Rollei 60mm Zeiss aperture problem solved

[qdb]

I know I'm not the only person to have a disparity between the set

aperture on this lens and that shown in the viewfinder on my Rollei

6008i. The viewfinder diplay was about two-thirds of a stop out,

fooling the camera meter, and leading to dodgy exposures. Solution:

the small printed circuit board in the lens had worn and shifted, and

had to be replaced. for GBPounds 49, I had it fixed by Studio

Workshop in London.

 

End of Problem.

[vijay_nebhrajani]

Hello Quentin,

 

Congrats. While I am glad that your lens now works fine, I am not entirely convinced that the problem should have ever happened. This kind of problem reeks of bad design practices.

 

Unfortunately, for all the apparent technological prowess of Rollei, Schneider and Zeiss, we do not see any allusion to MTBF numbers. In other words, these three companies do not make any claim to the reliability of their products. If a PCB wears out and shifts in a few years, yes, that IS an unacceptable time to failure. If Boeing designed jets the same way as Rollei/Zeiss/Schneider designs cameras, air travel would be too risky to attempt.

 

I cannot help but be completely disgusted by the attitudes of these companies - it's as if consumers were entirely stupid and they were God.

 

Regards,

[bob_salomon]

"If Boeing designed jets the same way as

Rollei/Zeiss/Schneider designs cameras, air travel would be too

risky to attempt. :

 

Great analogy.

 

But how many people would be injured or killed if a shutter

crashes?

 

How much R&D costs are used to develop that Boeing product

vs a camera shutter?

 

What governmental controls, redtrictions, requirements does a

shutter manufacturer need to meet other then CE?

 

I don't know why you are on such a kick but I can tell you we have

sold PQS shutters to a manufacturer of traffic cameras who has

installed them in places like Australia and which are totally

remote inoperation. They are set to fire at 1/500 to 1/1000 (the

speeds that have the shortest life span on a shutter) and have

sucessfully performed over 100,000 exposures before failure.

That compared to fewer then 100 shots on the same lens with a

leaf shutter (150mm Sonnar).

[squareframe]

if Boeing made cameras, they would weigh 300 pounds and cost $50,000.

[vijay_nebhrajani]

> But how many people would be injured or killed if a shutter crashes?

 

So because a failed shutter does not kill people it is OK to design unreliable shutters? Come on.

 

> How much R&D costs are used to develop that Boeing product vs a camera shutter?

 

Immaterial. Anyone claiming to understand engineering understands that reliability issues are of paramount importance. And anyone in marketing should understand that reliability issues can cause companies to fold up. So if you really want to defend Rollei, get them to publish MTBF data for each product. If Rollei sells me a product that costs me a few thousand dollars (its their flagship product, besides), I expect a modicum of reliability. Look at Nikon and Canon; look long and hard at their designs and look long and hard at the designs of Zeiss, Leica, Blad and Rollei. Hello!

 

> What governmental controls, redtrictions, requirements does a shutter manufacturer need to meet other then CE?

 

So is that an excuse for poor designs? To tell you the truth, there is no excuse for poor and outdated designs, there is no excuse for lack of reliability, and manufacturers know that. As long as we do not have consumers screaming, they are quite content to let things be... hence I'm screaming.

 

> They are set to fire at 1/500 to 1/1000 (the speeds that have the shortest life span on a shutter) and have sucessfully performed over 100,000 exposures before failure. That compared to fewer then 100 shots on the same lens with a leaf shutter (150mm Sonnar).

 

That is not MTBF. MTBF is an average of several samples in several different conditions (temperature/humidity and so on) on several different shutters. The shutter on a 180/2.8 is different from that in an 80/2.8... and so on. Does Rollei conduct such tests under controlled conditions? If yes, then why don't they publish such data? Canon and Nikon do. The conclusions that I can draw are two: either they don't conduct such tests or that the numbers are so lousy that they cannot publish them. Come on, if PQS lenses had an MTBF of 300,000 cycles as opposed to Nikon's 150,000, I'd see that as a marketing point. I'd make sure I shouted it from the proverbial rooftops.

