Rolleiflex

Rolleiflex is the name of a long run series of cameras made by the german company Franke & Heidecke / Rollei. Rolleiflex references a high-end medium format TLR (Twin Lens Reflex) camera series. There was also a cheaper, "reduced" version as the Rolleicord, also available for several decades.

The Rolleiflexes are noteworthy because of their reduced size, fantastic lenses and simple yet durable and solid construction. A clever mirror design allowed enough space for the viewing lens (the upper one) to be reduced, taking advantage of it to set up the shutter and taking lens block. That's one of the most characteristic details of these cameras, together with the fact that they always put the best lenses available, from Zeiss and Schneider-Kreuznach factories, diferentiating even more those cameras from that of their competitors.

The automatic film advance mechanism, although well designed is one of the quirks with these cameras, but it allows for film loading to be semiautomatic and relatively fast. Also, the existence of a wide range of accessories contributed to the wide acceptance of the brand. From 35mm film adapters to submarine cases, panoramic heads... makes it one of the most complete systems when talking about classic cameras. Today, professional photographers still use them, mostly with B&W film and particularly model 2.8F and 3.5F are the preferred versions (model's number indicates the maximum aperture of the lens).

The first Rolleiflex was presented in 1929, after three years of development, and was one of the first medium format cameras ever, using the unpopular 117-type film (also known as B1).

The photographs here show my Rolleiflex 3.5E (or 3.5C inside Germany). This particular model was sold between 1956 and February 1959, with two possible configurations

• - With Planar 3.5/75mm lens, a total amount of 26.000 units were made between October 1956 and February 1959. There is always a lightmeter included.


• - With Xenotar 3.5/75mm lens, 17.000 units were made between April 1957 and February 1959. It may or may not include a lightmeter (it those units that do not have it, a black cover replaces the light meter space)

In both cases, accessories are of B2 size, and the viewing lens is either Zeiss or Schneider Heidosmat 2.8/75mm, Bay 3 size. Provide automatic parallax compensation, and the shutter is a Synchro-Compur MXV with speeds between 1 second and 1/500 plus B, self timer and flash synchronization.

Its size is 110x200x150mm, and weights around 1.125 grams.

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