The V system is unusual in that the lens is where the shutter lives, so a body is a box and the money is in the glass. The entry picks are the pieces every studio owned; the value picks are what studios are now selling off; the collector picks are the fragile beginnings and the fast lens that needs a particular body. Every C-system lens fits every 500-series body, and the pages say which lenses need the 2000 or 200 series instead.
Stories · Buyer's guides · Hasselblad V
Where to start with the Hasselblad V system
The 80mm everyone starts with, the 150mm that is the bargain of the set, and the 1600F that began it.
Lenses
Entry level — the cheapest way in that is still the real thing
Planar 80mm f/2.8
The standard lens of the system for fifty years, in chrome C, black C, CF, CB and CFE barrels, all on one page. The lens most bodies were sold with, and the one to have if you have one; buy on the shutter and the condition of the barrel, not the badge.
Asking today: around $860 (middle half $700–$1,500) — median of 41 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Distagon 50mm f/4 .
Best value — the most lens or camera for the money
Sonnar 150mm f/4
The portrait lens of the V system and the cheapest of the Zeiss set, because Hasselblad sold so many to wedding photographers. A Sonnar of five elements that draws like the pre-war originals, in the same barrels as the 80mm.
Asking today: around $350 (middle half $230–$480) — median of 53 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Distagon 50mm f/4 .
Collector level — the one the reference books are about
Planar 110mm f/2
The fastest lens Zeiss made for the system, for the focal-plane-shutter 2000 and 200 series bodies only — it will not work on a 500-series body, and the page says so. An f/2 on 6×6 is a look nothing else gives, and few were made.
Asking today: around $3,400 (middle half $3,000–$4,200) — median of 9 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Distagon 50mm f/4 .
Bodies
Entry level — the cheapest way in that is still the real thing
Hasselblad 500C
The 1957 body that settled the system: a leaf shutter in the lens, a waist-level finder, and a back that comes off mid-roll. Thirteen years of production and a price now below any other way into 6×6 with this glass.
Asking today: around $1,900 (middle half $1,200–$2,000) — median of 17 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Hasselblad 500C/M .
Best value — the most lens or camera for the money
Hasselblad 553ELX
A 500-series body with a motor drive built in, takes every C-system lens and back, and sells for a fraction of a 503CW because studios bought them by the dozen and are selling them the same way. Heavier, and the batteries are still made.
Asking today: around $700 (middle half $420–$1,000) — median of 12 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-11
Also consider Hasselblad 500C/M .
Collector level — the one the reference books are about
Hasselblad 1600F
Victor Hasselblad's first civilian camera, from 1948, with a stainless-steel focal-plane shutter to 1/1600 that the factory could not make reliable. Few were made and fewer work; the 1000F that followed is on its own page.
Asking today: around $1,500 (middle half $430–$2,300) — median of 4 fixed-price USD listings on 2026-09-08
Also consider Hasselblad SWC .
The picks and the reasons are editorial and AI-written from the family pages, which say where each claim comes from. The prices are read from the listings I scan on the day the page was built — a median of a handful of asking prices, not a valuation, and not what anything sold for. Updated 2026-09-07.