Taking Digital Pictures with the SL66

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Dear friends, I am a new member of our Rollei SL66 user forum. I am a retired engineer in my mid 60s, I bought my first SL66 in 1977 when attending grad school at UC Berkeley, CA (mail ordered from 47th st. camera in NYC). I really love the camera, and throughout the years I bought some nice lenses and accessories for my system. I currently have 5 bodies (SL66, SL66E, SL66SE). I was very disappointed when the Kodak and other film manufacturers phased out all their nice roll films. I returned to Thailand since 1981 and over the years found my choices of film got severely limited. Last year was the last time I could get my E-6 slides processed locally!!! I have been experimenting with making digital pictures with my SL66 for many years. I have only recently been able to get some limited success with my effort. I do not know if anyone would be interested in sharing his/her experience with me. Although my attachment is very crude and primitive, it does allow me take pictures into RAW files just as my other friends with their Hasselblad V systems can do. For the first time, I am able to use all my old SL66 lenses and finders. I think SL66 HFT lenses make very nice pictures just like when I was taking E-6 slides. Please let me know if this might be useful for other members. Sorry if I post it in a wrong place, I am still very new...

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I made an adapter to mount the Phase One H25 digital back for Hasselblad V to the back of my Rollei SL66 camera body. I found that with some minimum and easy modification to the Phase One H25 back, I can take great digital pictures with my Rollei SL66 system. It's wonderful to be able to use all my great SL66 accessories to make digital pictures, I found that Rollei lenses and accessories are very beautifully made indeed. As I mentioned before, my attempt is very very crude and primitive, BUT it does prove that our Rollei SL66 system can be adapted inexpensively to digital photography. I am sure other more experienced members can make a more refined adaptation that works better and looks much more professional. Furthermore I realize that the Phase One H25 back is very old and not portable. It needs to be used tethered to a computer! But it is not very expensive so if I messed up it would not break my bank! I am sure the same concept can be adapted to other Phase One P backs to make it more portable. If my adaptation is useful for any members, please let me know, I will be more than happy to share more details, I hope it will help other members use their SL66 to take digital pictures and hence enjoy the Rollei SL66 more. I am attaching some pictures of my camera adaptation and a sample shot using this system. Have fun...

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Sorry, I did not know how to post more than one picture, I'll try again...

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More picture of the SL66 with Phase One H25 back.

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More picture of the SL66 camera body with Phase One H25 back...

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My SL66SE with Phase One H20 back and ASA setting board

I recently tried mounting my Phase One H20 digital back onto my Rolleiflex SL66SE. I plan to use the H20 back for my Studio Camera, with its square format (37mm x 37mm, 16 megapixels) it should be quite nice for tethered studio shoots, because I do not have to worry too much about the lens focal length ratio for such small sensor size. I also want to use the TTL meter on the SL66SE. To do this, I added a probe that supplies the film speed information to the camera exposure meter. The probe has 3 terminals that make contact with the 3 terminals on the back of the SL66SE body just like the normal film E and SE back. I made a small board (ASA setting board) that has some resistors circuit that supplies the information to the exposure meter, I made two switchable circuits for ASA 100 and ASA 800. It works quite well, I thought this might be of interest to other members. I am attaching a few pictures to show the setup.

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Here is my SL66SE in action

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Here is the details of the ASA setting probe and the Film Speed terminals on the back of the SL66SE.