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what are your experiences with the rollei 35?

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The number of Rollei 35 cameras that have been dropped should tell you something. In their bid to be as tiny as possible the control surfaces sacrificed ergonomics completely. Operationally, an Olympus leaves them for dead. However they are lovely, and if you have the fingers of a seamstress and the eye of a surveyor, a 35 would make a good street camera. For most of us there are better choices.
 
Huss said:
A camera like the Agfa Optima 1535 is nearly as small, but has a coupled RF and much more sensitive light meter, reading down to several seconds.
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As all Optima cameras it has a programmed exposure automation, and by that is hardly comparable to the Rollei 35.
 
Well, I'm hearing a lot of repeat answers here. Lovely camera, nice lens, too fiddly to use, zone focusing is a crapshoot at wider apertures. Maybe I'll rethink buying one. Maybe I'll consider a 4x5 pinhole instead. Thanks everyone for your opinions. It's very useful to draw on all the knowledge here on this forum.
 
My final say on the matter is by all means buy one if you can find one still fully working, providing the price has not been hiked by Scene Tax. The one I saw on eBay which sold for £35 is about what I'd pay, whereas the identical one I saw that sold for £290 is IMO crazy money.
 
I have one original 1966 German model and two later Singapore models. All have the f/3.5 lens. The f/3.5 lenses are very sharp. I do not have personal experience with any of the f/2.8 models. A Rollei 35 is not for everyone and you should not use it with people who are impatient. I like it. If I am not using a Rollei 35 and want a small camera I will consider taking a Konica C35/Automatic/V, a Konica Auto S3/C35FD, an Olympus 35 RC, an Olympus 35RD or a Minolta Hi-Matic 7SII. For something larger I would take an Olympus 35SP or maybe a Konica Auto S1.6.
 
Well I don't want to put a damper on it but..............

I had a Rollei way back. It was fiddly, never liked it and to cap it all the lens barrel jammed after less than a year.
Would I have another one,.........no.
As said above there are much nicer compacts out there, just my opinion of course. :smile:

And they are overpriced.
 
[QUOTE="blockend, post: 1998423, member: 43186"]The number of Rollei 35 cameras that have been dropped should tell you something. In their bid to be as tiny as possible the control surfaces sacrificed ergonomics completely. Operationally, an Olympus leaves them for dead. However they are lovely, and if you have the fingers of a seamstress and the eye of a surveyor, a 35 would make a good street camera. For most of us there are better choices.[/QUOTE]

That's why they supplied the wrist strap. Even then they got dropped, they are not for unmindful people.
I know the history of the one I have. It was dropped in Naples about July/August 1978, I saw it happen. Camera was eventually repaired, used a while, forgotten about, then rediscovered a couple years ago and placed in my hands. On the occasions I use it I put the strap around my wrist and cup the camera in my hand when it's not in my pocket or beltpack.
 
AgX said:
As all Optima cameras it has a programmed exposure automation, and by that is hardly comparable to the Rollei 35.
Click to expand...

Or is it that the Rollei can hardly compare to the Agfa? As it does not have a programmed AE giving readings from 1/1000 to 30 seconds. Nor does it have a rangefinder.

It is true what other people have mentioned. I have never seen so many of a type of camera with dents in it from being dropped. That speaks to the handling qualities.
 
Patrick Robert James said:
Between a Rollei and a Minox 35, the Minox is the winner. Smaller, lighter, lens is just as good. I would put the Rollei way down on the list of small cameras to have. Too fiddly to use.
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The Minox's problem is that most of them are broken. I gave up looking for one. Really nice lens on it though.
 
Mine is the Rollei 35TE, found for $15 at an antique store. Next to a Leica III with Elmar and Leica IIIa with Summar, and Rolleiflex TLR. Best $60 I ever spent.
The Tessar is sharp and contrasty. The batteries- somewhat of a pain. Collapsing the lens- be sure to read the instruction book, there is a trick to it.
 