 

Pardon me, but a claim that the shutter fired 100,000 times in Australia is not a controlled test -- was there a shutter counter even? Further, that they performed better than some Sonnar is not an endorsement of the PQS shutter; it shows how bad the Sonnar really was.

 

And another thing: the speed that may cause the worst stress on a shutter is a long exposure. A shutter can be thought of as three operations: open, wait and close. The open and close parts consume exactly the same energy, and stress the mechanics exactly the same, regardless of the wait duration. If the wait duration causes any stress (if at all), then the longer the wait duration (i.e., the longer the shutter speed) the worse stressed the lens is. Come on, please save the "faster shutter speed = shortest span of life on a shutter" for someone who has more money ;-)

 

Daniel, you're probably correct, Boeing was not exactly the correct example... Casio quartz watches, maybe? Cheesy, cheap, but utterly reliable. Rolex, on the other hand... ;-)))

 

Guys, please remove those rose tinted, HFT or T* multicoated glasses and see the truth about these camera manufacturers. I am not against any manufacturer of anything, but I do speak out when I see pathetic stuff that is passed off as quality photographic equipment that I will pay $5000 for.

 

Vijay

[vijay_nebhrajani]

Sorry for another post - the PQS shutter may be utterly reliable too - except that when you shove it in along with moving wires and sliding switches, you are not exactly enhancing its reliability...

 

Regards,

[bob_salomon]

Then why don't you go to Braunschweig. Present yourself to the

factory. Show your expertise and show them how to redesign

product.

 

Talk is cheap.

 

Your claims and expectations are riduculous.

 

And I have had nothing to do with Rollei since 1998 but you are

plainly speaking Bull.

 

You have no idea of what you are talking about.

 

Perhaps engineer means street cars.

[vijay_nebhrajani]

Bob!

 

Whoa, none of my comments were personally directed at you. However...

 

> Then why don't you go to Braunschweig. Present yourself to the factory. Show your expertise and show them how to redesign product.

 

Rollei cannot afford to hire me ;-)

 

> Your claims and expectations are riduculous.

 

No they are not! Let me design a PC for you with the same low reliability. Pay $4000 for it, and see it in the repair shop once a month. If that sounds reasonable to you, then my claims are ridiculous. Truth is, the reliability of electronics and mechanics is a very seriously taken field, and if you cannot see its value and dismiss it as a ridiculous expectation, you Sir, are the one who is talking bovine feces.

 

> You have no idea of what you are talking about.

 

Well, in the past, Silicon Valley companies have paid $200 an hour for my services, and they seemed to think I knew exactly what I talked about, at least when it came to electronics. Of course, if Rollei thought that way, it'd be a much bigger company with a lot more money, customers and products than it has today.

 

> Perhaps engineer means street cars.

 

That too.

 

In the end, sorry; I withdraw from this debate. It is pointless now, considering that I have to even argue about it. Perhaps some future reader will read this and know what to do, and not go through the frustration I have gone through.

 

Regards,

[bob_salomon]

Fee,

 

And with all that sucess you buy grey market too?

[qdb]

This has all got a bit off my original topic, guys...

 

Just to clarify, my problem was not with the shutter, but with a small printed circuit board that was cheap to replace.

 

I bought the lens second-hand, so I have no idea how much use it has had. I'd say quite a bit.

 

It is a great lens. My only complaint about Rollei lenses is the high price new.

[bob_salomon]

When we were the Rollei distributor, 1986 to 98, we did see

lenses with a bad board on an infrequent basis. It was not an

unknown problem and you found the correct solution.

Frequently it occurred by the lens being used on a camera with a

bad board.

 

Any used lens for Rollei should be checked before using it.

 

If the lens has an electronic problem it could effect the

electronics in the camera.

[josepmiro]

Hello,

After reading your contributions and othe sites of Internet about Medium format cameras, I've changed my decision of buying a new Rollei 6008i.

