Which Camera Is Better Rolleiflex 6008 ,6006

Having produced professional cameras long before Nikon'due south and Catechism'southward 35mm systems were fifty-fifty a glint in their makers' eyes, Rollei is often heralded every bit the grandpa of photographic camera manufacturers. With their extremely high quality Twin Lens Reflex cameras, Rollei succeeded in cornering the professional photography market place past the mid-20th century. Their eye for innovation would never leave them, with a number of novel products rolling out of Braunschweig over the decades.

Despite existence one of the oldest camera manufacturers in the globe, Rollei never shied away from taking left-field approaches with their camera systems. If you're bored of two-a-penny SLRs and crave something a bit different, Rollei might merely be your best bet.

A failure to chop-chop master the dark arts of electronics from the 1970s onwards, an ill-blighted arrangement with Hasselblad and a lack of price competitiveness compared to their new Japanese competitors stymied the company badly. Rollei barely limped into the 21st century. Information technology did not have the resources left to sustain the promotion of its advanced Hy6 film-digital medium format photographic camera, and the famous company finally closed its doors in 2015.

Today, professionals, enthusiasts and beginners alike can use equipment designed by a manufacturer that was non afraid to stand out from the crowd. Don't be put off by the crappy GoPro clones and accessories put out under the Rollei proper name these days. If anything, these only serve equally an acknowledgment of enduring affection many however feel for the storied brand.

Then let's jump right into the classics, oddities, and rarities that yous should wait out for at the first, centre and end of your dive into the Rollei wormhole.

Best Professionals' Photographic camera – Rolleiflex 6008 Models

Rollei released the SLX camera in the mid-1970s,a fully electronic medium format SLR to compete with Hasselblad'south famous machines. With a built-in light meter, automatic motor advance, and shutter-priority motorcar-exposure, it was in many means a far more advanced camera than the ones being produced by Rollei'southward Swedish rivals.

And then in 1984 they released a totally new series of Rollei medium format SLRs; the 6000 series. These cameras are merely stunning. Advancements in electronics throughout the 1980s meant that Rollei'south newest SLRs could be smarter, more durable, and more feature-dumbo than any medium format SLR that came before them. For the next thirty years the brand would continue to push the range forrad, resulting in some of the all-time medium format SLRs in the globe.

The 6008 Professional, 6008 Professional SRC 1000, and 6008 Integral all pack the greatest combination of features, highest modularity, and best build quality of whatever camera in the 6000 series. While other cameras in the lineup forego certain features (the 6003 loses its interchangeable backs and the 6001 lacks a light meter, for example) the 6008 models do everything (and often much more) than any shooter could enquire of a camera. There'southward even the intelligently named 6008 AF, for those who desire to own the world'due south kickoff autofocus 6 x 6 photographic camera.

The 6008 Professional person or 6008 Integral are the models to keep an eye out for. Square negatives emerge from its interchangeable film backs, which could be swapped mid-roll. A waist-level viewfinder provides a glorious view downward onto the scene, though this could be swapped for a prism finder of option if necessary.

A total range of accessories including extension tubes and flick inserts for different formats meant the system could tackle any photographic challenge it was pitted against. Modernized electronics provided the full gamut of shooting options to a user. Diverse metering modes and autoexposure settings are possible, and the cameras could fifty-fifty shoot upwards to 2FPS, should you have the desire or money available to burn through 120 film so chop-chop. Wink sync up to i/1000th of a second completes the specs of a system that almost feels similar the final evolution of Hasselblad'southward 500 C/M and EL/M medium format cameras.

The lenses for the system are tiptop of the line, mayhap unmatched in by whatsoever other medium format camera system. Besides as matching the Carl Zeiss glass of its Hasselblad counterpart punch-for-punch, 6000-series users likewise had access to lenses manufactured by Schneider-Kreuznach which were a total terminate faster than the Zeiss glass. Lenses like the Schneider Apo Tele-Xenar 180mm f2.8 and the hyper rare Xenotar 80mm f2 provided the system with shock and awe comparable to Pentax's SMC Takumar 105mm f2.4, or the Contax Zeiss 80mm f2 Planar.

If you can find ane, a Rolleiflex 6000 series camera will still hold its ain confronting the very best professional person systems, movie or digital, without a shadow of a uncertainty. For complete information on this sensational camera, including potential troubles to look out for, be certain to bank check James' review of the 6008 Professional.

Best Enthusiasts' Camera – Rolleiflex Twins Lens Reflex Camera

If you concur more than than a passing interest in the history of the photographic medium (and every bit visitors to this website, y'all most likely exercise), you owe information technology to yourself to utilize a classic Rolleiflex TLR at to the lowest degree one time in your life. Featured proudly on banknotes of certain sovereign states and crooned over in airy bossa nova tunes ( yes, really ), the twin-lens reflex camera invented by Franke & Heidecke in the 1920s succeeded in breaking into the public eye equally no other camera had done before information technology.

From jobbing photogs recording the iconic sports events of the mean solar day to jet-setters capturing the first commercial transatlantic flights, the Rolleiflex was a sensation as shortly as the first cameras left the factory.

