by Eddie Vaughan » Wed Feb 19, 2014 3:59 pm
I believe Steinheil lenses had quite a good reputation, and the binocular attachment would have been a cheaper (if clumsier) alternative to the Tele Rolleiflex introduced in 1959 -- several years before the Steinheil advertisement appeared in Foto Magazin. Still cheaper were the telephoto and wide-angle supplementary lenses for Rolleiflex TLR cameras produced by third-party manufacturers, such as the Sun Optical Company of Japan. Shown here is a 1959 advertisement for Sun telephoto and wide-angle lenses for Rolleiflex TLRs. Since the Rollei Wide did not appear until 1961, the Sun wide-angle lens would have given Rolleiflex users their only possibility for taking wide-angle photographs.
An earlier post on this forum ("Rolleiflex TLR links page", javabeen, July 27, 2007) made no mention of the Steinheil binocular attachment or the Sun supplementary lenses among Third-Party manufacturers of Rolleiflex TLR accessories. The reason for that, I am guessing, is that they had never proved popular and were made in small numbers for only a short time. Not only were the Tele Rolleiflex and Rollei Wide soon to be launched, but these third-party lenses would also not have matched the high standards of Zeiss or Schneider lenses. Buyers of Rolleiflex cameras would probably not have wanted to sacrifice one of the main advantages of their expensive cameras. The irony now is that these strange accessories have high rarity value and that this is reflected in their price.
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- 1959 Advertisement for Sun tele and wide-angle supplementary Rolleiflex lenses