Now, I think that hasselblad is much more reliable.

So, I'm going to buy a hasselblad 503 CW, with NO ELECTRONICS.

Do you think is a good decision?

 

Thanks,

Pep Miró

[bob_salomon]

" Do you think is a good decision? "

 

No. All systems have breakdowns.

[rendy_cheng]

I use to own Hassyblad, but now I have 6008i. The change is due to my personal reason. Buying Hassy

does not solve all the problems. Hassy has its own set of problem. I think the best thing to do is to have

your equipment service once in a while. Using Boeing as an example is very bad. If the airline companies just

keep flying the 747 without the schedule maintance, 747 will fall off sky more often. It would be nice to

have a camera that never break, but we all know that is kind of difficult to do.

[vijay_nebhrajani]

Hi,

 

I thought I'd withdrawn from the debate, but it seems like I'll have to post some definitions (as understood by the engineering world) so that we don't erupt into a Brand X vs Y war and involve Boeing in the process.

 

Every electrical or mechanical system will fail, sooner or later. We define "reliability" as a measure of the failure probability within a specified time duration. If you take a household electrical switch, it is switched on and off many times... causing mechanical stress and wear and tear. After a certain number of times the spring will break or the plastic will break or the contacts will deteriorate because of sparking or whatever. The designer of the switch will determine the average number of cycles it takes to failure. The designer/manufacturer will then make an assumption - the switch is toggled about 6 times a day, and then figure out how long the switch will last, on average. A switch that lasts 10 years by this calculation is defined to be more reliable than a switch that, under similar testing conditions and assumptions, lasts 5 years. Such a figure (arrived at in a more thorough way) is called MTBF or Mean Time Between Failures. Remember that when you consider a chained system with many parts with their own MTBF, the MTBF of the system is a probability sum - worse than the MTBF of each individual part.

 

That is about it, in layman's terms. For very critical applications, such as aeronautics, the testing criteria are much harsher, and often, minimum time to failure (rather than average time to failure) will be used. Regular maintenance involves replacing certain components before a certain elapsed duration. This elapsed duration is determined from the MTBF figure and the criticality of the part.

 

Now, both Hassy and Rollei will fail sooner or later. Nothing is 100% reliable for an infinite amount of time. The factor that distinguishes a good design from a bad design is the time to failure. What I have been talking about is:

 

1. Does Rollei conduct failure/reliability/stress tests?

 

2. What are the results of these tests?

 

3. Does Rollei require a scheduled maintenence interval?

 

4. What is the MTBF of critical components such as sliders and moving wires? Sliding or rotary switches will be used for the aperture ring, shutter dial, ISO setting, metering selector and so on. These are electro-mechanical parts that will eventually fail, and so it becomes important to know their MTBF.

 

To clarify the Boeing example - since it involves life and limb, I am guessing that Boeing would have to do some very thorough reliability tests and be very pessimistic in their calculations. As long as that data is then published, and someone maintains the stuff, the probability that a jet will fall out of the sky is minimized (but never zero).

 

As for the 180/2.8 Rollei lens, five lenses have been tested so far. With a good design, one expects that the probability that all the five samples will fail within 100 cycles is of the order of less than 0.000001 (1 in a million). Yet, my friends, all five lenses did have problems. To my mind, that indicates that something other than coincidence at work.

 

Further, since designers *know* beforehand that switches fail, they often use other techniques. Let me give you an example. Consider the aperture ring - this is a multi-way switch, and can be implemented as a slider on a plane; or a moving LED with photosensors, making the switch "optical". (No, the cost will not go up by more than a couple of dollars.) The optical switch avoids friction, wear and tear, and will have a longer MTBF. Yes, there are other, less "drastic" measures that will increase the MTBF.

 

In my opinion, some of the things that happen to be there in Rollei's lens design have low MTBF. On the whole, please understand that my view is that the design is very good. I have very specific complaints, and I hope that these are now clearer.

