Help on Rollei 35

[MTC Photography]

I own Rollei 35 with 40mm /3.5 Tessar, Rollei 35S with Sonnar 40mm/2.8. <p>

The Sonnar is a contrasty lens. However, if due to the use of wrong

battery or exhaust battery, the exposure meter may not be accurate,

and may lead to underexposure and low contrast pictures<p>

 

I also have Contax T2 with Sonnar 38mm/2.8 and Contax T3 with

Sonnar 35mm/2.8, both are excellent lenses.

[manh_le]

Examples of photos taken from Rollei 35S (and other rollei):

 

http://www.rollei-gallery.net/ajdmead/folder-4977.html

[james_itard1]

Over the last 25 years I've shot more pictures with my Rollei 35SE than any other camera, simply because it fits in my back pocket, and I am apt to carry it everywhere. (My left side rear Levi pockets all bear the O-shaped impression of the lens on them.)

 

Yes, the 2.8 Sonnar is hellishly sharp, even wide open, but it is fairly low contrast, even compared to my 50mm first gen Summicron. (This may be a sample to sample variation.) The Sonnar has pleasant out of focus (not as dreamy as the Summicron) and is an overall very coherent performer. The five element lens is reputedly an exacting and expensive lens to manufacture.

 

The viewfinder is the best--better than the Hexar AF and the Contax G1/2--outside those of the Leica M2 and M3 and the Bessa R2. The heft of the 35SE--it weights in at 3/4 lb--helps makes up for its small size in keeping it steady at 1/25 and 1/15 sec. Zone focusing the lens is a always an paralyzing occasion of self-doubt.

[alan_wilder1]

I use to own the 35S and later the 35SE and found quirks not mentioned on this site. Their meter sensitivity in low light was no better than a selinium meter, i.e. EV 6 @ISO 100 compared to 3 or less on most compact 35s. The shutter release was fairly stiff especially with the 35SE, making shots taken at lower speeds a little jittery. Lastly film channel depth was a bit excessive leading to noticable sharpness drop-off at the edges. Regardless of these shortcomings, it was still a sharp picture taker with results comparible to my Leica M under the right circumstances.

[jonathan_reynolds]

Clocking back into this discussion now the sun has come round to the UK again. Apart from Jay, this discussion is music! I thought I was almost alone in using, loving (and sometimes hating) this little camera, and now out come all you other folk on my favourite forum, apparently equally accustomed to its quirks and appreciative of its merits. Maybe we'll see a few more Rollei 35 photos slipped into the threads here. I will try to get a few more scanned in.

 

I accept that I was probably wrong to query the value of the Sonnar's larger f/2.8 compared with the original Tessar's f/3.5. I've just checked the DOF figures. With the subject at 2 m, you need to set the focus within a 42 cm band at f/3.5, and within a 53 cm band at f/2.8. Even the former is a challenge, but the latter not as impossible as I imagined. Still, you know how it is when you get your Leica rangefinder exactly on the eyelashes....

 

On lens performance, I can speak only from personal practical experience of the lens in the camera, not from laboratory lens charts. Martin makes a characteristically wise point about incorrect exposure being sometimes a cause of low contrast, but for the record I now mostly use the same hand-held meter for both Rollei 35 and Leica M, and my comments above comparing identically processed films still apply.

[frank_reidelbach]

<i>With the subject at 2 m, you need to set the focus within a 42 cm band at f/3.5, and within a 53 cm band at f/2.8</i>

 

You sure its not other way around? Anyway DOF range depends on what you calculate as point sharpness. The 0,033mm-theory from the 1930's was sufficient for 3x4 prints or 500x800 pixel. Correlating 15 lp/mm is not what you call a sharp lens nowadays, and for sure underrates capability of a Sonnar lens. A Rollei-35 isn't a good idea for portraits.. except with a separate rangefinder attached to the shoe. I don't have seen them by Rollei. Voigtlander and others made them in the 1950's... buy one for 25USD @ebay...

[jonathan_reynolds]

Yes, it's the other way round. Thanks, Frank. Too much haste.

[jonathan_reynolds]

...but BTW Frank, is that 0.033 mm stuff REALLY out of date? I've been struggling to recall what I once knew about it. Isn't it based on 'normal' viewing distances (that allow two eyes to view the entire print without moving) and the fact that the human eye cannot resolve two items less than 1 degree apart? Something like that. Those things can't have changed since the 1930s. (My eyes have got worse since then!)

 

So it really represents the minimum desiderata for sharpness. If you can't focus even that reliably, your picture will look unsharp for sure. I guess that's why the DOF scale on the Rollei 35 lenses and many others is based on 0.033 mm.

 

Accepted, modern lenses far surpass those minimum criteria, and presumably (am I right?) this helps even at normal viewing distances to give a cleaner look to the image (for the reasons you have just explained in the concurrent lens contrast thread) and to suggest textures.

[frank_reidelbach]

Hi Jonathan,

 

what I remember is the natural perspective depends on the focus length too. If you shoot i.e. landscapes with a 21mm superwide, you need to make BIG prints, because you cannot view small prints from a distance small enough for the same angle of view as the lens has seen it in nature. Too small a print or scan will show details too small, distortion and vignetting corners.

 

The 0.033mm for a dot was a convention of the 1930's, when prints were much smaller as today, sharpness requirements less, and no super-wides available for 35mm film. Let's say you put a lot black and white 0.033 dots in a row you will reach at max 15 dot- or linepairs per mm film - very few for a good lens showing details of more than 100lp/mm at least in the center of the negative. I think this is why Erwin Puts recommends to focus the *point* and not using the AOF-scale printed om the lens.

