by Karen Nakamura
Overview and Personal
Comments
Brand names are strange things. Rollei is a highly respected brand name in Japan, up there along with Leica, Hasselblad, and Contax. But in the U.S., hardly anyone seems to bat an eye at Rolleis anymore. Part of the problem was that in the 1970s, they switched production from Germany to Singapore, then they were bought out in the 1980s, and quality took a nose dive after that with a series of cheap SLRs. The Japanese remember the good old days of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord, the Americans the bad new days of the Rollei SLR.
The Rollei 35 was built in both the good-old and bad-new days. The original 35 is a true gem of a camera. OK, it's only a scale focus camera and it uses outlawed mercury PX625 batteries, but the Zeiss Tessar lens really shines. The camera is just about as small as you can get it. Along with the Minox and Olympus XA, the Rollei 35 is a cult classic of submini full-frame 35mm cameras.
In 1974, Rollei rebadged the Voigtlander VF135 and called it the Rollei 35XF, trying to leverage their brandname. The 35XF has nothing to do with the Rollei 35 series. See my separate Rollei 35XF write-up.
Rollei 35: The original Rollei 35 is a design gem. The goal was to have the smallest full-frame 35mm camera possible. Unfortunately, that ruled out having a rangefinder or SLR (these innovations came with Olympus XA and the Olympus Pen F) so the Rollei 35 is scale-focus only. With some experience, this isn't such a bad problem, especially if you stop-down to around f/8 because of greater depth of field the 40mm focal length provides.
To save real-estate on the top plate, the shutter-speed, ISO dial, and aperture dial are located on the front of the camera. The rewind lever, frame counter, as well as the flash shoe is on the bottom of the camera, so you have to shoot flash photos upside down (which means your flash photos will be upside down, the horror!).
Rollei
35B: The
35B is the basic, low-cost model. Instead of the battery-operated CdS meter
of its more expensive siblings, it uses a selenium "solar cell"
meter which supplies its own electricity. So you don't need batteries. And
given that mercury batteries are outlawed, that's most probably a good thing.
Unfortunately the 35B uses a lower-cost Triotar lens and a modified shutter system. So it's a bit more basic than a regular 35. Still, it's a gorgeous camera, especially in the mint black finish that I found this unit in.
Interesting quirks
The
quirks of the Rollei 35 series are well known. The rewind dial and the flash
bracket are located on the bottom of the camera. The button by the flash shoe
is the rewind release button. Interestingly, on the top of the lens is the
scale-focus in feet, on the bottom is the scale-focus in meters. I'm assuming
you could ask a repair-person to flip the two around, depending on your preference.
Although we think of the Rollei 35 as pretty compact, compare it against the 1939 Kodak Retina I - made almost 30 years previously. I have a page extensively comparing all of the 35mm Compact Cameras of the 1960s and 1970s.
I previously wrote that the Rollei 35 lenses were Schneider-made, but apparently I was wrong. Jaco van Lith in the Netherlands wrote in with a correction:
The optics of the Rollei 35 series (Triotar, Tessar and Sonnar) are designed by Zeiss Oberkochen and made by Rollei. And if I want to be hyper-correct, it is to be said that those classical optical miracles were created by Carl Zeiss in the university town of Jena. So the name of the Optical Works of Jos. Schneider at Bad Kreuznach should not be mentioned in the Rollei 35 story.
