Rollei P66 or Leitz Prado 500?

Fixcinater · Jul 12, 2015

There's a local store clearing out some gear including a Rollei P66 (I believe it's a plain P66, not the S but I'm not sure) and a Leitz Prado 500. The Rollei has a 150mm lens and some slide mounts as well as a tray with some slides in cardboard mounts. The Prado has a 150 and a 250mm lens but no other accessories.

I normally shoot 67 due to my affinity for the big Pentax but I would very much like to see what MF slides look like and so could put a Rolleicord or Super Ikonta into slide shooting duty quite easily.

They're asking $45 for each one including case, they both work...is this as much of a no-brainer as it seems to be?

EDIT: Which would you pick up if you were limited to one by space constraints? Both seem to get good reviews.

frank · Jul 12, 2015

Buy both, test, sell one for a profit.

Sirius Glass · Jul 12, 2015

frank said:
Buy both, test, sell one for a profit.

Frank nailed it. Try them and then sell one for what you paid for both. win, Win, WIN!

AgX · Jul 12, 2015

The Prado is a modular projector. Though one hardly would get accessories locally. Being able to use a slide magazine is sure a benefit if doing a show. But the matter of spare lamps is something to think of too.
If that all is no issue, I would take the one with the better lens as that would be the most important item.

Very early samples of the Prado 500 are lacking airstream cooling of the slide.

Fixcinater · Jan 20, 2016

I ended up buying the P66 as the Prado was sold before I made it back to the shop. It came with another slide magazine full of some Ektachrome slides, some all taken at what look like typical Rollei TLR minimum focus distance and height of a flower with a bee on and around the flower, and the rest are of snowy mountain peaks with some "mountain men" portraits.

I now need to clean out the entire optical system and find some reasonably priced slide mounts.

destroya · Jan 20, 2016

B&H has the Gepe anti newton glass 6x6 mounts. I found they are the best. just hate spending hours loading and unloading them (I dont keep them in the mounts). you will need to trim the 6x7 slides down a little to get them to fit. so if I come across a great shot, I shoot 2 or 3 of each scene, one to keep and one to trim down.

A MF slide is a thing of beauty!

AgX · Jan 20, 2016

You do not leave your transparencies in the slide mounts. How doy you store them instead. Like your negatives?

Fixcinater · Jan 20, 2016

Thus far, yes. Just in negative page holders in a binder. I haven't shot enough MF yet to need more than one binder, but I'm about ready to split them into b&w/slide/color neg binders.

benjiboy · Jan 21, 2016

These are both 6X6 projectors, you need a 6 X7 projector if you don't want to butcher your Pentax 6X7 slides like the Leitz Universal http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ULTIMATE-...IDE-PROJECTOR-35mm-6x6-6x7-MINT-/121847105308

destroya · Jan 21, 2016

AgX said:
You do not leave your transparencies in the slide mounts. How doy you store them instead. Like your negatives?

I do not store them in the trays. The hasselbald trays are not cheap and i only have 2 of them. So I store them in print file sleeves, like my negs. I develop my on slides so they are not mounted when finished, which helps

Rollei P66 or Leitz Prado 500?

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