Rollei 35 Vintage 35mm Camera & Matching Flash Carl Zeiss Tessar Lens
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:6879129 | Model: 35 |
| Brand: Rollei | Color: Black & Gray |
| UPC: Does not apply |
Vintage mini 35mm Camera with Carl Zeiss Lens in excellent condition, Film back is super clean, all mechanics seem to work fine
Shutter works fine, opens up fine and has no dents or blemishes that I can see
Comes with matching year flash...Flash has built in rechargeable batteries and missing the cord, so I have no idea if the flash works, but camera is great
Comes with: Rollei 35 BodyRollei Flash unit F 20Carl Zeiss NR Tessar 3-20FT Lens F1:3.5=4UHM
Specs:
An o...n line well known person who test cameras has put together a nice little review of a camera that sometime goes overlooked. The great Rollei 35. Check it out.
The Rollei 35 fits in my coat pocket. My shirt pocket also, but that looks odd. It’s smaller than the Leica Minilux I adored, until the Minilux started to underexpose everything, and Leica twice declined to fix it. The Minilux is still upstairs in a closet, waiting for time or divine intervention to fix it, as it authored most of my favorite shots.The Minilux is what led to the Rollei 35 – I wanted something small, great lens, bigger viewfinder, and manual.There are only 1.7ish things in the finder of the Rollei 35s – the view and, most of the time, the frame lines. The frame lines seem to fade when pointed toward sources of even moderately average light. Having 1.7ish things in the viewfinder is wonderful. It’s even better than the viewfinders of the M2 and M3 (it took 10 years between, “wow, I’d like a Leica M” until I could afford them) because those viewfinders include rangefinders.
Using the Rollei 35 is an ongoing lesson in composition and process optimization. Probably nothing like the lessons of a view camera, but I don’t have the time for that. A former boss was fond of reminding us that “strategy is the art of making choices.” In the case of the Rollei, the strategy starts with focus. And focus is guessing the distance of the subject from the eye.The first question posed by scale focus: “is this really a good subject matter for a photograph, because there is little point in wasting time (and money) on a picture you don’t want and that might be out of focus. So do you really want this on a print?” That’s a good question, increasingly so in the realm of digital photography, where my daughter can take 30 different perspectives on her subject, correcting with each take until she has a version she likes (and then she starts “developing” it with Photo FX). I’ll hold off on wonderings about Digital Pollution.If “yes” then I estimate the distance to the subject and adjust the lens accordingly. Turning the lens to the estimated focus requires . . . focus ( J). It’s tactile, physical, precise, fiddly (I’ve got big fingers, the lens barrel is small), quiet. No hum and whir of electronic focusing mechanisms judging the distance. If I want to continue, the next task is the exposure. Sometimes I’ve got my trusty Sekonic, a partner for the past 16 years. Most times, though, it’s a lightmeter app on the I-phone, which is convenient, as the I-phone is usually along for the ride and doesn’t take up much space. But the I-phone lightmeter app drives me batty – it features way more shutter speeds and apertures than the Rollei. The specificity of its guidance needs to be averaged out. Another distraction to consider.
Step 4: Compose (ahh, that viewfinder). Making choices up front usually results in fewer/better (the benefit of strategy). Once distance and exposure are chosen, they are no longer relevant to the task. Gone. Out of my mind. Floating away like so many useless daydreams at the office. Or hours spent looking at nothing really relevant on the internet.
Back to step 4. That viewfinder. Just the view, and how to frame it. I take off my glasses, as it’s ok if the view through the finder is blurry – it’s already focused. Push all thoughts non-photographic away (“got to get to the office in 5 minutes for the conference call; why is my colleague completely ignoring requests for revisions; I ate too much lunch; coffee, coffee, coffee”) and absorb/comprehend/assess/engage/attend=FOCUS completely on what’s framed by the Rollei’s little window. Steadily push the shutter release (an unexpectedly tight mechanism). Click. And advance.STOCK # 19STK258.GHFTF.ER
Shutter works fine, opens up fine and has no dents or blemishes that I can see
Comes with matching year flash...Flash has built in rechargeable batteries and missing the cord, so I have no idea if the flash works, but camera is great
Comes with: Rollei 35 BodyRollei Flash unit F 20Carl Zeiss NR Tessar 3-20FT Lens F1:3.5=4UHM
Specs:
An o...n line well known person who test cameras has put together a nice little review of a camera that sometime goes overlooked. The great Rollei 35. Check it out.
The Rollei 35 fits in my coat pocket. My shirt pocket also, but that looks odd. It’s smaller than the Leica Minilux I adored, until the Minilux started to underexpose everything, and Leica twice declined to fix it. The Minilux is still upstairs in a closet, waiting for time or divine intervention to fix it, as it authored most of my favorite shots.The Minilux is what led to the Rollei 35 – I wanted something small, great lens, bigger viewfinder, and manual.There are only 1.7ish things in the finder of the Rollei 35s – the view and, most of the time, the frame lines. The frame lines seem to fade when pointed toward sources of even moderately average light. Having 1.7ish things in the viewfinder is wonderful. It’s even better than the viewfinders of the M2 and M3 (it took 10 years between, “wow, I’d like a Leica M” until I could afford them) because those viewfinders include rangefinders.
Using the Rollei 35 is an ongoing lesson in composition and process optimization. Probably nothing like the lessons of a view camera, but I don’t have the time for that. A former boss was fond of reminding us that “strategy is the art of making choices.” In the case of the Rollei, the strategy starts with focus. And focus is guessing the distance of the subject from the eye.The first question posed by scale focus: “is this really a good subject matter for a photograph, because there is little point in wasting time (and money) on a picture you don’t want and that might be out of focus. So do you really want this on a print?” That’s a good question, increasingly so in the realm of digital photography, where my daughter can take 30 different perspectives on her subject, correcting with each take until she has a version she likes (and then she starts “developing” it with Photo FX). I’ll hold off on wonderings about Digital Pollution.If “yes” then I estimate the distance to the subject and adjust the lens accordingly. Turning the lens to the estimated focus requires . . . focus ( J). It’s tactile, physical, precise, fiddly (I’ve got big fingers, the lens barrel is small), quiet. No hum and whir of electronic focusing mechanisms judging the distance. If I want to continue, the next task is the exposure. Sometimes I’ve got my trusty Sekonic, a partner for the past 16 years. Most times, though, it’s a lightmeter app on the I-phone, which is convenient, as the I-phone is usually along for the ride and doesn’t take up much space. But the I-phone lightmeter app drives me batty – it features way more shutter speeds and apertures than the Rollei. The specificity of its guidance needs to be averaged out. Another distraction to consider.
Step 4: Compose (ahh, that viewfinder). Making choices up front usually results in fewer/better (the benefit of strategy). Once distance and exposure are chosen, they are no longer relevant to the task. Gone. Out of my mind. Floating away like so many useless daydreams at the office. Or hours spent looking at nothing really relevant on the internet.
Back to step 4. That viewfinder. Just the view, and how to frame it. I take off my glasses, as it’s ok if the view through the finder is blurry – it’s already focused. Push all thoughts non-photographic away (“got to get to the office in 5 minutes for the conference call; why is my colleague completely ignoring requests for revisions; I ate too much lunch; coffee, coffee, coffee”) and absorb/comprehend/assess/engage/attend=FOCUS completely on what’s framed by the Rollei’s little window. Steadily push the shutter release (an unexpectedly tight mechanism). Click. And advance.STOCK # 19STK258.GHFTF.ER