Greetings, Jaco van Lith (The Netherlands)
This information has later proven to be incorrect. For evidence Jeff F. kindly provided this photograph of his Rollei 35:
Technical Details
Camera
Name |
35 | 35SE | B35 |
|---|---|---|---|
Manufacturer |
Rollei |
||
Place
of Manufacture |
Germany then later Singapore |
||
Date
of Manufacture |
1966-71
Germany 1971-74 Singapore |
1979-81 Singapore | 1969-71 Germany |
Focusing
System |
Scale
focusing |
||
Lens
|
|
Carl
Zeiss Sonnar 40mm f/2.8 5 elements M30.5 x 0.5 screw |
Carl Zeiss Triotar 40mm f/3.5 |
Shutter |
Rollei-Compur 1/2 - 1/500 sec + B |
Rollei-Prontor 1/30 - 1/500 + B | |
Metering
System |
CdS metering Match needle coupled metering on top plate |
Built-in
selenium meter |
|
Flash |
Hot
accessory
shoe on bottom of camera |
||
Film
type / speeds |
35mm film |
||
Battery
type |
PX625 mercury-oxide cell | PX27 5.6V mercury-oxide | n/a |
Dimensions
and weight |
97W
x 60H x 32 D mm |
||
Retail
price |
|||
About Rollei
Rollei started out life as the Franke & Heidecke company in 1920. They first started using the Rollei name in 1926 with something called a "Rolleidoscop" stereo camera. People know Rolleis for their famous line of Rolleiflex and Rolleicord twin-lens cameras, which they first started making in 1929. The Rollei 35 miniature camera came out in 1966. In 1970, they moved production to Singapore but by 1981 they had to declare bankruptcy. Many changes of ownership later, in 1995 they were bought out by the Korean company Samsung, which is continuing production of Rolleicords and Rollei 35s.
On the Net
|
Ms. Nakamura,
On your website I noticed the following passage regarding Schneider-Kreuznach lenses on some Rollei 35 compacts:
This is a strange revelation given that the Schneider-Kreuznach lenses, marked "S-XENAR" are Zeiss TESSAR f3.5/40mm clones. So the question arises that if Schneider-Kreuznach did not actually make them, why would Rollei apply the name to them?
The Tessar lenses were actually made by Zeiss up to 1974 (Until mid 1967 the cameras were marked "Made in Germany by Rollei – Compur – Gossen – Zeiss"). Later Rollei did make the lenses themselves, and these are marked "ROLLEI HFT". Schneider-Kreuznach lenses were supplied to Rollei July 1972 to April 1973 as Zeiss could not produce lenses fast enough to meet delivery schedules.
Regards,Rolf P
Hi Karen.
I greatly enjoyed browsing your webpage describing the Rollei 35 cameras.
In 1973, when I was an engineering undergrad at Brooklyn Polytech, I was
considering purchasing a Konica Auto S2 (do you remember that camera?)
when a classmate showed me his tiny Rollei 35. It was an amazing little
device. When he demonstrated how you could wave "bye, bye" with one hand
while using your other hand to shoot a picture, that was enough to sell me
and I fell for it.
Soon thereafter, I purchased a new Rollei 35 at what I thought was a
bargain price of $104. through one of the many discount camera stores in
NYC where these critters were being sold. It's quite possible that my
sample was made in Singapore. I cannot confirm that detail but I
definitely do recall the name on the lens: Schneider. You might want to
challenge Jaco van Lith on his source of data. There is absolutely no
doubt in my mind that my Rollei 35 camera had a Schneider lens.
In those days, I shot mostly ektachrome 64 slides under natural lighting.
The results were always pleasing. The Rollei hot shoe readily accepted my
Bauer Ultrablitz flash strobe. Together, the two units formed a delicious
little package that was easy to hold in one hand while you waved
instructions to your subjects with the other hand.
The CdS metering stopped working just a few months after my purchase but I
never bothered having it fixed. I simply estimated all of my exposures
using the simple formula: 1/ASA at F16 in bright sunlight. I learned a lot
about photography when I owned that camera. I think the convenience of
having it close at hand so often encouraged me to shoot more pictures.
In 1976, my girlfriend ruined the camera during her attempt to collapse
the lens into the body. As you know, there is a small button to depress
before you twist the lens to unlock it.
I regarded the Rollei's demise as an opportunity to purchase a new Nikon
F2s, which I still have but no longer use. It seems that wherever I go
today, my little digital Casio 7.2 megapixel jobbie offers everything I
want and does it in a package even smaller than the adorable little Rollei
35.
Regards,
Walt
Jaco van Lith is incorrect. My Rollei 35 (Made in Singapore) has a
Schneider-Kreuznach lens.
You have a fantastic website, thanks so much!
Jeff