Rollei Vintage TLR Camera

Rollei Vintage TLR Camera

Rolleiflex TLR vintage film cameras are noted for their compact size, exceptional optics, quality and durability, plus their reliable mechanisms and extra bright viewfinders .

The high quality 7.5cm focal length lenses allows for a smaller, lighter and more compact camera. The 80mm Zeiss Planar and Schneider Xenotar lenses are fast and at the time they were produced to incorporate state of the art optics.

Features of Rollei vintage cameras

The mechanical wind mechanism was unique to the Rolleiflex Automat and latter model cameras. It was robust, making film loading semi-automatic and quick. It started the exposure counter automatically, auto-spaced the 12 or 24 exposures and tensioned the shutter all within one full turn crank of the winder.

A wide range of accessories were available for Rollei cameras , including a panorama head, sunshade, parallax corrected close up lenses, colour correction, contrast enhanced and special effect filters. They could all be mounted with a quick release bayonet and a quick change tripod attachment, making them quick and easy to use.

Notable Rollei camera models

The first Rolleiflex camera was a medium format roll film camera with a twin lens reflex. The Old Standard model replaced this and included a hinged back and frame counter. It wasn't automatic but the photographer could reset the counter via a small button after the first frame.

The Rolleiflex Automat introduced the automatic film counter function which senses the thickness of the film backing, to accurately count the frames, so that the photographer didn't have to read the frame numbers through the ruby window on the backing paper of the film.

The Rolleiflex 2.8A and 2.8E models incorporated the first 8cm f2.8 takings lens, added an X flash sync contact and a built-in, uncoupled light meter option.

The Tele Rolleiflex camera used a 135mm/f4.0 Carl Zeiss Sonnar taking lens. The current model uses a 135mm/f4 Schneider Tele-Xenar taking lens.

The Wide Rolleiflex camera had a 55mm/f4.0 Carl Zeiss Distagon taking lens, whilst the current model has a 50mm/f4 Schneider Super-Angulon taking lens.

The Rolleiflex SL66 was the first medium format SLR produced by Rollei. It was followed by the SL35 35mm SLR a few years later.

The two current miniature Rolleiflex cameras are miniature reproductions of the Rolleiflex TLR design. One version is the miniature digital camera, whilst the other is a miniature Rolleiflex TLR film camera.