 

If you want to know more about MTBF or reliability, search for "MTBF and Reliability" on Google.

 

Regards,

[doug_brightwell1]

As someone who works in Silicon Valley and someone who

received a defective 180/2.8 too, I have to agree with Vijay.

 

I don�t have an axe to grind, and I�m no engineer, but I do have

experience with human nature and marketing. I take it as

axiomatic that companies tout, or at least publish, information

that makes them look better than the competition, and withhold

information that doesn�t.

 

In general consumers in the photographic industry don�t

demand the kind of accountability that customers do in the

computer/software industry. And they don�t have the kind of clout

it takes.

Photography lacks a vigorous press, and that�s a keystone to a

strong consumer advocacy. If you�re a CIO and your job and your

company�s fortunes depend upon making the right hardware or

software decision, you demand, and can get, higher quality

information than is available to photographers.

 

Forget CIOs. As a personal computer user, I can get more

detailed critical product analysis about my $600 copy of

PhotoShop than I can my $20,000 worth of Rollei equipment.

 

Anyway, I�ve been surprised by what seems to be an instinct to

reject Vijay�s point of view. OK, perhaps as an engineer, he�s

zeroing in on a level of detail that�s hard for some to relate to. But

why on earth would I fault the basic thrust of his argument?

If he got his way, would I gain or lose as a photo consumer? If

photo manufacturers were held to higher standards, do I gain or

lose?

 

My two cents.

 

Cheers...

Doug

[l_a_k_h_i_n_d_e_r]

To Bob Solomon: I don't know what sort of Manuals Boeing aircrafts come with, but Rollei's user manual is surely not worthy of a $3k camera-- it resembles more like the card in front of your aircraft seat: showing the emergency exits (yes I am exaggerating a bit)! The problem is not limited to Rollei though.

 

I wonder what Nikon says about their $5000 lenses: since they are speciality items as against a regular $100 50mm f/1.8 lens! Surely Bob, you are not making 100 MF shutters or lenses in a year: I am guessing Boeing makes 100 aircraft in a year. If you are, then your comparison to Boeing is very meaningful. In any case, a shutter is just a shutter and not a system!

[bob_salomon]

As I said earlier. We sold Rollei from 1986 to 1998. We have not

been involved with them since and we don't make medium

format shutters.

 

If you don't like the instruction book take it up with Rollei. We

have nothing to do with it.

[l_a_k_h_i_n_d_e_r]

Bob, surely I understand you are not involved with Rollei any more or make shutters. You are now splitting hairs. But I did not give that example of shutter: you did! Also, the issue is: what is the philosophy behind expensive gadgets with poor MTBFs. Surely you are debating that here with us, whether you were involved with Rollei until few years ago is a secondary issue. Now you are telling us to take up the manual issue with Rollei. I know that anyways! If you notice, I did not point at Rollei manuals. There are plenty of companies. I once bought an expensive 4x5. It came with a one page flier (manual)! I still don't know a few things about it I am sure-- but I get by without any problems.

 

I would like to know from you, since you are involved in distributing many high end photographic gadgets: just exactly what should we expect from these companies you represent? Surely I am not buying a $100 lens and expecting something outrageous from you. Let us forget the issue of gray market also-- that is a full topic by itself.

 

Best wishes.

[bob_salomon]

We warraty Copal shutters for 3 years. Do you think we would do

that if there qare constant repairs?

 

How about 5 years on Linhof?

 

There are exceptionally few shutter defects that we see on new

equipment and anyone buying one should expect years of

service from them.

 

But shutters, electronic or mechanical, need periodic

maitenance as does anything else with moving parts.

 

With common sense care and non abuse expect the equpment

to last decades.

[rene_kassis]

Having experienced myself the same problem with the same lens, would someone (Quentin?) be kind enough to give the address of the repair shop who did the job (Studio Workshop as per Quentin's posting)?

 

Thanks in advance (PS: I live in London)

 

Rene Kassis