listings scanned, not sales; junk-flagged rows and auction lots excluded; other currencies are not converted.

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✮ Hasselblad 500 EL Kamerabody – Ser.-Nr. TUE 11534 –Inkl. Lichtschacht.Bastler — €199.99 · eBay junk / for parts
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Hasselblad 500EL 553ELM 500ELX Cable Shutter Release 46063 FK30 — $27.00 · eBay
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Hasselblad 500 EL — DKK 2,500.00 · One Of Many Cameras
Hasselblad 500 EL Body Only - Untested - For Parts — £100.00 · eBay junk / for parts

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