Rollei - The Great And The Small 

The "Experts" have been telling me for decades that the Era of music stored on vinyl disks was "Long gone" too. But.......... Just yesterday at my local Department Store, I saw a large display of both vinyl LP's and assorted "Turn tables" to play them on! 😅

Recently bought a Rolleicord from 1950 in excellent condition. Even the leather case was pristine. Great strolling around camera. You just flip open the front cover, take the shot, and you’re on your way. No need for a camera bag.

The Rollei incorporates some of the features of the Rollei 15 and 16s cameras. The strange loading and the pull out shutter mechanism.

The TLR is still my favourite camera design. Back in the day I had a Yashica TLR (cheaper), I wish it was still in my possession today. I couldn't afford the Rolleiflex. TLRs still command a high price today, but one is on my bucket list. Thanks for a wonderful video once again Nigel. Regards Rob..

What an amazingly beautiful camera, and a brilliant review. I am especially drawn to Rolleiflex, as they were the cameras of choice of my all time favorite photographer - Vivian Maier.

Loading a Rolleiflex is so easy. What troubles did you have?

Thank you for all your content!!

I recently got two Rollei A26 cameras (the one for Instamatic film) for 7€ shipped, one had a defect in the shutter, the other in the electronics, managed to make one working camera out of them and adapt the left-over lens to my Leica CL, which was my original purpose in mind when I bought the lot. I feel like Kodak really did Rollei dirty with the 126 and 110 film without any kind of pressure plate. Pearls before swine ;) I think the small negative size is less of an issue - people are capable of making good enlargements off Minox after all, and 16mm or 110 is a giant compared to that. Side note, maybe you could show some Agfa cameras some time? Whenever I use their cameras I feel like they actually made some of the smartest little decisions that benefit the user, like being able to advance and rewind with the same lever and having the film cassette holder automatically pop out when you open the back on the Optima Sensor xx35 series (335, 535, 1035, 1535) and the earlier Optima 200/500.

Love this episode! Thanks!

Hasselblad launched their first consumer camera (pros included) in 1949 called the Hasselblad 1600F which looked very much like what we think now as Hasselblad. The start of the Legend was 1957 with the 500C which was built until 1970 and was the dead of the Rolleiflex. Besides the A110 I also have an A26 which is an A110 for instamatic film cassettes which don't exist anymore and if Lomography does not come to rescue won't ever again. I think Rollei has teamed up with MiNT for the Rollei 35AF, so there will be a camera again with name on it! Thanks for the video!

i have a later model Minolta Autocord TLR which rivaled and some say the lens was better than the Rollei 2.8 TLR. A worthwhile alternative if you are hunting for that format.

Rollei produced a variety of cameras. Ranging from the twin lens reflex to the a110. I would point out to that they beautiful compact 35mm with great zeiss lenses not to mention the sl66 medium format single lens flex. In retrospect rollei made some great products.

Yes, they did, starting in the late 1960s. SL35, SL350, SL35 M, SL35 ME and SL35E. These were followed by the 2000 and 3000 series; but I was out of the camera business by then, so I'm not as familiar with those. There were also the 120 film SLX and 6000 series.

The Twin lens reflex bodies where made up to 1981, the F Versions. Than Rollei start again with the Gx Versions at 1987. In Brunswick there made cameras in very small numbers (mostly from boxed parts) to ~ 2008. The company had at last only ~ less than 10 workers! From 4000 in 1981...🥴. Today its only distribution, the films are from extern producers. The twin lens reflexes have superior quality....but not the 35mm slr from the seventies...warning, don't buy these types....because...they have weak (at the time modern) plastic parts in it....and the singapore fabric must learn learn learn. Now Rollei is a sucess story in singapore...they transfer technology, than copy and paste....the Rollei factory goes down 1981 (starts 1970). This factory was the beginning of high tech in singapore, it was the starting of singapore tech companies, esspecially the start of the hard disk industry in singapore.

Folks seem to forget that Photography 📸 began with the very earliest "experiments" of the 1830's. And before the (America) Civil war, by the 1850's or so, the art and science of Photography was developed enough that we still have many hundreds of glass plate "Negatives" from the era. Not to mention a whole lot of excellent "Prints" (or Enlargements) in existence too! These Photographers had no light meters. And basically used the "Sunny 16" rule well into the 1960's when some of the very first cameras with built-in meters began to appear. Guess I was very fortunate to have learned at a time and from Craftsmen that had no need for any "Fancy" electronic do-hickies or "Do-dads" on their cameras!

Didn't Rollei do a 35mm SLR in the 1980's?