baby rolleiflex

OptiKen · Nov 19, 2014

I have a couple of Yashica 44's and shoot with them all of the time. I can't quite see spending $11 for a roll of film so I will sometimes re-spool 35mm (I get two rolls of 127 out of one 135) or I cut down 120 and then re-spool that. I used to use a cigar cutter to cut down the 120 film but found it too inconsistant and hard to use. I now use a $5 PVC pipe cutter from Home Depot and it is fast, accurate and easy.

Right now it is loaded with a roll of Kodachrome 64 that I am anxious to finish and try to develop.

Buy the Rollie...you'll love it if you use it and if you don't, it won't lose it's value should you decide to sell it.

GRHazelton · Nov 19, 2014

MattKing said:
Not necessarily.

A slide projector lens that covers the 43mm diagonal on 35mm film (36mm) may cover the 56 mm diagonal on 127 film.

And the magnification difference is minimal - 40mm vs 36mm (the longest edges).

The Sears 35mm projector we used when my Komaflex was working covered the 127 format well. As always, YYMV.

Bill Burk · Nov 19, 2014

k.hendrik said:
OK ! but different lens then ?

Ah, you shouldn't need a different lens on the 35mm slide projector if that's what you are asking...

But for the camera, since you are cropping the film from 6x6cm, you could use a different wide angle lens to approximate normal again.

Dan Fromm · Nov 19, 2014

OptiKen said:
I have a couple of Yashica 44's and shoot with them all of the time. I can't quite see spending $11 for a roll of film so I will sometimes re-spool 35mm (I get two rolls of 127 out of one 135) or I cut down 120 and then re-spool that. I used to use a cigar cutter to cut down the 120 film but found it too inconsistant and hard to use. I now use a $5 PVC pipe cutter from Home Depot and it is fast, accurate and easy.

Right now it is loaded with a roll of Kodachrome 64 that I am anxious to finish and try to develop.

Buy the Rollie...you'll love it if you use it and if you don't, it won't lose it's value should you decide to sell it.

Two rolls of 127 out of one 135? Did you mean out of 120? Come to think of it, that won't go either. 135 film is 35mm high, 120 is ~63mm, and 127 is ~41mm. What were you thinking?

Kodachrome 64? Home processing? Really? Black and white, perhaps?

Bill, 60 mm is 4x4's normal focal length. That's why the suggestion to shoot 120 in a 'blad with a 60 mm lens and then cut to fit a superslide mount made earlier in this discussion.

Hatchetman · Nov 19, 2014

He cuts the 120 film down to 41mm and respools it with the 127 backing. 35mm film just doesn't give full coverage.

Dan Fromm · Nov 19, 2014

Hatchetman said:
35mm film just doesn't give full coverage.

That was my point. Not only that, it has those pesky perforations.

Bill Burk · Nov 19, 2014

Dan Fromm,

I think OptiKen is looking for a different kind of result than I am thinking...

I don't have a wide angle 120 shooter... But it's an interesting idea to me.

Right now my focus is black and white, but I used to shoot 35mm slides and 35mm black and white intermingled. Have a treasure trove of slides...

Another thought that keeps going through my head is how long it took me to build enough of a slide collection to put a show together, and what investment of time it would take to build a similar catalogue of Superslides...

Still it would be great to have a week's vacation's worth, or a small project's worth to show off in amazing full screen - Yeah fill that projector screen! - glory.

billdele · Nov 20, 2014

I'll add a few items from my experience with the Baby Rollei which I used primarily for slides between 1961 and 1987 when I ran out of Ektachrome, which I think had been discontinued about 1983:

--I bought my Baby Rollei from Montgomery Wards for just under $60 with case; Consumer Reports had made unfavorable remarks about the camera in a report, so Wards must have picked up a lot for a good price. I believe the comment was about the shutter; I do know that the slow speeds never worked on mine. I sold it after I couldn't get Ektachrome for it. Wards had an active photo department for most or all of the years I used the Baby Rollei-- I lived close to their St. Paul store (a big one) and I could buy 10 rolls of 127 Ektachrome there and get the processing done through them.

--As many have commented, Superslides work just fine in a 35mm projector. You get more of the screen filled in an ordinary house living room if you use a 50mm projection lens, but a longer lens will work, too.

--Burleigh Brooks in New York sold a little kit called "Super Slide for Rollei". It contained a mask for the film gate and a mask for the ground glass vf. It allows you to get superslides from a 6x6 Rollei. They were widely distributed so you might find them if you still have a camera shop with miscellaneous old stock. I bought a 6x6 Rollei and this kit so I could make slides when Ektachrome 127 went under; I didn't do it very much.

