What is this Rolleiflex Accessory??

Hey!

Picked up this odd Rollei accessory along with a Roleinar 3 close up lens. Anyone know what camera it is for or how to use it? It has aperture and shutter speed marking around it, but not like a lens more like a measuring device. Also it seems to have a ring that is supposed to hold it in place. The aperture blades move and all, just not sure what this is.

Thanks in advance!

Not really sure...never saw one before, but does it slip over the viewing lens so you can see DOF in the viewing screen? If so it would be awfully dim at f/22. That's my best guess.

If the blades are thin, it must be some kind of supernumerary aperture mechanism, perhaps as Dan says.

 

There were some early devices that had thick blades that would hold a lens on a lens board,but I can't see how that would work on a Rolleiflex o_O

This is a Rolleiphot, a combined depth of field preview and extinction meter for early cameras:

 

Rollei accessories 1

@John Seaman Thanks for the info! Looks like @Dan Deary was right about the DOF idea :) I tried to see if this fits on my Rolleiflex MX-EVS and no luck. That little silver lever prevents it from fitting on the viewing lens. I even tried with the Rolleinar attached but the inner diameter of the Rolleiphot is about 28.5mm, which is to small. Any idea as to what camera this would work on? Where the earlier Rollei TLRs sized differently?

A quick look at other Rollei TLR Cameras indicates that this would maybe work on the model I and II series only (they look like pre-bay type mounts). Anyone know if that is correct?

I think the Rolleiphot was made for the 1930's Rolleiflex Old Standard, or Standard Leverwind, which took 28.5mm round push on filters and accessories. It was the immediate predecessor of the Automat, which introduced the Bayonet 1 system, initially just on the taking lens. The very early Original Rolleiflex was different again. It may be possible to find an adaptor to use a 28.5mm accessory on a Bay 1 mount.

I can't help thinking that trying to preview the exact image to be captured on film would be better achieved by using the same lens for taking and viewing. Whoops, the SLR has just been invented and the drawbacks of the TLR exposed in all their nakedness!

I believe in the Mamiya TLR system that there was a lens that had DOF in the viewing lens. I don't think it was all that popular but it was designated as 105 DS(a slight telephoto). So this probably would have been manufactured in 70's or 80's era(?) Has anyone used this?

The DOF preview function is obvious, but what earthly use is the shutter speed dial?

 

Varying the brightness of the viewing screen has absolutely no effect on the film exposure and shutter speed/aperture combination unless one meters through the viewing lens.

 

AFAIK, no Rollei had a built-in lightmeter that measured off the viewing screen, and this is the only situation where such a calculator would be at all useful or practical. Any separate handheld meter would already have a shutter speed vs aperture calculator dial or table built into it.

 

So what use is the shutter speed scale? Did Rollei's designers have some sort of learning disability? Because they didn't seem to realise that f/3.5 is more than one shutter step brighter than f/5.6.

I think the Rolleiphot as well as providing a depth of field preview, somehow worked as an extinction type exposure meter, which is why the shutter speeds are marked.- the doubling and halving of the old sequence of shutter speeds was only approximate, so treating the step from F/3.5 to F/5.6 as one stop probably seemed reasonable.

 

There doesn't seem to be anything in the device itself to behave as an extinction meter. Perhaps the unfortunate user has to squint at the view until it became practically invisible on the ground glass screen as the aperture was reduced.

The central 'hole' appears darker than the background in those pictures. I'm wondering if there's an ND filter incorporated?

 

Anyway, it's difficult to see how this device can function both as an auxiliary f-stop and as an extinction meter with only 3 marked apertures.

 

The ring marked in shutter speeds seems to be the one that operates the iris. So how, then, is a known aperture set to preview DOF? But if it's an extinction meter only, how does one adjust it for varying film speed? In fact how does one judge the extinction point at all? Lack of dinosaurs? Disregarding the Rollei itself of course.

I found a closed auction, from an apparently knowledgeable seller, with this description which I've paraphrased - it seems that the later Bay 1 Rolleiphot had the facility to set different film speeds:

 

A Rolleiphot in bayonet 1 fitting with adjustable film speeds. It's an adjustable aperture that fits the viewing lens, with two uses. Firstly, it allows the user to assess depth of field on the ground glass screen. Secondly, it can be used as an extinction exposure meter. Set the desired film speed on the Rolleiphot, then stop it down until the image can no longer be seen on the ground glass. The aperture and shutter speed combinations for correct exposure can then be read off the side of the Rolleiphot.

Thanks John, I never had any understanding of extinction meters before. Sounds like it was not particularly user friendly let alone accurate.

Sounds like it was not particularly user friendly let alone accurate.

+ 1 to that!

Most extinction meters have a built-in high contrast target - usually numbers - and exclude extraneous light as much as possible. Even then they're not very accurate.

 

Using a variable contrast subject with any amount of extraneous light reflecting off a ground glass sounds worse than guesswork. Although the 'phot' suffix would suggest it was primarily intended as an exposure aid.

 

I suspect any increase in accuracy over the 'Sunny three-and-a-half rule' (allowing for film speeds of the time) would be purely accidental.:rolleyes: