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

Hasselblad 501C

Hasselblad · Hasselblad V mount · 56.5×56.5mm nominal (Hasselblad quotes 6×6cm max. image size); 6×4.5 via the A16 magazine, 24 exposures of 220 via the A24, and the manual notes rear-mounted format masks for 4.5×6 and a 27×55mm panoramic frame · 1994

Also known as: Hasselblad 501 C · Hasselblad 501-C · 501C · Hasselblad 501C black · Hasselblad 501C kit · Hasselblad 501C with 80mm Planar C · Hasselblad 501C 11045 · ハッセルブラッド 501C · ハッセル 501C

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
501C, black, kit with Planar C 2,8/80 and A12 (cat. no. 11045) Hasselblad V 1994–1997 — No production total or serial block is published by any source consulted; Nordin's compendia are the place to look
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Black body, black kit lens and black A12 — the whole outfit is black, unlike the chrome-standard 500C/M
  • Wide, flat shutter release button; no T-lock on the release (Jo Geier)
  • No cocked/released indicator window on the body (Hasselblad Historical; camera-dealer descriptions)
  • Winding crank is fixed — a 500C/M's crank or knob pulls off, a 501C's does not
  • Acute-Matte screen fitted from the factory; Hasselblad Historical specifies Acute Matte D, the manual says only 'Acute-Matte'
  • Standard mirror — vignetting of the finder image with lenses longer than about 100mm is normal, unlike the 501CM/503CW with the Gliding Mirror System
  • Kit lens: Planar C 2,8/80 T* in the black CF-style barrel with rubber focusing grip and bayonet-60 filter mount, but no EV interlock button and no F shutter setting

501C, black, kit with Planar C 2,8/80 and A12 (cat. no. 11045):

  • Black finish only — no chrome 501C was catalogued (Hasselblad Historical; manual: 'available in black only')
  • Model plate reads 501C on the front left of the body, below the winding crank side
  • Wide, flat shutter release button in place of the small round button of the 500C/M
  • No cocked/released ('body ready') signal window beside the winding crank
  • Winding crank fixed to the body — it does not detach, so the exposure-meter knob and the plain knob of the 500C/M cannot be fitted
  • Supplied lens is a black Planar C 2,8/80 T* with the CF-style barrel and bayonet-60 filter mount but no EV interlock and no F setting
  • Supplied magazine is a black A12 (cat. no. 30147)

Serial-range notes

two-digit product prefix + two letters + digits (e.g. 10EI…)
Hasselblad body serials from 1990 carry a numeric product-type prefix, then two letters giving the year via VHPICTURES (V=1 H=2 P=3 I=4 C=5 T=6 U=7 R=8 E=9 S=0), then the running number. A 501C therefore reads EI (1994), EC (1995), ET (1996) or EU (1997) after the prefix. Hasselblad Historical says the prefix 'provides no useful information to someone holding the item'; which two-digit prefix the 501C carried is not stated by any source consulted. The A12 magazine and the lens carry their own codes — the Zeiss lens has a red-ink stamp inside the rear mount, from 1980 two reversed year digits and a month letter (A = January), so a kit lens should read 49x–79x.

