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

Hasselblad ArcBody

Hasselblad · Hasselblad V mount · 6×6cm on 120 with the A12 magazine; 6×4.5 with the A16/A16S; 220 via A24; 70mm double-perforated and Polaroid instant film via the corresponding V-system backs. The manual lists all of these as compatible. · 1997

Also known as: Hasselblad ArcBody · Hasselblad Arcbody · Hasselblad Arc Body · ArcBody 17015 · Hasselblad ARCBODY · ハッセルブラッド アークボディ

Variants & identification

Variant Mount Years Serial ranges Production
ArcBody (17015 body; 17511 kit with 45mm) Hasselblad V 1997–2001 — No published figure. Nordin's Hasselblad Compendium (2011) is the place a production or serial block would appear; none has been located online.
  1. Movements per the manual: rear-standard shift about 28mm downward from zero (upward by inverting the camera on the 47033 inverter mount), tilt approximately ±15°. Vignetting depends on the combination — the manual's example is that the 35mm at 15mm shift and +7° tilt is clear, while 20mm shift at the same tilt vignettes (f/16, infinity).
  2. The manual gives the body weight as 550 g; Kamerastore's listing gives 513 g. See disputed.
How to tell them apart (expand)
  • Bellows technical body with a fixed front standard and a rear standard that shifts and tilts — the FlexBody is the same idea with a V bayonet and a shorter bellows; the ArcBody's lenses are Rodenstock, in black focusing mounts with an aperture lever and a shutter-speed ring
  • Lens front bayonet is common to all three lenses so the single 47057 centre filter and the 57695 filter holder (M77 / 100×100 and 100×150mm) fit each
  • Focusing-screen adapter has a slot for correction slides; the slides are labelled for the wide lenses (S/M/L) or the 75 (10°, 20°)

ArcBody (17015 body; 17511 kit with 45mm):

  • Flat black body about 60mm deep with a natural-fabric bellows between a fixed lens standard and a shifting, tilting rear standard; three spirit levels built in
  • Red shift-control locking levers with a millimetre shift scale; red tilt-control locking levers with a degree scale (manual parts list)
  • No shutter release on the body — a cable-release port only (manual, item 57689)
  • Front bayonet resembles the V bayonet but carries no shutter-cocking or release coupling; the manual states that only Rodenstock lenses in the Hasselblad bayonet fitting can be used
  • Rear standard takes any V-system magazine or the 41057 focusing-screen adapter with its Acute-Matte D screen and slot for correction slides
  • 'MADE IN SWEDEN' on the body (manual illustration)

Serial-range notes

two-letter year code (VHPICTURES: V=1 H=2 P=3 I=4 C=5 T=6 U=7 R=8 E=9 S=0) preceded from 1990 by a numeric product prefix
Hasselblad Historical's dating page gives the rule for all bodies of this period — the first two letters after the numeric prefix are the year, so 'ER' reads 1998. No ArcBody-specific serial block has been published.

Specifications

Format
6×6cm on 120 with the A12 magazine; 6×4.5 with the A16/A16S; 220 via A24; 70mm double-perforated and Polaroid instant film via the corresponding V-system backs. The manual lists all of these as compatible.
Finder
removable focusing-screen adapter (41057) with Acute-Matte D screen, used in place of the magazine and swapped for it before exposure; the RMfx reflex viewfinder (47070) is the recommended hood, and all V-system hoods and prism finders (metered or not) fit
Shutter
none in body — exposure by the leaf shutter in each Rodenstock lens; the body has an open/close lever for viewing on the lens, not a mirror · 1–1/500 s, B (dealer descriptions of the Copal 0 shutters; the manual gives no speed table) · flash sync all speeds (leaf shutter), via a sync terminal on each lens
Film advance
manual, by a winding crank on the body that drives the magazine; one full turn advances one frame and locks (manual). No cocking linkage — the lens shutter is wound by its own lever.
Back
interchangeable V-system magazines — A12, A16, A16S, A24, 70mm and Polaroid backs — alternating with the 41057 focusing-screen adapter on the same supports and hooks
Meter
none in body; metering by a meter-prism finder on the focusing-screen adapter (manual)
Motor drive
Not compatible — No motor provision; the camera is tripod-only and released by cable.
Weight
550 g
Dimensions
60 × 145 × 160 (L × W × H, body only, per the manual) mm
Country
Sweden
Accessories
41057 Focusing screen adapter standard (Acute-Matte D screen; holds correction slides and finders) · 47003 / 47007 / 47011 Correction slides S, M, L (for the 35 and 45) · 72413 / 72415 Correction slides 10° and 20°; 72411 stray-light protection slide (for the 75) · 47070 Reflex viewfinder RMfx (recommended; upright, laterally correct image) · 47057 Centre filter (+2 EV) and 47018 centre-filter holder; 57695 filter holder for M77 and 100mm gelatin/resin filters · 47024 Lens shade 35/45; 47027 Lens shade 75 · 47040 / 47045 / 47049 Extension tubes ArcBody 8, 16 and 26mm · 47033 Camera inverter mount (for upward shift) · 57689 Cable release; 57692 front cover; 51070 rear cover MultiControl; 72422 stray-light mask; 58480 carrying case

The screen brightens under movements with wedge-type 'correction slides' — small, medium and large for the 35 and 45 (shift up to ~5, 5–15 and over 15mm), 10° and 20° for the 75 (tilt). The manual describes the screen system as patent pending.

