Rollei Sl66 Metering Hood

ineffablething · Aug 20, 2006

Does anyone else use one of these things? I just bought one and I f-ing hate it. You have to set the shutter speed on the hood to match the shutter speed on the camera, then manually stop down the lens until you find the right fstop and then release the manual stop down and fire. My god, this sucks. Any out there use the Kiev metering hood for the SL66?

William

JHannon · Aug 20, 2006

I Almost bought one of those. Instead I use an unmetered Rollei Prism finder and my spotmeter.

naaldvoerder · Aug 20, 2006

JHannon said:
I Almost bought one of those. Instead I use an unmetered Rollei Prism finder and my spotmeter.

Same here

Jaap Jan

jonathanbennett120 · Aug 21, 2006

This looks like what you want:

http://www.baierfoto.de/Rollengl.html

I don't have one. I've been using a Voigtlander VC Meter II. It fits right on the accessory shoe and is very easy to use.

http://www.cameraquest.com/voivcmet2.htm

Mike Kovacs · Aug 21, 2006

I'll third that. TTL metering is a crutch IMO.

I don't see any advantage to using an uncoupled TTL meter vs a handheld meter. It is in theory its a good tool for macro shots but in reality the meter is probably never pointing in the correct spot without changing the composition. I find it more straightforward to incident meter and apply the bellows extension factor.

The meter in the SL66E and SL66SE models might be handy for shooting fast paced.

naaldvoerder said:
Same here

Jaap Jan

Bruce Appel · Aug 21, 2006

I have an old Kiev metering prism that I use on a pentacon, and the meter is a lot more trouble than it is worth. First, it is not coupled to anything- you set the film speed, set the maximum aperture of the lens that is mounted, then spin a dial till the lights in the finder tell you it is right. You then read the exposure off the top of the meter and set the camera. If I have to take my eye away from the prism to set the exposure, what is the point?
My other gripe, and keep in mind mine is the really old style prism, is that it has a bad tendancy to get turned on and off coming and going from a bag, and the meter wheel gets knocked all about because it sticks out just looking for stuff to hang up on.
I like the prism; it makes the pentacon like a big 35 slr, it is bright, and I can focus well with it, but the meter sucks big time.

rmann · Aug 21, 2006

Just as a point of information - the Rollei meter is both a spot and an average meter. I did find it very useful when using the bellows extensions. Also, if you set the meter and camera to the same shutter speed and use the stop down lever on the lens - it is very easy to get the correct f stop setting by just turning the lens ring until the meter reads OK.

ineffablething · Aug 21, 2006

Well, I've had great success with the ttl prism on my Pentax 67 and I shoot portraiture,handheld mostly. So, I thought the ttl hood for the SL66 would be a grand idea. But shooting handheld and trying to fiddle with the stop down switch and aperture ring is a pain in the ass. Guess I'll use it for another week or so and if using it doesn't get more intuitive, back on ebay!

William

rmann said:
Just as a point of information - the Rollei meter is both a spot and an average meter. I did find it very useful when using the bellows extensions. Also, if you set the meter and camera to the same shutter speed and use the stop down lever on the lens - it is very easy to get the correct f stop setting by just turning the lens ring until the meter reads OK.

Claire Senft · Aug 21, 2006

I used to havw an SL66 with one of these hoods. I was less bothered by it than are you since I used it mostly as a viewfinder with a seperate incident meter. I saved all the monkey business of TTL exposures for situations that made it useful.

Theses days I use a Contax RTSIII with a number of options for TTL metering. I do not make much use use of the capability with Contax either.

This does not mean that the meters do not work properly. It is less of a hassle for the tripod user. Handheld it can be a PITA.

jimbrick · Aug 24, 2006

I adapted both the Hasselblad PME45 and PME90 metered finders to my SL66. They are absolutely marvelous! Spot, average, and incident metering with both finders. Works like a charm.

Jim

Rollei fan · Aug 29, 2006

How did you do that adaptation?

jimbrick said:
I adapted both the Hasselblad PME45 and PME90 metered finders to my SL66. They are absolutely marvelous! Spot, average, and incident metering with both finders. Works like a charm.

Jim

jimbrick · Aug 29, 2006

Rollei fan said:
How did you do that adaptation?

There is no modification to the Hasselblad prisms. For each Hasselblad prism, I took an SL66 prism apart, removing the prism (top) from the base. Then removed the swivel mechanism so now I have only the bottom part of the SL66 prism, the part that mounts on the camera. I then milled out the SL66 mount so that the Hasselblad prism would sit down inside. I milled it as deep as I could without compromising the integrity of the metal but thin enough so that the screws would go through and engage in the Hasselblad prism.

I then unscrewed the chrome mounting shoe off of the bottom of the Hasselblad prism, set this part down in the SL66 mount, marked where the holes are (six holes), drilled the holes, then put the Hasselblad prism and chrome shoe into the SL66 mount, screwed the six Hasselblad screws into the Hasselblad prism from the bottom of the SL66 mount, and it's done. Actually, I countersank the screws to make it look nice.

The distance of the Hasselblad prism from the SL66 ground glass doesn't matter because the Hasselblad metered prisms have a focusing diopter. I can send pictures if you are interested. Also, you could send me a Rollei prism and a Hasselblad prism and for $75, I'll do all of the work and return a finished metering Rollei prism.

What started me doing this is that my Rollei prism was totally de-silvered and impossible to use. I picked up my Hasselblad prism and it looked like it would fit into the Rollei prism mount. So I took the Rollei prism apart and discovered that it could all be done with just a couple of hours of work. I first mounted my 90 deg. Hasselblad metered prism. I then asked around and found another bad (de-silvered) prism for $50, so I bought it and used it to mount my 45 deg Hasselblad metered prism.

My Hasselblad is a 205FCC which is all electronic, built-in meter and all of that, so my Hasselblad 45PME and 90PME were just sitting around. I have non-metered prisms for use on the 205. I was actually contemplating putting them on eBay until I got the idea of putting them on my Rollei SL66.

Jim

Rollei Sl66 Metering Hood

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