Some have already made my intended responses, but I would still like to add my responses. I bought my Rollei 35 the first day they were for sale at Minicam in NYC. (Was it 1966? All I remember was the excitement among the customers. )
The wrist strap is an integral part of the camera, as is the zippered case with hole for wrist strap. Despite rugged construction I put so many dents on corners that they had to be hammered out. Meter is accurate and works well after all these years. While not a Luna pro or Ranger 9 a large share of my pictures are taken in not so bright light. The shear mass of the camera allows use of slow shutter speeds (I have shot printed matter at 1/4 sec with no visible camera shake at large enlargements).
By the way, I have a small drawer with a half dozen Minox 35 cameras that are electronically dead.
 
guangong said:
Some have already made my intended responses, but I would still like to add my responses. I bought my Rollei 35 the first day they were for sale at Minicam in NYC. (Was it 1966? All I remember was the excitement among the customers. )
The wrist strap is an integral part of the camera, as is the zippered case with hole for wrist strap. Despite rugged construction I put so many dents on corners that they had to be hammered out. Meter is accurate and works well after all these years. While not a Luna pro or Ranger 9 a large share of my pictures are taken in not so bright light. The shear mass of the camera allows use of slow shutter speeds (I have shot printed matter at 1/4 sec with no visible camera shake at large enlargements).
By the way, I have a small drawer with a half dozen Minox 35 cameras that are electronically dead.
Click to expand...
The electronics are pretty reliable in these cameras. The two issues which crop up are first the row of contacts which connect the shutter and cds cell to the body when the lens is extended, and second there are two tiny electromagnets, each controlls one blade of the two-blade shutter; you could call them "opening" and "closing" electromagnets. These magnets (connected to the timing circuit), each controlling a tiny lever, time the shutter and it is when the levers stick that the shutter fails. I've yet to find a Minox 35 that couldn't be resurrected by cleaning the contacts and/or freeing the levers. Sometimes the armatures stick to the magnet cores, too.
 
I've done a little bit of servicing of the Rollei 35SE, Minox 35EL and Olympus XA, and for what it's worth, I thought:

Rollei looks very nicely made. Mine already had a brass gear installed in the film wind mechanism. Want to be careful not to lose the lens trim ring which is only lightly cemented into place, and said cement deteriorates over time.

Minox was one of my first repair attempts, but even so I was able to fix an electronic shutter which wasn't opening correctly. Never had further issues. At first I was annoyed by the apparent lack of any manual exposure control until I realized that the ISO dial can be effectively used as such.

Olympus XA is a thing of wonder: First of all, rather than design a complex mechanism to retract and extend the lens, they reworked the optics such that the rear lens element is enormous and sits much closer than normal to the film. At least superficially, it appears similar to what Fujifilm does with their X100-series cameras, and Sony with the RX1. It also seems to be the easiest to service of the bunch. Does it make the others appear quaint by comparison? Oh, just a little...
 
4season said:
I've done a little bit of servicing of the Rollei 35SE, Minox 35EL and Olympus XA, and for what it's worth, I thought:

Rollei looks very nicely made. Mine already had a brass gear installed in the film wind mechanism. Want to be careful not to lose the lens trim ring which is only lightly cemented into place, and said cement deteriorates over time.

Minox was one of my first repair attempts, but even so I was able to fix an electronic shutter which wasn't opening correctly. Never had further issues. At first I was annoyed by the apparent lack of any manual exposure control until I realized that the ISO dial can be effectively used as such.

Olympus XA is a thing of wonder: First of all, rather than design a complex mechanism to retract and extend the lens, they reworked the optics such that the rear lens element is enormous and sits much closer than normal to the film. At least superficially, it appears similar to what Fujifilm does with their X100-series cameras, and Sony with the RX1. It also seems to be the easiest to service of the bunch. Does it make the others appear quaint by comparison? Oh, just a little...
Click to expand...

That's not a "rework", it's a non-retrofocus wide angle. A common example is the Jupiter 12, which is a clone of the prewar CZJ Biogon for the Contax. The almost-1" diameter rear element of this lens is about 6mm from the filmplane, and the design has definite advantages regarding distortion. Modern wideangles for SLRS have to be retrofocus, or"reverse telephoto" designs to make room for the mirror box.
 
