Rollei 45 degree Prism Repair
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With the top off, one can see there is nothing in there except the prism. No other optical elements are anything else. The prism sits freely on the base, only held in place by foam rubber.
As you can see the orange foam has deteriorated.
As you can see the orange foam has deteriorated.
Very nice. Thanks for putting this up.
Question- Is there a hard reference edge in the case that puts the prism back where it was at the factory? I don't know if the final position of prism affect focus? Obviously you want the eye surface pretty close to the center of the opening, but I don't know enough about how a prism works in a situation like this to know how precisely it needs to be placed.
Question- Is there a hard reference edge in the case that puts the prism back where it was at the factory? I don't know if the final position of prism affect focus? Obviously you want the eye surface pretty close to the center of the opening, but I don't know enough about how a prism works in a situation like this to know how precisely it needs to be placed.
Yes, the prism fits in a specific location, outlined by a 2mm ridge of metal on the base plate. This ridge (indicated by the arrows) is obscured in the picture, because the bottom of the prism tapers inward. It is not a tight fit, so if the foam deteriorates, the prism shifts about one millimeter right, left and front to back. This causes a knocking sound as the prism moves around.
Since the ground glass is separate and fixed firmly, slight movement of the prism does not change focus at all. As with most medium format prisms, it does not show the whole frame anyway, so a millimeter shift right or left is inconsequential. In fact I tried to notice any change in the viewed image as the prism moved around but could not detect it by looking, only could tell it moved by the knocking sound.
This is crazy but this foam must have deteriorated years ago, these Rollei prisms can have a little play where they lock on the top of the camera, so for years I thought the knocking was the whole prism assembly shifting, rather than what turned out to be just the glass shifting inside the assembly.
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Ah, nice to know the prism is indexed by a groove or lip, and then the foam acting as pressure to keep it in place.
I have taken a Hasselblad NC-2 prism and put them on TLRs (Yashica, Minolta, and Rollei), and found that I needed to set the height fairly precisely to get a focused image through the viewfinder. Still, there was maybe close to a millimeter of height variation, probably well within the receding foam holding it in place.
I have taken a Hasselblad NC-2 prism and put them on TLRs (Yashica, Minolta, and Rollei), and found that I needed to set the height fairly precisely to get a focused image through the viewfinder. Still, there was maybe close to a millimeter of height variation, probably well within the receding foam holding it in place.
I'll have to check my prism. It rattles, but I thought that was movement around the axis since the whole unit rotates 180º. How thick is the foam you used?
Excellent post with some well outlined information.
I have that same Rollei 45 degree prism in both SL66 mount and Rollei TLR mount.
As far as I can tell, Rollei used that same 45 degree prism from the SL66 mount, adapted to the TLR mount, then the SLX and 6000 series,
used again with the Rollei HY6 ll and finally the Sinar HY6.
That prism design has been around for over 50 years with different mounting plates. A very well designed prism.
I have that same Rollei 45 degree prism in both SL66 mount and Rollei TLR mount.
As far as I can tell, Rollei used that same 45 degree prism from the SL66 mount, adapted to the TLR mount, then the SLX and 6000 series,
used again with the Rollei HY6 ll and finally the Sinar HY6.
That prism design has been around for over 50 years with different mounting plates. A very well designed prism.
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Yes, I really like that 45 degree prism. It is brighter than the 90 degree prism. I got the 45 degree prism with my SLX and the badge reads "SLX," but when I sold the SLX I kept the prism and now use it on my 6008i. The percentage of Earth population that would be confused by the SLX label on the 6008i would likely be small.
Somewhat related, I'll have to start another thread. I'm waiting for a new Schneider Angulon PQ 40mm lens in the mail!! That old SLX Distagon 40mm does indeed work on the 6008i but it is a little cumbersome using it in 'stop-down' mode. Also, the camera won't meter in dim light with that lens in stop-down mode and dim light is where I most want to use a 40mm lens.
I have the 40mm Schneider and I really love it. It's small and like all the lenses I have used on the Rollei, quite sharp.
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