Specifications

Format
56.5×56.5mm nominal (Hasselblad quotes 6×6cm max. image size); 6×4.5 via the A16 magazine, 24 exposures of 220 via the A24, and the manual notes rear-mounted format masks for 4.5×6 and a 27×55mm panoramic frame
Finder
waist-level, interchangeable (prism and meter-prism finders available)
Shutter
none in body — auxiliary rear flaps; exposure by the lens leaf shutter · 1s–1/500 and B, set on the lens (Synchro-Compur in the supplied Planar C 80) · flash sync all speeds (leaf shutter); PC terminal on the lens, no TTL/OTF flash metering in the body · no self-timer
Film advance
Single-turn folding crank, fixed to the body; one revolution advances the film, cocks the lens shutter and lowers the mirror. Pre-release lever lifts the mirror, closes the lens shutter and opens the auxiliary shutter ahead of the exposure.
Back
interchangeable magazines — A12, A16, A24, 70mm shown on the 501C system chart; Polaroid backs and the earlier 12/16/24 magazines also fit. Kit magazine: black A12, cat. no. 30147.
Meter
none built in; PME-series meter prisms couple only by transferring an EV reading to the lens
Motor drive
Not compatible — No winder coupling. The 503CXi introduced a Winder CW connection in the same year (Hasselblad Historical) and the 501C did without it — one of the cost differences that made it the entry model.
Weight
600 g
Dimensions
91 wide × 114 deep × 110 high with the hood closed, 165 high with the hood open (manual drawing, body only); 180 × 114 × 110 with Planar C 80 and A12 fitted mm
Country
Sweden
Original price
About $2,200 (United States) for the complete kit in 1994 — a forum recollection, not a published list price; no Swedish or Japanese list price found
Accessories
Prism finders PM5, PM90 and meter prism PME51; RM-2 magnifying hood (501C system chart) · Magazines A12, A16, A24 and 70mm; Polaroid backs · Extension tubes 8, 16, 32 and 56 and the variable tube 64–85; automatic bellows · Mutar 2×, PC-Mutar 1.4× and Converter 2XE · Proshade 6093T; bayonet-60, -70 and -93 filters, Softars and Proxars · Format masks for 4.5×6 and the 27×55mm panoramic frame, fitted to the rear of the body

Folding focusing hood with a 4.5× magnifier, interchangeable with the PM5 and PM90 prisms, the PME51 meter prism and the RM-2 magnifying hood; the manual gives an EV correction table because the Acute-Matte screen reads a stop brighter than ground glass to the older PME meter prism. The screen is user-changeable and the manual credits its design to Minolta.

Where sources disagree

Weight (grams)
  • 600 g body only — Hasselblad 501C instruction manual, technical specification page
  • 505 g body only with focusing screen — Kamerastore product description

Better supported: 600 g

The manual is the manufacturer's figure and matches its 1,475 g for body, Planar C 80 and A12; how Kamerastore weighed its example is not stated.

Focusing screen
  • Acute Matte D — Hasselblad Historical model table
  • Acute-Matte (no D) — Hasselblad 501C instruction manual, 1994

Dealers list the 42204 Acute Matte D screen as the 501C's; whether every 501C left the factory with a D-marked screen is not settled by the manual.

Mirror
  • Standard mirror, no Gliding Mirror System — Hasselblad Historical; Jo Geier; Hasselblad's own history, which introduces the new mirror with the 501CM
  • Gliding mirror system reducing vignetting — Matt Osborne (mrleica.com), listing 501C improvements over the 500C/M

Better supported: Standard mirror

The manufacturer's history and the model table agree that the GMS arrived with the 503CW (1996) and 501CM (1997).

What reviewers say

History

The 501C was the 500C/M’s replacement, and the second time Hasselblad had turned its manual 6×6 body into a kit. Hasselblad Historical’s model table runs the 500C/M from 1970 to 1994 and notes that between 1990 and 1992 it was sold only as the 500 Classic — body, 80mm lens and A12 together — before becoming available bare again in 1992. Two years later the same idea returned for good: the table has the 501C from 1994 to 1997, “only available as a kit, with 80 mm C-Planar. Only in black.” The instruction manual, copyright 1994 Victor Hasselblad AB, puts the whole outfit under one catalogue number, 11045: body, focusing hood, Acute-Matte screen, strap, Planar C 2,8/80 with cap and a black A12 magazine, cat. no. 30147. Hasselblad’s own history page gives the order of the year as the 503CXi first, then the 501C.