Ces1um said:
While I'm always doing my best to fend of GAS there are a few cameras out there that I doubt I could resist I I found at a yard sale. The brownie hawkeye and the rollei 35. Not exactly sure what it is about these two other than I just love the looks of them. It's not a logical decision.

I've been very tempted to buy a rollei 35 lately. Probably the 35s but I'm not married to that. I was wondering what people thought of the camera? Whatdid you find were it's strengths and weaknesses? Do you enjoy shooting with it, or is it lacking? I understand the issues of it being zone focus, uses an obsolete mercury battery, and still cost top dollar. How do people find the left handed/upside down flash/backwards loading/top down settings adjustment idiosyncrasies? Quirky and fun or a major annoyance? Would you buy the brownie hawkeye instead? I'm interested in others points of view here. Don't hold back! Thanks for your opinions.
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mine spend more time at Rollei for repairs than in my hands until I finally just pitched it; nothing but a headache.
 
Always felt the only sin the Rollei 35 committed was being overpriced, leading to some people expecting more from it than it could deliver. When you strip away the glitz it's a manual exposure camera with a cds lightmeter and guestimate focussing which severely hampers the practicality unless you have the dead eye of an architect. Its main saving grace is the decent lens. But the same price, both when new and now used, buys a camera that the average person can at least focus with confidence at all apertures and distances. Other contemporary competitors crippled with with guestimate focussing (such as the Olympus Trip) had the benefit of being cheaper.
 
This question of price. My Rollei 35 has given me 50 years of trouble free service. Amortization for all those years equals a rather modest price. The Rollei 35 viewfinder is large and bright compared with my XA and Minox 35s. Sometimes a rangefinder can actually get in the way and one can become too fiddely (which is why the Leica M3 has a little wiggle room notch in the finder and Zeiss had their red dot settings). In the 1970s I took a lot of pictures of wall posters, handbills and store windows with my Rollei...results were always sharp. Of course choice of camera is a personal choice and there is no universal camera, despite the advertising. For me, even different models of Minox 8x11 have their different uses. 50 years of use along with quite a few drops and bangs through the years and I’m told it’s not a usable quality instrument?
 
OlyMan said:
Just looked again at completed items and amazed at the variance in prices, anything from £35 to £290 for effectively the same camera.
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If I remember correctly, they go for around €100 to €250 in brick-n-mortar stores carrying 2nd hand items here.
 
I like mine (Xenar f/3.5). it flares like crazy is my only complaint. Easy to use and to carry, I haven’t dropped mine yet. It’s perfect for pinging off candid frames with friends/family. I don’t hesitate to bring it and to exercise the shutter without restraint.

My focus scale on top is feet, meters underneath. I’d love to swop this around as I’m great at guessing in metric but it seems impossible to find information on this possibility or why some are feet some are meters on top and how i could get one ‘in metric.’

Did the OP dive in?
 
c41 said:
I like mine (Xenar f/3.5).

Did the OP dive in?
Click to expand...

I tried! Had one lined up on kijiji but was given the runaround and eventually the seller said she "couldn't find it anymore". Tried to buy a kodak brownie hawkeye as well of kijiji but the seller failed to show up. In the end I went in a complete opposite direction and bought a harman titan 4x5 pinhole camera. Pretty radical departure I know.
 
c41 said:
I like mine (Xenar f/3.5). it flares like crazy is my only complaint. Easy to use and to carry, I haven’t dropped mine yet. It’s perfect for pinging off candid frames with friends/family. I don’t hesitate to bring it and to exercise the shutter without restraint.

My focus scale on top is feet, meters underneath. I’d love to swop this around as I’m great at guessing in metric but it seems impossible to find information on this possibility or why some are feet some are meters on top and how i could get one ‘in metric.’

Did the OP dive in?
Click to expand...

Does the lens rotate 180 degrees while it's collapsed?
 
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