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goinganalogue

“…a digital guy in an analogue world…”

July 17, 2011 Rolleiflex Automat 3

Well my Rolleiflex finally arrived…and after taking it out of the box my first impression was “Wow”…it really is a thing of beauty. It’s compact, yet moderately heavy, and just in holding it you know that you’re holding something well made. And considering its almost 70 years old its in remarkably good condition. I’m smitten.

The leather and the aluminium (?) all still look great, and the knobs all turn smoothly and consistently. Upon opening the focussing hood and looking through the viewfinder for the first time, I’m surprised by the sharpness of the screen. Even without using the focussing magnifier it’s easy to tell where the focus is aimed. The image in the  focussing screen is still reversed, as in the Brownie, and will take some getting used to when framing shots.

The aperture and shutter speed knobs are on the front of the camera to the side of the lenses, and the focussing knob is on the left side of the camera. Everything is very well laid out.

There’s a self timer on the front of the camera, as well as a shutter lock and a cable release socket. All good. This model hasn’t got a light meter, so I have to decide on the exposure using my old light meter and/or my iphone app LightMeter (they yield fairly similar results in the tests I’ve done).

Aperture on this model ranges from f3.5 to f22, shutter speeds from B, 1 second to 1/500th of a second.

I’ve shot 2 rolls of TMax 400, and I’m currently halfway through a roll of Provia 100. I’ll send them (along with 7 rolls of Brownie film) off for processing this week – I’ve decided to postpone self developing until after I get back from my holiday to New Zealand in a few weeks.

The only minor issue with it, and it is minor, is that it hasn’t got a standard size tripod socket – its a lot larger than normal tripods, so I’ve been back to eBay to buy the Rolleifix quick release tripod adaptor – $50, thanks very much. But its a necessity. As is the filter kit that came with the camera, consisting of 2 close up lenses, a UV filter, a red, green, yellow and blue filter, along with a lens hood.

In fact for a 70 year old camera, the range of accessories you can buy its quite astounding. Pistol grips, mirrored lens caps (a definite purchase at some point), longer viewing hoods, different focusing screens…the camera is reasonably customisable. New original straps with the alligator clips are very expensive – $200+.

Taking pics with it is very straightforward. The shutter release is on the front at the bottom, and with the strap around your neck and the camera on your chest it feels really stable – I guess the proof will be in the pics when they’re developed.

As soon as I’ve got prints back I’ll post them here.