And so what makes the Rolleiflex stand up out in the modern era? Well, you don't have to stare at it for a long fourth dimension to realize the camera does not feature the traditional configuration we're used to today. On a Twin Lens Reflex photographic camera, the duties of composing a photograph and capturing the image are split between ii different lenses. You lot expect into the viewing lens via a waist-level finder and magnifier. Aperture and shutter settings then fall neatly under your thumbs via wheels, making the camera a model of practiced ergonomics. The Rolleiflex is fitted with Carl Zeiss or Schneider taking lens, providing impressively sharp results for a photographic camera of this vintage.

For a shooter picking up a Rolleiflex in 2019, you lot will be surprised how refreshing the feel of using this quirky machine is. The square negative and the top-downwards viewfinder will recalibrate your brain if y'all are stepping up from a 35mm system. The perfect ergonomics hateful that y'all will be able to do and so in minutes, not weeks.

As contest emerged from always-improving SLR cameras, the company erred. Then, as Victor Hasselblad introduced his medium format SLR, a gentleman's agreement in which Rollei would non compete with Hasselblad'due south SLR system meant that Rollei sat dorsum and watched as the Swedes pulled in oceans of greenbacks and former former TLR users.

But that's history at present. Shooters today can find out for themselves why Rollei'south TLR cameras were then beloved. Different models produced over the span of fifty years are are bachelor at all price points, depending on age, condition and the ability to bandy out the viewfinder.

Best Entry Level Camera – Rollei 35

After the famed TLR cameras, Rollei is probably best known for its Rollei 35 meaty, a photographic camera that once over again made virtue out of the unusual. The camera was designed by Heinz Waaske, whose genius went unrecognized at his old employer Wirgin and whose prototypes went unclaimed when offered to Leica and Kodak.

The tiny camera's winding lever is operated with the left hand. It possesses a viewfinder, but this can only be zone focused. Many of the controls were mere millimeters autonomously from each other. And yet, with over ii million cameras produced and the Queen of England amongst its users, information technology is fair to say that the Rollei 35 was a meteoric success.

This success stems from two considerable advantages that the camera holds over its competitors then and even now. Firstly, the camera is truly pocketable. I'm non talking well-nigh 'pocketable' in the way that Contax T2 shooters use the word (see my review here). The Rollei 35 is back of jeans certifiable. Information technology allows enthusiasts to capture the in-between moments when a full-sized photographic camera is impractical.

And then there's the lens. Over the years many would swear fielty to the Carl Zeiss-designed 40mm Sonnar lens that comes with many of the Rollei 35 models. It allows users to capture moments with beautiful sharpness and colors reminiscent of all of the best vintage drinking glass.

If you lot tin cope with the camera'south calibration focusing and quirky ergonomics, it notwithstanding represents an infrequent selection as a carry-everywhere camera in 2019. Non all Rollei 35 models were born as, notwithstanding. There are the bones models, the normal models, and the later advanced models with high stop electronic metering systems. These newer SE and TE versions command quite a premium over the lower-stop models. Every bit James noted in his 2017 review of the SE, "the differences between the SE (Sonnar Electric) 35 and the B35 are less Mercedes versus Volkwagen, more than Mercedes versus one-wheeled skateboard."

The Rollei 35 T is probably the all-time eye of the road model. Information technology's priced perfectly for the average hobbyist, packs a well regarded four-element Tessar lens, and retains build quality that is more than Mercedes than "one-wheeled skateboard…"

Waaske's most famous invention

Some Essential Lenses and Collectible Oddities

Sadly for Rollei, some of their more out-there systems proved to be too far ahead of their time to accomplish commercial success (or simply too expensive). That ways that there are a couple of martyr systems which may offering interest to (gamble-taking) connoisseurs today.

In the 1970s, Rollei attempted to keep up with the staggering step being set by Japanese SLR manufacturers. This led to the creation of the Rolleiflex SL35, a traditional 35mm SLR. The organization boasted a fine range of Carl Zeiss manufactured lenses, which shared a design lineage with the Contarex SLR and Super Speed cine lenses from Zeiss. These same designs would afterwards be refined and re-released for the Contax/Yashica cameras. Lenses such equally the Zeiss 35mm f1.4 Distagon and 85mm f1.four Planar even share the aforementioned unique triangular bokeh that the Super Speeds famously displayed in The Shining .

Although the organization was not lacking in the eyes departments, the bodies were a letdown. They represented some of Rollei'due south beginning efforts at electronics, and yous tin really tell on some models like the Rolleiflex SL35 ME. The cameras are simply unreliable.

If you're feeling truly adventurous, the Rolleiflex 3003 is worth the risk for its uniqueness and involvement. Using these same Zeiss lenses, the 3003 is the 35mm shooter's answer to the medium format 6008 system (or a Hasselblad). With a waist-level viewfinder and changeable motion-picture show magazines, the 3003 is a truly unique 35mm camera system. Despite non being a commercial success, many in the camera industry took notice. Many of the camcorders of the late-90s and early 2000s were based on the handgrip concept pioneered by Rollei in the 3003.

If y'all are afterwards an exotic TLR, Rollei created a telephoto and wide-angle version of their classic 'Flex cameras, which featured a 135 F/4 Sonnar and 55mm F4 Distagon respectively. These special models go for quite a premium compared to the normal versions. They were meant for professionals every bit well, meaning the examples that come on sale have probably been used hard.

Feel that nosotros've left a must-have Rollei off the list? Let us know in the comments.

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