Help! I have nothing to say!

[Eddie Vaughan]

This is terrible! I have been scanning this forum and realise that I have abolutely nothing to say that has not been said before! (Unless, of course, it counts now to say something about having nothing to say.) It looks to me like the great majority of Rolleiclub members are in a very similar predicament. Is there any way out of this? Should we take a break and talk about the weather for a while? I am really trying hard, but nothing is coming through. I am going to lose all respect if this goes on.

Eddie Vaughan

[Reeray]

Well, OK lets see.

I've just received my Rollieflex Automat type 5 back from a complete CLA and Maxwell Bright screen fitting. Work done by Harry Fleenor. Cost a packet but so pleased.

Why?

Well, the camera belonged to my grandfather and passed to me many years ago after his passing. I never put a roll of film through it! It languished in a cupboard all of some 35 years. Completely forgotten until my daughter came upon it whilst rummaging around. Did I forget to say I'm a 66 year old pensioner!

Film ordered and awaiting the day.

[DPurdy]

I wish the Rolleiflex was just a bit bigger and the film went from side to side and the image was 6x7 or 6x8. I love the camera and the idea of the twin lenses but get really tired of squares. I could crop but it goes against my instinct to crop and I find the 645 image on 120 film very annoyingly small.

I love the one lens only aspect of a Rollei. You don't have to analyze a scene or subject and decide which lens is best. Having focal length options stops you (me) from just ingraining the lens perspective in my brain and knowing it like it is my own. I have 4 main cameras and for each I have one main lens.
For 8x10 nearly everything is shot with a 355. That is how I see. I can set the camera down in the right spot without even looking through it.
For 4x5 the only lens I use is the 210. It just always seems like the proper view.
The only reason I keep my pentax 67 is for the 55mm lens. I have a slew of other lenses because they are cheap but the only lens I am drawn to is the 55.

I inherited a small amount of money when I lost my last parent. I bought myself an FX and put the rest in stocks. I wish to hell I had just spent all the money buying old nice condition Rolleis. I would have made money instead of lost it.

I own 2 Rolleis, an FX and a nearly perfect 2.8 white face Xenotar of the last series. In 6 years now I can't decide which I would sell if it came to it.
I still don't know which has the best lens... or the most dependable body.

Dennis

[Eddie Vaughan]

Like you, Dennis, I value the fact that the Rolleiflex TLR has a fixed taking lens. I find it much more relaxing to use than my SLR cameras with multiple interchangeable lenses. I remember being with my wife on a whale-watching cruise in Queensland some years ago, and being excited when a curious whale swam up to the boat to have a close look at us. It swam right alongside the boat, only a metre below us, but I had a 400mm telephoto lens fitted on my SLR. I fumbled around in my camera bag for a standard or wide-angled lens, but by the time I had made up my mind about which to use the whale had swum off again. I now had a 28mm lens on the camera, but the whale was 50 metres distant. I had to rummage around again to fit a telephoto lens. In the meantime, my wife had taken some very nice photos of the whale with her simple Olympus Trip. I was able to take only a blurry photo of the whale's tail in the distance. I began to see the advantages of simplicity.

Eddie Vaughan

[DPurdy]

I guess that is why they made zoom lenses.
Not only that but you missed the chance to sit quietly and enjoy the whale's company.

[2 1/4]

[Eddie Vaughan]

I was relieved so find someone else saying that he (?) had nothing to say, but can also see how a discussion about having nothing to say becomes completely self-negating the further it continues. I shall therefore try to escape that black hole by asking another question about the usefulness of a popular Rolleiflex accessory, this time the Luigi leather neck strap.

Luigi of Leicatime makes leather straps for a range of classic cameras, including the Rolleiflex TLR. They are beautiful and expensive and I would love to have one, but I am wondering if they are as practical as the standard Rollei neck strap. My question is this: Is the Luigi neck strap too wide to take the Rollei lenshood and filter leather cases? I would find it very inconvenient to have to carry lenshood and filter cases separately. I have been grateful for members' answers to similar questions I have asked about the usefulness of Rolleiflex accessories. They have persuaded me not to buy any of them, but I am hoping this time that the result will be different because the Luigi neck strap looks so darned cool.

Eddie Vaughan

[2 1/4]

Now yah done it...I went over to the Leicatime website...That is the classiest looking strap I've ever seen. What's more, it looks really comfortable as well as functional. I do not have a Rollei strap myself, nearly all that I 've seen on EBAY are the "scissor" type straps which won't work on a 55' MX-EVS. So I'm using a OP/TECH until something else comes along. Getting back to the Luigi, all I saw there were the "scissor" type straps as well. However, I'd go for it.

[Eddie Vaughan]

I am curious to know, Reeray, about the results you have been getting from your grandfather's Rolleiflex Automat type 5. Yours was a nice story, but I feel there is an ending to it that you have still to write. Does the old Rolleiflex still delight you?

Regards

Eddie Vaughan