Baby TLR Rollei

Tel said:

The Baby Rollei is a tough one. (I have 6 of them--3 working.) It's a very complicated camera with multiple interlocking functions. If any one of them fails the camera will not work. Hence there are few repair people who will work on them. (Ken Ruth, in California, was probably the last one in the US who would do this and he retired probably five years ago.) Because of the collector market, however, they fetch a lot of money, even if they don't work. So beware of buying one.

I also have several Primo Jr. and Yashica 44 cameras. Both are much simpler designs and therefore more reliable to shoot. I would recommend looking for a Yashica 44 if you want to shoot 127. It's a robust design and the lenses are decent. (The reason to shoot a Rollei Baby is the glass.)

127 film is available. As mentioned above, "Film for Classics" rolls 127 and is generally available. The Frugal Photographer, located in Canada, loads and sells 127. I think you can still get Rerapan in some places. But if you get bitten by the 127 bug, Ilford sells 46mm (127) HP5 once every year in its misnamed "ULF" sale. You have to dig to find it on their website, but it's there, usually announced in the early part of the year with orders taken up until April and orders delivered in late summer or autumn.

Here's the page from 2021: https://www.ilfordphoto.com/ulf-custom-specialist-film-manufacture-2021/

Click to expand...

I have an early 1930s Rolleiflex 4x4. There is still a guy working on them, named Mark in Stephens Point Wisconsin if I remember right. I would think anyone working on Rolleis could do it. The camera is somewhat hard to use because it's so small. If the photo was taken in the 1950s with a small TLR it would have been with the 1930s "baby" Rollei almost certainly. As for film, they would have been using pan film after the 1920s I'm pretty sure. If it were me doing this, I'd just use a 1930s vintage Rolleicord or Rolleiflex and either Foma 100 film or Ilford Pan F. The look of the print would be very very similar. SInce I process my own film that cost doesn't matter much to me. The reels that take 35mm and 120 are adjustable and accept 127 film.


Kent in SD

I had forgotten about super slides, I think I shot a roll of Ektachrome or was it GAF before slide film was discontinued. I need to look those slides, not sure what the subject was.

Rereading the original post and a few that follow, I agree that the camera used was probably NOT a baby Rolleiflex, but a standard 120 sized one. Those are much more abundant and would have been used by a professional photographer, not the smaller "baby" Rolleiflex. My guess is the camera was a late 1940s Rolleiflex or perhaps Rolleicord using 120 film. I still suggest either Foma 100 or Ilford Pan F for a period look.


Kent in SD

Isn't this a lot of horsing us around for nothing ? GUNVLEET hope you get well & thanks

Two23 said:

Rereading the original post and a few that follow, I agree that the camera used was probably NOT a baby Rolleiflex, but a standard 120 sized one. Those are much more abundant and would have been used by a professional photographer, not the smaller "baby" Rolleiflex. My guess is the camera was a late 1940s Rolleiflex or perhaps Rolleicord using 120 film. I still suggest either Foma 100 or Ilford Pan F for a period look.


Kent in SD

Click to expand...

Thanks Kent

k.hendrik said:

Isn't this a lot of horsing us around for nothing ? GUNVLEET hope you get well & thanks

Click to expand...

I know the internet makes you feel like that but I promise not. My apologies if you feel so. So far the nearest size I’ve found is my Fuji gw680. The dodgy memory is because I’m in the photo and I was 6!

Gunfleet said:

I know the internet makes you feel like that but I promise not. My apologies if you feel so. So far the nearest size I’ve found is my Fuji gw680. The dodgy memory is because I’m in the photo and I was 6!

Click to expand...

Weirdly I have just found one of my my old Zeiss/goertz box cameras from the 30s is the right size. I’m not sure I believe the lens is as good though

Gunfleet said:

Weirdly I have just found one of my my old Zeiss/goertz box cameras from the 30s is the right size. I’m not sure I believe the lens is as good though

Click to expand...

The Goerz Frontar lens is a two element achromat that can be surprisingly good.

JPD said:

The Goerz Frontar lens is a two element achromat that can be surprisingly good.

Click to expand...

Thanks. It looks a bit hazy but a trial film will show!

Gunfleet said:

This is a great post and contains great deal of information I was looking for thank you I’m using the dictating software here so please excuse slightly and ungrammatical reply it seems to me like leaving everything else aside I thought it might be verichrome actually believe in the side is problem of a small camera small films et cetera I can just dust off my old rolleicorf and use a mask to contact Print thank you again

Click to expand...

Many thanks for reading and commenting on my (somewhat long-winded) post. Nice to know someone enjoyed what I wrote.

My SpellChecker has turned feral on me. It changed "Yashica" to "Yeshiva" (which obviously has nothing to do with photography) and it also tends to play other tricks to make my writing life a misery.

I did some more delving into my photographic past history and finally remembered the 127 TLR I used so many years ago (1960s) was a Yashica, not a Rollei. My first ever 'flex (I still have it) was/is a 3.5E2 I bought in 1966 after saving for a year to pay for it. By that time 127 film seemed to be on its way out, a few family members had small amateurish cameras (an aunt had a Kodak Brownie Starflash) that still took this smaller film. Contact prints from it were so small one needed a magnifying glass to make out any details from it. The Yashica 127 produced much sharper negatives. I still have a few sheets of these somewhere in my archive, if I can ever find them I intend to put them to the test in my home darkroom and see how big prints I can make from them. I suspect not much larger than 5x8" if printed square will be 4.5x4.5" on one sheet. The goal, of course, will be to resurrect some long ago family memories and not aim for technical perfection.

Old Rolleiflexes are wonderful cameras. 120 film continues to be available and I hope will be for many years to come. Even prewar Rollei TLRs can give excellent images, as sharp as anything thanks to the fine construction of the Zeiss Tessars and the Schneider Xenars.

If you have a Rolleicord, take it out and use it. They are great fun to play with and can make some truly marvellous images. My Vb came with 16 and 24 exposure kits and I have a circa 1950 Rolleikin 35mm kit, the one with the separate back, acquired many years ago but yet unused to this day. I'll now go looking for it and run one of my few remaining rolls of 35mm Kodak Panatomic-X in it, purely for the fun of photographing with a "different" camera.

Another thought that has just struck me.

Our personal photographic histories are fun to relate - and can be interesting to others. Some of us have been playing with cameras for 60+ years, and as we know a lot of the technology has changed in that time. Much has been lost. The bits that are left are still enjoyable, but it would be good for us to recall those aspects of what we did, what we used, and how we did it in the 1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s, before digital moved in and took over from film and it all changed - I don't much care to say "for the worst" (tho' now I've said it, haven't I??) but it did change everything.

We should all make the effort to post the memories from this aspect of our past and share them.

Maybe a separate thread for this??