What kind of film was used to document the Apollo Moon missions?

by roofiejuice

Did the astronauts use specially produced photographic film or were they shooting commercially availiable film stocks? How was storage of film cartriages handled during the mission? Were their cameras modified to fit the mission needs, and did the astronauts recieve special photography training to aid them in documenting the missions?

jeffbell

The film was 70mm "medium format" Hasselblad film stock. The film itself was higher end of commercially available, but there were extensive modification to the cameras so that they could tolerate vacuum.

One problem was that pressure helmets made it very difficult to sight through a view finder, so they got rid of it. All the photos were "shoot-from-the-hip", and they used a wide angle lens to make the shot framing more forgiving.

There is a nice write-up including pictures of the film canisters and discussions of the photo training the astronauts received at http://sterileeye.com/2009/07/23/the-apollo-11-hasselblad-cameras/