finally my new photographic toys have arrived, brought from Europe with love by Karine.
The superb Rolleiflex 3.5 F is in perfect condition, built in 1960 more or less. The technical name is TLR, aka Twin Lens Reflex.I had to choose between the early ones made in 1929, abit risky to buy for a regular use, till 1993 for this kind of TLR. Rollei company still exists. It was an old dream to shoot in medium format, that is 6x6 cm on film 120, which is indeed square pictures. The F series was the last model to be fully mechanical, full of cogs and springs. The models have quite changed in more than 60 years but the body is still roughly the same. After this one, electronic shutters and so on jumped in. Less attractive to me. I can’t wait to use this camera, mostly in black’n’white as I can develop that here myself. Nevertheless it is an old mechanical camera, I’m impressed by all the little subtleties and options. But the handbook only contains 20 pages or so. A dream as opposed to the actual digital camera hand books which contain hundreds of pages. I’ll shoot slides too (Kodachrome maybe?) but rather just before my next return to Europe for swift processing. Mom has offered me this camera as a gift for my 40th birthday! That’s her 3rd set of camera she gave me. Thanks Mom!
all wrapped up in leather casing, including filters and other little things. Out of fashion for sure but as Karine said when she bought it and tested it for me in Paris, she got more people looking at her than with her digital Nikon! The same when she was using her monstrous Polaroid 600 SE, the thing is as big as a soccer ball.
with the visor opened up. To shoot a standard picture forces you to place the camera on your chest or belly and look down through the visor. Notice the silver crank half spread out on the left, that is to move the film and cock the shutter.
this how it looks like when looking down on the view finder. Quite a large picture. The focus ring with solar light meter is the big knob on the left.
and for my 40th birthday, Karine offered me this other beauty. Thanks too! I’ve mentioned these Russian Zorki cameras in a some previous posts. This one is a Zorki 2, an exact copy labeled Zorki so not a fake I insist, of the famous Leica II with its collapsible lens. Originally built in the 30’s, the Leica II has evolved a lot but remains a logical camera, was a state-of-the-art camera by then. The lenses were so good that Leica allows them to be used with an adapter on actual Leica M like the one I’ve got. Even the new digital Leica M8 would accept such a lens too. As I said earlier too, I’ll get a real Leica II one day but I don’t want to use such a real vintage camera in African conditions.
that’s a Leica M6 with its collapsible lens out, see the family pattern?
With Leica, in a different format, Rollei has offered most of the best and famous pictures from last century. The philosophy is quite different than digital. Each picture costs you something, the camera doesn’t do anything automatically for you, all the settings have to be thought carefully before shooting. You have to think and tell the camera what to do. And having used this technology myself already, it made me respect these ancient photographers even more!
Ok, time to go for fun and shoot now.
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