What changed is a short list, and Hasselblad Historical gives it with plus and minus signs. Added: a new, wider shutter release button and the Acute Matte D screen. Removed: the cocked/released “body ready” indicator window, and the detachable transport crank — the 501C’s crank is fixed, so the 500C/M’s meter knob and plain knob cannot be fitted, a point Kyle M’s review makes from ownership. Jo Geier’s model guide adds that the release lost its T-lock and that the body has no Gliding Mirror System. Underneath, the manual describes the same mechanism as every 500-series body since 1957: an aluminium alloy shell cast in one piece, a single-turn crank that advances the film and cocks the lens shutter, a pre-release lever that lifts the mirror, closes the lens shutter and opens the two-blind auxiliary shutter, and a screen-brightness table for the PME meter prism because the Acute-Matte reads a stop brighter than ground glass. Weight is given as 600 g for the body and 1,475 g with lens and magazine; Kamerastore’s 505 g for a body with screen is the one dissenting figure.

The camera sat below two other bodies at once. The 503CX (1988–94) had brought TTL/OTF flash metering and the Palpas anti-reflection lining, and the 503CXi of 1994 added a winder coupling (Hasselblad Historical). The 501C had none of these — the manual’s flash section relies on the PC terminal of the lens and its specification lists manual advance only — and Vintage Technology Archive’s summary, “identical specifications to the 503CX but lacks TTL flash metering and the cocked/released window”, is the neatest description of where it stood. Whether the 501C body carries the Palpas lining is not stated by Hasselblad Historical or the manual; Matt Osborne’s review says it does, and also credits it with a gliding mirror, which the manufacturer’s history reserves for the 503CW and 501CM.

The lens is the odd part of the kit. The manual calls it “Planar C 2,8/80 mm” and says the 501C takes C and CF lenses, but the lens supplied is not the 1957–82 C Planar: KEH catalogues it as a “C T* Late” with a bayonet-60 filter mount, Emulsive’s V-system guide calls it “a slightly modified CF lens” with some features removed but identical optics, and Jo Geier notes it has no F setting, so it cannot be used on the 2000-series focal-plane bodies. Dealers describe the removed feature as the EV interlock between the shutter-speed and aperture rings; Japanese dealers list it as the “Planar 80mm New”. Zeiss’s data sheets give the CF Planar 80 as seven elements in five groups, which is what this barrel holds.

Price and numbers are the gaps. A Photrio recollection puts the 1994 American price of the kit at about $2,200; no list price in kronor, dollars or yen has been found in a primary source. Production totals and serial blocks are not published anywhere consulted — Nordin’s two compendia are where they would be — and which two-digit product prefix precedes the EI/EC/ET/EU year letters on a 501C body is unstated. In 1997 the 501CM took over with the gliding mirror, a choice of chrome or black and a bare-body option (Hasselblad Historical), and the 501C’s three-year run ended.

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 501C
Hasselblad 501C — Robert Couse-Baker from Sacramento, California, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
Hasselblad 501C
Shot on a Hasselblad 501C (Leland Francisco) — Leland Francisco, 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 $2,900 across 14 fixed-price listings on 2026-09-11 (middle half $2,100–$3,500). Tracked since 2026-09-06, 2 days: unchanged from $2,900.

By day
DateMedianMiddle halfListings
2026-09-11$2,900$2,100–$3,50014
2026-09-06$2,900$2,100–$3,50014

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

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Listings updated 2026-09-11. Links go to the shop or marketplace that carries the item.

Related: Hasselblad 500 Classic · Hasselblad 500C/M · Hasselblad 501CM · Hasselblad 503CW · Hasselblad 503CX · Hasselblad 503CXi

Lenses for this body: Distagon 50mm f/4 · Makro-Planar 120mm f/4 · Planar 80mm f/2.8 · S-Planar / Makro-Planar 135mm f/5.6 (bellows) · Sonnar 150mm f/4 · Sonnar 180mm f/4 · Sonnar 250mm f/5.6 · Sonnar Superachromat 250mm f/5.6 · Tele-Apotessar 500mm f/8 · Tele-Superachromat 350mm f/5.6 IF · Tele-Tessar 350mm f/5.6 · Tele-Tessar 500mm f/8 · Tessar 160mm f/4.8

Sources (15)

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.