Rolleiflex Original model adventures
Ever since I started using Rollei TLRs, I've wanted to see
what one of the early pre-WWII cameras were like. So I prowled
ebay, and found a promising candidate with an opening bid of $65.
I was the only bidder, and the camera arrived within a few days.
One never knows what to expect: anything can happen with a 77-year
old camera. This one while cosmetically dreadful turned out to
be in very good shape under the skin. The taking lens, a 3.8/75mm
Tessar is (aftermarket) coated! The lenses are in reasonable shape,
the shutter speeds tested OK, the hood action acceptable. The
only serious problem I noted immediately was that the lens carrier
board was out of whack:
Thanks to Claus Prochnow's Rollei Technical Report I knew that
these three screws released the lens board of my battered beauty:
The focus mechanism drives the lens board in and out by turning
the sleeves holding three helical rods (mount points for the three
screws above), which are held stationary by slots in the heads
which mate with pins on the reverse of the lens board:
Do not turn the rods or the focus knob while disassembled or humpty
might not come back together! By some kind of miracle, when I
reassembled the lensboard to the body, it was no longer out of
whack.
The hood lifts off after 4 screws are removed. The groundglass
his held up against the hood by two leaf springs, each attached
with one screw. The groundglass has a bubble level glued to its
underside, not needed in my opinion, and it blocks the view:
I replaced the groundglass with a spare fresnel from a Mamiya
C330 TLR. C330 screens are too small for all subsequent Rolleis,
but the Original screen is a bit smaller. (More info on using
Mamiya screens is here: http://www.panum.de/rolleiflex_screen.htm
but note that the instructions given for setting the focus are
dead wrong, the viewing lens must be adjusted, NOT the mirror.)
It is necessary to shortenen the tabs protruding from the sides
of the C330 screen for it to fit. I laid the groundglass on top
of the fresnel, cut deep into the fresnel with a fresh exacto
blade, and broke off the surplus...a few millimeters on each side.
This pic gives a better look at the leaf spring:
Inside the mirror box. The mirror was in fair shape, but a
bit dirty and had a few fingerprints. I thought I'd wash it and
clean with dishwashing detergent. Big mistake, the surface started
to come off. I stopped in time. After aligning the lensboard and
replacing the screen it is necessary to synch the viewing lens
to the taking lens. With the back removed, I taped the original
groundglass to the film rails and focused on a distant object.
Then I loosened the little screw on top of the viewing lens barrel
so that the distant object was also in focus on the fresnel screen:
The Original takes 117 film, with six exposures on a roll with
a spool that has the same shaft diameter and winding key slot
as a 120 spool, but its outer diameter is a little less: 0.905"
vs. 0.875". (http://medfmt.8k.com/bronfilms.html) A 120
roll will not fit the supply or takeup chamber of the Original,
although the numbering on the backing paper read through the red
window in the back is in the same position. I decided to get an
Original when I read on the page linked above that you can easily
cut down the flange of a modern Kodak plastic spool by cutting
along the groove near the edge with nail clippers. It only takes
a few seconds, and it works!
After trimming, the paper and film wound on the core is about
the same diameter as the flanges. Jumping ahead a bit, at the
end of tshooting the roll, the last few layers of paper had ridden
up on the flange. But there was no edge fogging.
The Tessar takes a 24mm push-on lens hood. I suspect these
might be very hard to find. I improvised one with a plastic 35mm
film can, sighting through the corners of the gate to see where
to cut the scallops. Not pretty, but effective until I find a
proper hood. A simple modern neckstrap works fine:
That old Tessar is awesome! Some sample images from the first
roll, Portra 400UC scanned with an Epson Perfection 3200 at 1600
dpi. These files are full resolution to show off the performance
of the lens. No sharpening. I suggest right-click downloading
to disc and opening in Photoshop. JPEGS are about 1MB, 20MB in
Photoshop.
RolleiOrigPATHentran.jpg
RolleiOrigBarber.jpg
RolleiOrigPeelingPaint.jpg