richard_fateman

<p>Probably you can get a much better light meter for much less money. The field of view, sensitivity, convenience of reading the meter -- all leave a lot to be desired. The galvanometer in the dial is over 50 years old, and may be just fine, or not. Replacing that would be an added expense. A small Gossen Pilot or similar selenium meter would be better, or you can of course get a CdS or other more sensitive or larger meter.<br>

This is assuming you want to use the camera to take pictures, not just restore you Rollei meter "back to new".</p>

 

<p>You should be aware that the shutter speeds on your Rollei can be "within spec" and still be off by a substantial amount (I think how much, depends on the speed) but 1/500 may really be closer to 1/300 [etc]. The reason I mention it is that very precise measurement of the light may not result in very precise exposure. Getting the shutter speeds tested may be useful (if one presumes that the shutter speeds are repeatable. They probably are for a Rollei 3.5F.)<br>

I have a little chart pasted on my camera of the actual speeds.</p>

 

<p>Here's something else. <br>

Print the picture on paper, say 8X8 inches<br>

Scan it on an ordinary flatbed scanner at 300 dpi (easy to do). You now have 2400X2400 pixels to fiddle with, sharpen, change contrast etc.<br>

Is this going to lose detail, dynamic range, etc? Sure. But you plan to put this on a web page, so maybe it is good enough.</p>

 

SL66 is kind of old. You can probably get a Rollei 6006 with lens and back for your money.

Um, I hesitate to add to this, but consider that the position of the film is determined by the rails only at the rails. At other places the natural bowing of the film affects the position. If film were guaranteed to be flat, many components of film transport could be vastly simplified. In the center of the film, away from the rails, what determines the lens-to-film distance? It is usually the pressure plate pushing at the back of the film in the middle of the frame. Now if the pressure plate is pressing directly on the film, or the pressure plate is pressing on paper that presses on the film, there are two different distances produced between the film surface and the lens. Unless the camera allows you to place the pressure plate in a slightly different plane for 220 film vs 120 film, the focus will be affected by the paper thickness. This adjustment is available for several cameras I am familiar with, from Rollei and Fuji. Presumably others, as have been noted above.

 

The importance of film flatness is perhaps not so well understood, but it is esssential to sharpness. Note that in the medium-format field, there is a Contax 645 with a vacuum back that works to suck 220 film flat against the pressure plate. This does not work for 120 film -- it would be sucking the paper flat, not necessarily the film.

 

Some film backs are notoriously bad on keeping film flat. I have seen this problem in 6x9cm graflex backs. There are stories about unfortunate spacing between frames and the winding spools -- you do not want the crease from exposure 1 to appear in the middle of exposure 2; there are studies on how long it take for film to "relax".

 

Or can you put some extra tension on the film just after winding, to flatten it? I think the Rollei 6000 series backs can do this.

 

 

I hope this helps.

If all you want is acceptable center sharpness for a portrait, and you need to get closer, you can probably use any decent diopter lens, not necessarily APO. The preferred solution for portraits is not to move closer with a normal 80mm lens, but to get a telephoto lens. If you get too close with a normal lens, the apparent distortion of making noses look bigger ( relatively speaking ) than expected, makes it less satisfactory.

I think it is pointless unless you have a prism finder. A better alternative for a grip is an L bracket, if you hold the waist-level finder with magnifier up to your eye.

Actually, a TLR is an excellent camera for infra-red film. Rollei made a bayonet filter for this. A TLR is better than an SLR because in an SLR you would have to view through the opaque filter. There is a rumor, I haven't really seen confirmed, that the Rollei filter also corrects for the IR focus shift.

 

(in particular to answer your question, yes, I've done it...)

 

You can get a bayonet-to-series or screw-in size converter so some other IR filter can be put on your lens, as Dave Sims points out.

 

It is also possible to use IR film in a rangefinder camera, and with some effort you can experiment with IR images with digital cameras. But you didn't ask about that :)

 

try google on infrared rollei for lots of hits.

Not a panorama; it would be vertical anyway. You can try to get (the rest of) the rolleikin that is partly installed in your camera, but in reality these gadgets are of limited use, principally in the circumstance where you find yourself on a desert island with one camera (the rollei) and only 35mm film. And you want to take vertical-oriented semi-telephoto images.

 

The rolleikin, as well as many other accessories for rolleis, are perhaps more fun to learn about and maybe collect, than to actually use.

I find a good measure of stability from an L bracket which has a handle with a shutter trigger. Pressing the shutter is then done by pressure with your thumb vs. the opposing fingers, rather than pressing the shutter button on the camera body and hoping you will not jerk it at the critical moment. Also you may find the bracket provides a more secure body posture (using the eye-level magnifier)

 

I've used a monopod but never felt it worked very well. You can use a film with higher ISO speed and get 1 stop also...

I recommend that you get an L bracket with a cable release. then you can press the shutter with a proper opposable grip.

The selenium cell will no longer respond linearly, and so the meter cannot be "repaired" to be accurate. Replacing the selenium cell with a new one is probably not practical, but even so would not be a great idea: Even if it were fully operational it would be inaccurate (averaging) and clumsy mechanically; even the least expensive hand-held modern meter would be better.