--I don't know about the current availability of Superslide mounts. Maybe Gepe still makes them? The cardboard ones supplied by the processors years back weren't all that sturdy - not that much mount in relation to film-- but I can say that my slide collection, stored in Sawyers 100 slide carriers, have held up ok.

k.hendrik · Nov 20, 2014

Thanks all for your input: next Saturday I will do the examination and decide yes or no to adopt this baby! and that at my age. to be continued......

OptiKen · Nov 20, 2014

Dan Fromm said:
Two rolls of 127 out of one 135? Did you mean out of 120? Come to think of it, that won't go either. 135 film is 35mm high, 120 is ~63mm, and 127 is ~41mm. What were you thinking?

Kodachrome 64? Home processing? Really? Black and white, perhaps?

.

Two rolls of 127 out of one 135 cannister because you don't split the film like you do with 120....you use it full width, but cut the 36 exposure roll down to (I think) 25" long to re-spool with 127 backing paper. The shots expose over the sprocket holes but almost give you a panorama picture due to the negative now exposing 24mm x 40mm. I usually crop out the sprockets.

Yes, I'm going to try black and white processing at home on this roll of Kodachrome 64.

Dan Fromm · Nov 20, 2014

Ken, thanks for the explanations. I have a Sawyer's MK IV, would never have imagined running 35 mm film through it.

aoresteen · Nov 22, 2014

I love my Rollei 4x4! I've used a 4x4 since around 1982 or so. I use mostly B&W but I did take a lot of E-6 Super Slides in the 80's.

I have a couple of pages on the Rollei:

http://www.oresteen.com/rollei4x4.htm

http://www.oresteen.com/rollei4x4_use.htm

My freezer has a fast shrinking stock of 127 film (mostly Efke) so I am going to start spooling my own. Every year with ULF program Ilford offers 46mm HP-5 film in 50' bulk rolls. The product number is:

1174843 - HP5+ 46mm x 50ft UPEI (127) (UPEI means un-perforated emulsion in).

Every one who uses a 127 camera needs to place an order for two 46mm rolls when Ilford opens up the ordering window and they will for sure make it. Then you can spool HP-5 into 127!

I've used the Yashica 4x4 and the Rollei 4x4 Gray. The Rolleiflex Grey Xenar lens is very sharp - better than the Yashica. If yours isn't sharp then have the camera's focus checked by a technician who knows how to adjust a TLR.

I have a Maxwell screen in my Rollei 4x4. It's by far the best thing you can do for your Baby Rollei. Makes it a new camera.

Have fun with your Baby Grey!

k.hendrik · Nov 22, 2014

http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag66/k-h
[URL=http://s1299.photobucket.com/user/k-hendrik/media/Rolleiflexgreybaby4x41_zps9b162803.jpg.html][IMG]http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag66/k-hendrik/Rolleiflexgreybaby4x41_zps9b162803.jpg
endrik/Rolleiflexgreybaby4x42_zps6a4b0036.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

There he is ! I was in doubt he or she but blue suits him: immaculate tiny but not fragile, 0,693 gr. and hungry for 127.

Ektagraphic · Dec 3, 2014

Congrats on adopting the baby! Just adopted one myself, and very, very anxious to give it some love this weekend! Do you guys have problems using the Efke spools for the film take up? I have a roll of the Frugal Photographer and some Rera Pan...The ReraPan have Efke spools, and the Bluefire Murano has their own spool, which is all plastic, and does work in the take up

Dan Fromm · Dec 3, 2014

Bill Burk;1726367} Another thought that keeps going through my head is how long it took me to build enough of a slide collection to put a show together said:
Bill, this may seem irrelevant. I used to do two projectors with a dissolve unit slide shows, after a while recognized that what I was doing was really showing slow movies. So I set out to learn how to make real movies. Took a while. Some years after that one of my friend's father-in-law sold his machine shop and took an intense course on making slide shows. I asked him about it, got the impression that the course's main point was "think like a cinematographer." In other words, shoot to script and to be able to edit. Have a story to tell and know how to tell it with images. At the least, understand what shots you'll need to make a scene.

Lotta work, so much that I eventually stopped trying to film my field trips, but not as much as you think. Think about it.

Cheers,

Dan

k.hendrik · Dec 25, 2014

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)
she's happy I'm happy

baby rolleiflex

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