dale_edward

<p>Ben,</p> <p>Give Danielle Inc. a call at 973-244-9662. They are located in Fairfield, NJ. A few years back, I had the same problem on a 180 mm Schneider 2.8 Tele Xenar lens that I use on a Rollei 6008 Integral body. The aperature switch assembly on the lens had to be replaced. <br> First thing you should do is clean the brass contacts on both the lens and the camera body. If oil gets on these contacts, it can cause the aperature reading to display funny. These contacts should be clean and dry. After cleaning and drying the contacts, if you're still having a problem, you will most likely have to send the lens in for repair. <br> The Zeiss 50 mm f4 FLE is one of the better 50 mm lenses for the Rollei. If you shoot at f.5.6 and make certain the the FLE distance dial is adjusted accordingly, the MTF resolution on this lens is hard to beat. </p> <p>Dale</p>

<p>What is your particular reason for wanting to shoot pictures of your baby with a film medium format camera? Using a Hasselblad 503CW or a Mamiya RZ67 would be a good film camera to go with, but unless you plan on making big enlargements such as 20" x 20" or 20" x 30" you might be better served with a 35 mm SLR film camera instead. There is quite a difference in cost between developing and printing a roll of 120 film with 12 exposures, versus a roll of 35 mm film with 36 exposures. If you don't plan on making prints larger than 8" x 10", a 35 mm SLR camera would be a more practical approach and the difference in photographic quality between 35 mm and medium format would be very close at printing an 8" x 10" size print or smaller. <br> Moreover, if you're going to use a medium format camera tripod mounted, and you desire to get more tonality and less grain with a big print, then medium format is what you want to use. </p>

<p>Leica R9 with the 90 mm f/2 Summicron APO asph and the 280 f/4 Telyt APO lens. Leica M7 with the 50 mm f/1.4 Summilux asph lens. Shooting tripod mounted, I felt as if my images were being made in heaven. The bokeh with the APO lenses wide open is quite soothing to the eyes. Film of choice was Fuji Reala 100 when it was available. Now it's Portra 160 for color and Kodak T-Max 100 for black and white. </p>

<p>Shooting at the beach shouldn't be a problem with your 203 FE, especially if it is the chrome version. As long as you don't let any water come in contact with your camera body, you should be fine. If you're shooting real close to the water, you might consider using a quality lens filter such as B&W, but you must still be careful of being so close to the water that a splash might get your body and lens wet. I use to stand in knee deep water using a tripod with the tripod legs immersed about 18 inches in the water, and the procedure that I used to prevent the tripod legs from rusting was to dip the portion of the tripod legs that would be exposed to water in Mobil 1 full synthetic oil, and then wipe it down dry with a towel. After a day of the tripod legs being in the water, I would once again dip the legs in a bucket of Mobil 1 oil, and dry it off the next day. After five years, I haven't seen any trace of rust on the tripod legs yet.<br> As far as using your 203 FE at the beach, unless you're spending several days a week there exposed to the atmosphere, I really wouldn't be concerned about sustaining any damage. The real killer is when you permit water to splash onto your camera body. Just think. They even took the 203 FE to the moon during several Apollo space missions with no problem. That Hasselblad 203 FE is a keeper!</p>

<p>Justin,<br> It's difficult to determine what these spots are. In most cases, small specks of dust or small spots don't show up in your images. The best test would be to take some shots and see how they come out. Without having the opportunity to do so, you will never know if these spots will show up on your images. </p>

<p>Thomas,<br> Some of the 6000 series lenses were designed to focus past the infinity mark on the lens in order to compensate for thermal expansion of the lens assembly in very hot climates. The 300 mm 4.0 Schneider Tele Xenar lens for the Rollei 6000 series is one example of a lens that you can turn the focusing ring beyond infinity. <br> If you're using the split image portion of your focusing screen to verify correct focusing, and your images are indeed coming out sharp and in focus, then I wouldn't worry too much about a lens focusing beyond infinity. <br> If your 80 mm 2.8 lens is a PQ version, then this lens is probably over ten years old as opposed to the newer 80 mm lenses which were PQS with exception of the 80 mm Schneider 2.0 Xenotar lens. It could be that the focusing ring on your lens got misaligned by someone rotating the ring too hard. Nevertheless, as long as you are able to focus looking through the viewfinder and your images are coming out sharp, the focusing ring going past infinity is probably not an issue. </p>

<p>Jose,</p> <p>The 45 degree prism finder for the Rollei 6008 series is basically a sealed unit. You're probably better off sending the unit back to Rollei in Germany or if you're in the states, you could check with Danielle Inc. in New Jersey since they still repair Rollei 6000 series bodies and lenses. </p>

<p>Steve,</p> <p>Even though you're located in the UK, you could always send a negative to Westcoast Imaging in California. They do high qualityt liquid drum scans and also do Chromira prints. </p>

<p>Dave,<br> You should be quite happy with the Rollei 6008 Pro medium format camera. If you shoot slide E6 film, your exposure will have to be spot on. With Velvia 100, I often found that underexposing by 1/2 stop often produced more appealing contrast and color hues. Shoot a roll of E6 slide film such as Provia 100, and send it to Dwayne's Photo in Parsons, Kansas for developing since they maintain very strict standards on their E6 chemical calibration and temperatures. When you receive your roll of slide film back, view your images on a light box with a loupe, and I think you'll be quite impressed with what you see. Dwayne's also does an excellent job with printing C41 color negative film. Get a roll of Kodak 160 Portra film and have Dwayne's make some 5"x5" color prints from your 6cm x 6cm Rollei. This should provide you with a small glimpse as to the type of images that this camera will produce. <br> The main advantage of using a medium format camera is that it will enable you to make big enlargements like 30"x30" and retain a good amount of sharpness with little grain. A high end digital camera can often produce more sharpness than even the best film medium format cameras such as a Rollei or a Hasselblad can, but film still has that unique look and contrast that is different than what a digital sensor produces. <br> A steady tripod, a cable release, and an incident meter such as a Sekonik L-358 meter, represent a few tools that will enable you to make some very impressive photographs. <br> Remember that the end product will only be as good as your weakest link.<br> Dale</p>