 

I also read that some producer print smaller AOF-scales on their lenses now than 50 years ago. This makes sense.

 

As far as Rollei-35 is concerned: I think the Tessar- as well as the Sonnar lens is too sharp for focussing it guesswise, or to AOF-scale.. even with 40mm where the AOF is bigger than 50mmm (and thats why Rollei has selected this weird focus length).

 

BTW, "Sonnar".. this design has nothing to do with the Sonnar type lens Ludwig Bertele invents 1930 (6 elements - 2 groups). Its more a Planar type. I have a real Sonnar design (1.5-50) manufactured by Canon in the 1950's... I think with that "Sonnar" Zeiss started a cheerless tradition to cannibalize their famous names for marketing reasons. The Tessar of the Rollei-35 is truely the 4-elements-"eagle-eye"-design. Nowadays you see inflating "Zeiss Zoom-Tessars" (?) on cheap digicams...

[jonathan_reynolds]

Frank,

 

I think you may have missed my point. I fully agree that we want greater sharpness today than anyone dreamed possible in the 1930s. My point was solely that it's difficult to estimate focusing distance even to 1930s standards.

 

The 40mm lens isn't so wierd, you know. It used to be said (I don't know why) that natural perspective was achieved when the focal length equalled the diagonal of the negative. For 35mm, the diagonal is 43mm, to which the 40mm lens is closer than the 50mm. Practically speaking, I find that what I see with one eye open corresponds well with the field of view of the 40mm lens, and I use this to gauge whether I need to move before raising the camera. But in terms of image making, I find it much easier to isolate a subject with a 50mm lens.

[frank_reidelbach]

Hi Jonathan, yes, what you said about 50mm is absolutely true! If I go out with the Bessa-R and my small bag containing the 15/25/35/50/100 collection, I use the 50mm atmost. Curious! (in the last couple of years I thought "was a boooring focus length")

 

The camera with one lens only, I prefer 35mm. 40mm, hm hm, okay a lot like that.. but what we say in German "no fish, nor flesh" ;-)

 

But I wonder what "natural perspective" may be in terms of focal length. As far as I am concerned, it depends on print size and viewing distance, both which is variable. I have a landscape-picture from the 15mm Heliar - razor sharp lens! - blown up to 20x30 inch size, hanging on my wall. Normally you see it from the distance, say 4 feets. You would say, "yes, nice picture, you made it with 35mm?"

If you then come very close to inspect every grasshalm on that picture and get a whole impression of that landscape, you get "natural perspective", that means the same 110? angle of view I had when I took the picture. Of course, with a small print, this is unpossible without hurting the eye. The 15mm has 11x the image size of the 50mm, therefore you need 11x its printsize(!), if viewed from the same distance.

 

I read a good book from the 50's about lens construction (German: the eye of your camera) written from a guy at the great time when Germany was up to the peak of optical construction and even give up leading to the Japanese. Ifs a funny thing that some people declaimed "natural perspective" at 50mm, others (Nikon-guys ;-) at 105mm... anyway its OK! Shoot what you like most. What *I* like most is a landscape where I can fully use my 15mm, what you can see with both eyes turning the head but not the shoulders. Wow!

 

If a thing like fix "natural perspective" exists we could throw away most of our lenses. Maybe we could that anyway, but I doubt it. Its unrestricted. tend to agree with Erwin Puts here.

 

regards, Frank

[jonathan_reynolds]

Frank, you carry ALL THAT around with you? Wow, you must be dedicated.

 

As regards landscapes, I sympathise with your desire for step-inside images and immense detail. One thing I can't quite grasp with my small brain is whether a stitched print from 4 adjacent shots made by a 50mm lens would actually have the same perspective as a 15 mm (or whatever would have an equivalent field of view). I suppose I ought to try it, but do you happen to know?

[frank_reidelbach]

Hi, I have "all that" in a Lowe Photorunner, which is quite small a case... 3 wideangles 100g each, the 100/3.5 has 185g, the brass sonnar is a bit heavy with 260g, the Bessa 450g :-)

 

About the stiched picture, I don't know. Try it :-) Once I did the calculations of focus-length and viewing field - don't have it here. One tends to think that 15mm is 3x times the field of 45mm but this a quadratic relation. You need 11 shots 50mm to get one 15mm. Or other way around, a 100mm gives you 1/4 the field of 50mm. Correct me if I'm wrong

[peter_muller1]

Had forgotten my Rollei 35 until reading the posts. I dug it out of a drawer...the soft leather case is kind of molded to the outline of the front. Brought back some fond memories. It was/is a quirky camera, but fun to carry. I'd like to get mine back to pristine working condition. Can anyone recommend a place that will do a first class CLA on the 35? Thanks.

[frank_reidelbach]

A shop in Frankfurt/M., Photo-Moog, did 2 CLA's on mine: good value for the money and quite fast. He also sells a lot of old stuff - I think everything except Leica ;-) I highly recommend him. Contact me if you need his number...

[socke]

The Rollei 35TE was the first camera I bought from self earned money in 1980. It was small enough to fit into my locker on a german submarine and recomended to me by a professional photographer shooting watches, jewlery and shoes on 6x6 and 9x13.

 

It followed me around the world from San Juan to Shanghai and Tromsoe to Lisboa and it will acompany me to Cuba this fall :-)

 

 

Volker

 

P.S.: although I've inherited fathers cameras I'm far from his talent, I'm better off as a retired naval officer and CEO of a small IT firm :-)