 

The camera, after a CLA, should otherwise be very nice, if possibly overpriced. Maybe consider asking the seller to pay for a CLA?

If you can't hand-hold a yashicamat for your purposes, neither a hasselblad nor a bronica would be helpful. Have you looked at medium format rangefinder cameras?

 

A built-in meter should not be necessary for street photography.

An observation, not an answer: Other than the fun of collecting odd accessories for Rolleis, this is not really something that you would probably use. It is kind of clumsy, at best.

 

I acquired a bunch of accessories, and there is a certain fun in seeing the mechanical engineering,.. Stuff like the panorama tripod head, rolleimeter (rangefinder) and even the close-up lenses are fun for experimentation, but not terribly useful. The one exception is the rolleifix quick-release tripod clamp, which everyone using a tripod (ie. almost everyone) should have.

 

Many of the rolleikins kits are incomplete, since the counter knobs were removed and left on the body.

 

I have nothing to add to Mike's comment about compatibility.

You can put two rolls of 120 on one reel, since they are long enough for 220 film. Just push the first roll all the way toward the core of the reel. Make sure you have enough active developer though (don't use very dilute solution). The difficulty most people have is loading the film on the reel when the reel is either wet, dirty, or worn.

Maybe what you want is a 6X4.5 [folder] with a rangefinder. (I carry an old Fuji GS645, excellent lens but fragile construction.)

The rolleigrid is not very effective, having a rather crude fresnel screen. Most are scratched, and even so, the prices asked for a genuine rolleigrid tend to be extortionate. True, the Maxwell screen is more expensive, somewhat delicate, and would replace your original ground glass [and requires someone take apart and perhaps re-collimate], but is much better. Good luck.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious: are you sure you want to do this? Do you need the quality of a medium format digital back? Since you will probably need a wide-angle lens (underwater, you generally want to get up close), you will need a very wide angle lens given the crop factor for a digital back. So in addition to risking a rollei, digital back, ... you might need to risk a 40mm lens.

 

You can get a lot of 35mm-size digital camera and ready-made underwater housing/lights for the money you would have to spend on this.

I do not know about the SB800 specifically, but the Rollei has a hot shoe. Full TTL flash exposure would not work with that setup.

 

I think that with a mirror lockup and manual exposure any lens would be very fast, including the pre-PQ ("HFT") lenses.

 

You might be able to use the previous generation, for example 6006. Sorry I cannot be more definitive; perhaps someone has actual experience using an IR trigger. Or maybe Rollei could give you information.

Regarding the 2nd part -- those film backs are from the previous generation (6006), and if you use them the film speed will be set at ISO 100 by default. Changing the film speed can be done in effect by setting compensation on the body.

 

I don't have a 6003 body to answer the 1st question, but I suspect not. It would be simple enough to test if you have a film back and a camera body :)

If the 6003 is like a 6008i, then there is a small pin on the right side of the top which is depressed by a (new) prism, when it is slid onto the camera. This reverses the display so that, for example, 5.6 is displayed as d.2 (well, it looks right in those little segment displays).

It sound to me like your pin is permanently depressed, or perhaps the switch under it is broken.

 

It could be that your prism is an old-style one that doesn't depress that pin, and so someone taped down that pin.

Since you like the Rollei, why don't you just buy a (used) 6006? And a 150mm lens. Maybe just borrow your friend's camera.

 

I don't see an advantage to the (quite pricey) AF for portraits, unless you have a problem focusing with your own eyesight, or you are perhaps taking pictures of children who cannot sit still.

Looks like the lens coating (outside) is peeled off in places, which is not much of a problem (and would be costly to repair). A camera repair technician looking at it in real life should be able to tell you in 2 seconds.

 

Usually the damage internal to a lens is visible when you shine a beam of light through the lens (get a small flashlight and set shutter on B and hold it open). You may find lots of junk inside.

 

It looks like someone has taken your lens apart, perhaps not professionally, judging from the marks on the slots where a perfectly-fitting spanner wrench would probably not leave marks.

I have an Epson 3200, which can be used to scan in 48-bit color mode and store in tiff format. This is officially not RAW mode, but a file for a 6x4.5 negative scanned at 2400dpi is about 210 Megabytes vs 12 megabytes or less for a jpg. There may be suitable programs for processing this tiff treating it in a manner similar to that available for original digital "raw" capture, which is presumably not in 48-bit color, but something less. My expectation is that this huge tiff has an enormous amount of "data" that is not useful. I assume that other scanners have similar capabilities for data storage.

 

Saving optical images by digitizing them and storing them on optical media (DVD) or hard disk, perhaps for archival purposes, is a bit ironic. The original film may last longer (perhaps with colors shifted though). The digital version may become unreadable in 20 years. But you did not ask about that.

 

 

RJF

If this is in fact your meter, note that it uses a Mercury 1.3v battery, hard to get since selling it is illegal in most places (e.g. USA).

 

The symptom you are experiencing is, I think, consistent with the mercury battery being dead.

 

Alternatives to a mercury battery are discussed at great length elesewhere.