Trying out a Rollei 35, or, The Only Compact Point and Shoot I Want To Own.

I'm a sucker for Zeiss glass be it medium format, or 35mm. My brother loves Rollei 35's, they were a super compact zone focus point and shoot camera with optics that punch way above the camera's size.  Made from 1966 to about the early 1980s first in Germany and later in Singapore, the Rollei 35 came with either a 40 f3.5 Tessar or a 40 f2.8 Sonnar lens, there are some Made in Germany examples with the 40 f3.5 Schneider Xenar lens, be prepared to spend some money for this example. I shot with a made in Germany 40 f3.5 Tessar, the shutter was working perfectly, the meter, not so much, but that's ok as I had Sunny 16 on my side.

In term of ergonomics, the Rollei 35 is on the odd side, the film advance lever is on the left and loading film is upside and from right to left. That aside, the only really hard part is getting used to zone focusing. I took the easy way out by shooting 100 ISO Black and white film on a sunny day.

I want to get one of these cameras, yeah I dump on the whole compact camera craze, but those are the  1990s electronic answer to the Kodak Brownie, the Rollei 35 is a precision instrument. Make mine chrome, Made in Germany and with a Tessar lens.

Camera: Rollei 35, 40 f3.5 Zeiss Tessar Lens.
Film: Rollei RPX 100, Xtol 1+1.

Trying the Rollei 35 out

Breakwall in the Sun

Rushing to get the 501

Owl In Front of Seagull Classics

Chilling in Front of 1966 and a half or Bud's

Kenleworth Mini Tudor

Upper and LowerKenleworth_

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