Where sources disagree

Last
  • 2001 (Hasselblad Historical model table; Wikipedia)
  • March 2001 (Luminous Landscape, 'after a distribution life of only a few years')
  • 2002 (camera-wiki.org, which also gives 1998 as the first year)

Better supported: 2001 (Hasselblad Historical model table; Wikipedia)

Hasselblad Historical's table is compiled from Nordin's Compendium and dates the FlexBody 1995–2003 and the ArcBody 1997–2001; camera-wiki's 1998–2002 is one year later at both ends and may record deliveries rather than announcement.

Weight (grams)
  • 550 g body only (Hasselblad ArcBody instruction manual, technical specifications)
  • 513 g (Kamerastore product listing)

Better supported: 550 g body only (Hasselblad ArcBody instruction manual, technical specifications)

What reviewers say

History

The ArcBody was the second of two bellows bodies Hasselblad built for the V system in the 1990s. The FlexBody of 1995 had put a tilting, shifting rear standard behind an ordinary V bayonet, so that any CF lens could be used with movements — but a retrofocus 6×6 wide-angle throws an image circle barely larger than the frame, and Japanese Wikipedia’s account has the FlexBody working best with 100–150mm lenses for product photography. The ArcBody, introduced in 1997 according to Hasselblad Historical’s model table, kept the body concept and abandoned the V lens mount at the front. Its manual, copyright 1997 by Victor Hasselblad AB, describes it as “a broadening of the revolutionary thinking that created the Hasselblad FlexBody” and lists three interchangeable lenses, all from Rodenstock in Munich: the Apo-Grandagon 4.5/35, the Apo-Grandagon 4.5/45 and the Grandagon-N 4.5/75.

Those are large-format designs. The Apo-Grandagon 35 and 45 are Rodenstock’s 6×9 wide-angles, eight elements in four groups per Wikipedia’s Hasselblad lens list; B&H gives the 35’s image circle as 125mm in its large-format form, against a 6×6 diagonal of about 79mm. For the ArcBody they were supplied in black Rodenstock focusing mounts with a distance and depth-of-field scale, an aperture lever, a shutter-speed ring, an open/close lever for viewing and a Hasselblad-pattern bayonet at the rear. Dealers describe the shutters as Copal 0 with speeds of 1–1/500 s; the manual does not tabulate speeds but does state flash synchronization at every speed. The manual also states that only Rodenstock lenses in the Hasselblad bayonet fitting can be used — the bayonet looks like a V mount but has no cocking or release coupling, as a Medium Format Forum thread on the mount observes, so no Zeiss lens fits and no ArcBody lens fits a 500-series body.

The movements are all on the rear standard. The manual’s specification gives shift of up to 28mm and tilt of about ±15°, both vertical; shift is downward from zero, and to shift upward the whole camera is inverted on the 47033 inverter mount. The bellows, described as patented, permits combinations, but the manual’s vignetting chart draws limits — with the 35mm, 15mm of shift plus 7° of tilt is clear at f/16 and infinity while 20mm plus 7° is not. Viewing is by a removable focusing-screen adapter carrying an Acute-Matte D screen (a footnote credits Minolta with the screen), which sits where the magazine sits and is exchanged for it before exposure. Because the screen darkens under movement, Hasselblad supplied wedge-type “correction slides” — S, M and L for the two wide lenses, 10° and 20° for the 75 — that slot into the adapter; the system is marked patent pending. The RMfx reflex finder is the recommended hood, and all V-system prisms fit. Michael Reichmann’s Luminous Landscape account records the practical cost: tripod-only working, an f/4.5 lens that behaves like about f/25 with the mandatory centre filter, and an RMfx that cannot be turned when the camera is on its side for horizontal shift.

The body itself is a 550 g (manual; Kamerastore says 513 g) black casting 60mm deep with three spirit levels, a film-winding crank that drives the magazine, and no release button — exposure is by cable release into the lens. Two packages were catalogued: the ArcBody complete (17015) with adapter, slides, cable release, filter holders and covers, and the ArcBody Kit (17511) adding the 45mm lens, centre filter and RMfx. Hasselblad Historical’s table, which cites Nordin’s Compendium, ends production in 2001; Luminous Landscape gives March 2001; camera-wiki has 1998–2002. Wildi’s Hasselblad Manual (6th ed., 2003) still devotes its chapter 15 to operating both bodies.

Identification is not difficult, since there is one model and no cosmetic change is recorded. What remains unknown is nearly everything commercial: no launch price in any currency has been found, no production quantity has been published, and no designer is named in any source consulted. Whether the ArcBody lens cells are optically identical to the Copal-shuttered large-format Apo-Grandagons, or were recomputed for the shorter register, is asserted both ways in forum discussion and stated by no primary source. The serial-number format follows the general 1990s rule on Hasselblad Historical’s dating page — a numeric product prefix followed by a two-letter year code — but no ArcBody-specific block has been located.

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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

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Live listings

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Related: Hasselblad FlexBody

Lenses for this body: Apo-Grandagon 35mm f/4.5 (ArcBody) · Apo-Grandagon 45mm f/4.5 (ArcBody) · Grandagon-N 75mm f/4.5 (ArcBody)

Sources (14)

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.