Rollei 35 S
 

Hi all... anyone have any thoughts on these little Rollei's?...

Cheers all,

Jim

From what I have heard they are little jewels, especially the S model with the better Sonnar lens. One of the smallest 35mm cameras ever (sadly trumped by the Minox 35 to which they are often compared to), they carry both great optics and solid metal construction, unlike the Makrolon on the Minox. Like the Minox it has a cult following as a result, though the Rollei is more popular because of its quirky, retro, mechanical look.

I would love to own one in the future, 35mm subminiatures are fabulous cameras because of their portability and the fact you tend to go relatively unnoticed 'there goes another stupid tourist with their trashy camera'-when in fact you are taking pin-sharp, high resolution images. A camera like the Rollei can very easily become a talking point. Do expect to pay a premium because of their collector value.

Thanks for a great reply Alex... I am bidding for one at the moment... so if it goes cheap I will post some results soon : )

Good luck with that, I would love to see what a Rollei is capable of producing in comparison to my Minox 35.

Well thats a bit different Jim.

A couple of thoughts - Most of your stuff is fairly wide angle and wide open aperture. That camera has a 40mm lens and no rangefinder. Even buying a seperate rangefinder to solve that little problem will slow the picture taking process down a bit.

Don

I've just been out bid for my 15 pound limit hehe... so I'll not be getting this one : )

I like the idea of a 40mm and a 80mm... I love making portraits so much... I may be looking at getting an old Bronica or a Mamiya kit with a 70mm or an 80mm lens just for film portraits... I love my d200... and digital sure is in expensive but film really brought out another kind of relationship with making and finding a moment... its a more subtle way of finding and getting a shot I think and for me it suited really well... : )

Hi Don!!! Hope all is really great with you my friend - hope to pop over soon : )

Jim,

Before getting any new toys just buy a roll of 120 film and come over. I have a Yashicamat 124G that you can try for a trial of medium format. ;)

In focal length terms the standard lens on full frame 35mm is 50mm. On 6 x 4.5 it is 75mm and on 6 x 6 it is 80mm. Up to now you have been playing quite a bit wider so that may affect your style.

Don

Oh great idea!!! I have some film here!!!... will call in the week Don : )

Some of Daves old stock ? :D :D

That will be cool. :) Rainy day week so we will be around and I am not doing anything in the workshop that cannot be put down.

I also have a different super compact 35mm, the Olympus XA, that you can check out. At least that has a coupled rangefinder.

Don

Given your style of photography Jim, I think Don's suggestion of the XA is a better bet. I'm sure you've found this link already:
http://www.ph.utexas.edu/~yue/misc/rangfndr.html The Rollei stuff is about 3/4 of the way down. Note in particular "To call the Rollei 35's design eccentric, is an under statement."

Having spent many pleasurable hours studying your work over the time you've been a member, I think the non-coupled rangefinder and subsequent dial-in the distance on the focus ring really would hamper your style of shooting.

Duncan

Really the Rollei I was hoping to use once or twice and sell on for a bit of a profit : )... I had a bid in for 20 pounds and I had heard that they sell for quite a bit more!!!... but now I have been out bid!... I do hope to use a medium format for sure... especially for portraits... a Mamiya 645 or a Bronica... I have a link to a site through a friend in the US and I could get a full kit for... 90 pounds... so I am thinking of saving for a few months and maybe making the investment... I really have fallen for using film in a big way!!!... and I love the idea of a Nikon F2... I like the Pentax ME... but i'd like a lot more control over the shots... and thats just Auto... but... wow... I LOVE the look of film... it just feels more natural and... the moment is more... of the moment (I know its NOT... but it FEELS as though it is hehe!) and I like waiting to see the results!!!

Thank you all for your great advice on the Rollei...

There's loads of Rollei 35 at work which have suffered the same fate....The photographer forgets to wind-on, then pushes the lens assembly back into the body, thus breaking the mechanism. Great little cameras, suprisingly heavy tho. I think most user examples at work go for around £50-60 in the shop.
I got an XA with matched flash for 99p on ebay. I've had some really sharp results from it. A nice little camera....The 'non zoom' 35mm film Mju's have sharp lenses too.

It's scarey how medium format film gear has plumeted in price. I remember lusting after kit whilst at uni in the early 90s....and the same stuff is now selling for less than a DSLR body only.

Thanks for the tip Joe : )

In terms of using it once or twice then selling for a few pennies profit, I'm very much of like mind....
As some will know here, before I switched to mainly shooting digi I was using Contax RTS kit and also had a Nikon F5. Once i realised the RTS system was quite collectable I sold it and made enough to pay for a D1 system (now updated to D2)....The F5 followed afterwards. The requirement for 8fps action capability from the F5 was satified by the D2h without the associated film stock costs.
I've since tried a number of other Nikon film bodies. (the Nikkorex F is on ebay as I type, F50,55, F70, F80 and F90x all tried, but those felt TOO much like a digi body LOL).....but have happily settled for an F301. VERY cheap S/H at the mo (so easily justified for occasional film use), incredibly underated as a camera with as much manual as I want or fully auto should I want. I would highly recommend it to anyone (mines got the cheaper AAA battery baseplate, but if you see one with the more desirable AA baseplate, go for it!)
The bonus is most of my lenses used with the D2 system will fit staight onto the F301 (tho I have a soft spot for using older lenses on digi)

So do you want medium format, 35mm, SLR, rangefinder, compact...let the grainy film devil in the back of your head take over :P

There's never been a better time to get some Film camera bargains....lots out there

Hehe... ALL of the above ; ) an F2 Nikon for sure and a Mamiya M645 1000s as soon as I can : D

find an F2as (the one with the later slightly more reliable LED photomic head)......and you'll be hooked!

