Some Rolleiflex FX questions

There is a seller on ebay who insists on saying that the S-Apogon is an Apo lens made by schneider. He is totally making that up. When the latest ownership change happened, (I understand it is now employee owned) they lost the license to call the lenses Schneider or Zeiss. They changed the name of the lenses to Apogon.
On the FT you will get a T-Apogon which is a Tele Xenar. On the FW you will get a Schneider Super Angulon that they call W-Apogon.
On the FX you will get the Zeiss Planar design now called S-Apogon. The lenses have been made by Franke and Heideck or Rollei all along under license. They are now the same lenses with different names.
Adding to the confusion is that when they started making the FT and FW they did change to Schneider designs from Zeiss designs. The wide used to be the Zeiss Distagon and the Tele used to be a Zeiss Sonnar. However when they started producing the FX they stuck with the Zeiss Planar.

I have both an FX with the HFT planar (pre name change) and an F with the Schneider Xenotar. The only difference I can find is that the HFT coated Planar is a slight bit contrastier than the older single coated Xenotar. In sharpness they are indistinguishable.

I got the info regarding the S-Apogon v Zeiss Planar from communicating directly with DHW Fototechnik.

Dennis

dpurdy said:

Some people are saying how cheaply the FX is being made and that it is full of plastic parts. That it isn't really a Rolleiflex anymore.
The only cheapness I can attest to is the lens name plate around the Planar. It used to be screwed in and now it is glued in.

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The name ring around the taking lens has come off for some owners, and it had to be glued back on. And I've seen GX cameras sold with the ring lost. Reinhold Heidecke would never had approved such a thing. The lens data should be engraved on the front lens retaining ring. Not glued or taped on.

The spool knobs are plastic and don't stay out when you pull them to load film. My guess is that the old machines for making spool knobs were sold or scrapped in the early 80's and they had to make new machines for them, and found plastic parts cheaper. They don't look good. Do they lock in position when the back is closed, like on the earlier models, or can they be pulled out?

It lacks the selftimer. All Rolleiflexes since the first Automat in 1937 had a selftimer (except the Rolleiflex Standard Neu, manufactured during a few years), and even the T and Rolleicord V, Va and Vb had it. Accessory selftimers are often a PIA to use. The only one that I know is still made is a japanese one that vibrates like a cell phone. To use it you must buy a cable release extention to dampen the vibrations. Since the shutter release has a long throw it's not certain that this selftimer will work.

I do use accessory selftimers for my Rolleiflex Standard cameras and the pre-war Rolleicords. I bought ten old selftimers, and only two of them works with these cameras together with an old cable release with a small head.

The back is from the Rolleiflex T, which is cheaper to make than the F back. But the machines for the F backs had been sold or scrapped, and they still had them for the T back. The locking mechanism on the F back was more solid and sturdy, but I've never heard anyone complain on the T back. They have worked well for 50 years.

I don't like the click-stops for the aperture. But any repair man can remove it if it's just a ball bearing and a spring.

I can live without the film feeler mechanism. It's just one thing less that can break. They should have kept the flash cord locking lever even if it's not really needed anymore. Without it the camera looks less symmetrical and more unbalanced.

Is the shutter still a japanese Copal? Only time will tell if they will work as good for decades like the Synchro-Compur does.

The FX is a quality camera, it's new, has better lens coatings and meter plus a brighter viewing screen, but it also has it's compromises.


I have many Rollei's and I doubt that the 2.8 FX would give me any advantages over my 3.5 F with the six element Planar. This lens is sharper and contrastier than the 2.8 Planar on the E and F I've had, and it has the lens data on a real screwed in front lens retaining ring. It has a functioning meter that doesn't require a battery, metal spool knobs that locks in place, more solid lock for the back, no aperture clicks, quieter Synchro-Compur shutter, smooth shutter release and a selftimer.

If I had the money and wanted to buy a new Rolleiflex I would get an FW. The wide angle would be nice to use indoors and for landscapes. If I had more money, the FT too for portraits. The closest focusing distance is less than on the old Tele-Rollei, which is a big advantage.

I'm so glad that you mentioned the back door lock that is used on GX and FX Rolleis (with the exception of the FW and FT. The lock being used is the one that was used on Rollei T, Magic and Rolleicord models, which were the lower priced, consumer oriented cameras. The door lock does work well, but I've seen the front part bent upward (one of my Rollei T's had that happen), and if bent upwards enough it may prevent the door from closing. All other Rolleiflex TLR's had the heavier duty lock, which I doubt would ever be bent like the ones used in the Rollei T models could and occasionally did.
When the GX models came out I was quite surprised and disappointed that they used the cheaper, lighter duty back door lock, rather than the lock found on all Rolleis except the models that I mentioned. They were expensive cameras, why cheapen on an important part like the door lock?
For the FT and FW models, a heavier door lock is used, although it is somewhat different than the original one found in F models, etc. (most likely, as you mentioned, because they no longer have the castings for it, so they produced a new one very similar to it). The FX model retains the lower priced Rollei T type lock, although I have seen the prototype (photos of it on the Internet) that showed it having the same heavier duty lock as the FT and FW models. They should have used that lock on the consumer FX models.
My point is that for cameras of the price of the new Rollei FX, as well as the GX models, you would think that you would get the same (or a new version of) the heavy duty lock that you find on the overwhelming number of Rolleis ever made, with the exception of the lower priced consumer models previously mentioned. It a nutshell, they chose the cheaper door lock rather than the stronger one that was always used on most previous model Rolleis. For a camera costing in excess of $5,000 (US dollars) I find that very disappointing.