Thats exactly the one I am looking for Joe :)

COOL!!! :)

......and with a motordrive attached it is one serious hardcore bit of kit (tho pretty brutal without too!)

Nikon F2 is a chunky old workhorse...

Though even chunkier is the Zenit-B, Soviet approach to an SLR camera.
Whole body made out of one piece of metal (pig iron presumably), built with the same philosophy that spawned the AK47 and the T-34 ;-)

...or useful as a door stop in a camera shop! (tho ours is a Zenit E)



truely dreadful cameras

Sounds like I'm going to have to frisk you before you leave Jim. :D :D :D

Don

Hehe... that made me giggle Don ;)

Re Rollei 35
 

Hi

OK great lens, but in reality a useless camera the focus is guesswork using a scale only and you estimate the distance, defeats the good lens. There are far better cameras out there for less, besides isn't film too limiting now.

Just my thoughts, i bought one and could not find a use for it. Better of with a Leica rangefinder!!!!

regards

John

You are being too harsh. A lot of good cameras are scale focus, and guessing distances is a skill that isn't hard to acquire (even I can do it). You are obviously a little too lazy and you are used to AF far too much. Cameras like the Rollei require discipline!

Saying you'd be better off with a Leica RF is a little silly considering the massive difference in price between the two. I have a Minox 35, which is scale focus and compact like the Rollei, with a great lens as well. It's my take-everywhere camera when I can't be arsed to lug an SLR around. Very unintrusive and it has never let me down. It took me a roll of film to perfect the scale focus but like I say once you get the hang of it it feels totally natural.

Alex

Hi
 

I fully understand your view about the Rol, but after using one it is now past its sell by date too many things can go wrong with it and at wide open the focus guess is not too cool especially on a moving subject slow or otherwise.

it is a great camera to hold and is very small, but if you want a small camera with great lens thens there are others. i used the Leica as an example yes there is a price difference. it is als more reliable and metering / focus is spot on.

i have also used the Hexar a little bigger, but very sharp. Don't forget that if you pop the lens in at the wrong time or dust/sand gets onto the lens shaft, you will indeed be shafted!!!

This is only my opinion, i sold mine before it gave up.

Yes you are perfectly correct i am lazy about focussing, i was one of the first to use auto focus, even had an auto focus contax (heap of crap it was) the film plane moved to focus. the way i see things is that the camera can focus quicker in most light that anybody can.

there is no point in having an exceptional photo that is soft!


regards

from lazy John

Maybe you got a dodgy one. A lot of cameras do go wrong at that age but personally I have never had an old camera with a dodgy lightmeter. I'm sure that if you had a good working example you'd perhaps think differently, I've never previously heard about dodgy exposure from a Rollei. With colour print film the exposure latitude is nice and wide so I don't think a fully working example would ever give you a bad exposure.

As regards focus you know it's not the camera's fault but the squidgy organic bit behind it that is to blame :P

Again you can't compare the Leica or a Hexar to the likes of the Rollei 35, which was intended more as a casual snapshooter than gives great results, or as as a camera to complement a Leica M/Hexar/SLR system. As a stand-alone camera small ones like the Rollei aren't great, but as an auxiliary to a bigger, higher-quality system they are brilliant. That said, my little Minox has never let me down. I usually use slightly too-fast film so I can stop it down to f 8 -16, that way the focus is a lot more forgiving and the lens is at optimum sharpness.

If you can find an Olympus 35SP with a working lightmeter, can you please let me know. It would allow me to fix mine. Hens teeth are common in comparison.

Went for way too much money in the end. The 35SP I bought was advertised as "working". Needle moving and needle giving correct result are two different things.

Unfair to pick out the Oly 35 SP, the dual metering modes (great if they worked) were some of the least reliable among old cameras.

A camera is degigned to take picture no matter who made it each manufacturer makes a turky once in a while. Contax made one with there autofocus system that only lasted a very short while i understood their reasoning, but the end product was bad.

Rolei made slr's their battery was unreliable and when it went down you were stuffed, far better to use AA's.

just accept the 35s has had its day.

John

Don't judge a camera on the grounds of one, faulty example that you can't use correctly. ;-) The 35S has a cult following for a reason, at the time it was the smallest 35mm camera, and the Zeiss Sonnar 40mm f2.8 lens is really stunning once you use it properly. Thus it combined excellent construction quality (most reports claim them to be very reliable), great optical quality and a tiny package. What's not to like? It could very easily compete today!

I'm wondering if opinion here is based on the one once owned, or still owned. Realistically it is more accurate to take particular cameras in numbers. Beleive is or not, even some Leica Rangefinders you might come across would appear to be the most unreliable bags of c*ap.....and dare I say, even some lenses are incredibly soft....if you take one example of a particular model to exclusively base an opinion on.