Welcoming a Rolleiflex TLR into my camera family

I received a Facebook message from Teri Conroy, fellow TU blogger and owner of Wunsapana Farm in Altamont.  Apparently when she was cleaning out some items in her house, she found a camera that her stepfather had given to her many years ago.  She had no use for the camera, it was gathering dust in an attic, and she wondered if I would be interested in it.

Oh and she said it was a Rollei. That’s right, a Rollei.

And when it comes to camera brands, although I love my Nikon cameras, a Rollei TLR is something every film junkie should take a spin with at least once in their lives. Okay -that, and a Leica.

I said sure, that would be great, thanked her about six or seventeen times, and made arrangements to visit Wunsapana Sunday to acquire the Rollei.

Let’s go, Cardachrome – next stop, Wunsapana Farm.

On Sunday morning, I arrived at Wunsapana and parked at the “big barn,” where Teri’s llamas hold court (including Teri’s new acquisition, a llama named Tank).  Teri met me; she was carrying what looked like a big medical satchel.  Inside the satchel was the Rolleiflex TLR camera, along with several lens filters, a vintage light meter, and a bevy of operational manuals and photography field guides.  She said she was trying to unclutter some areas of her house – something about a visit by TU uncluttering blogger Naomi Seldin caused her to start clearing out some things – and she figured that the Rollei would get some good use with someone who appreciates camera equipment.

Now see, this is truly bloggers supporting bloggers.  Much thanks, Teri.

Okay, for those of you who AREN’T camera geeks like me, a Rolleiflex twin lens reflex camera is an amazing product. It has two lenses in the front – one for the camera film and one for your viewfinder. To compose the scene, you look down from the top of the camera – the picture is backwards in the viewfinder, but you get used to that really quick – and then you take the picture.

But now I was entering a personally unfamiliar area of film photography – using a twin lens reflex camera.  This was not my Nikon D700, my digital workhorse and “top dog.”  This was not my Nikkormat FTn, my “blue special” and top 35mm shooter.  This wasn’t my Kiev 19, my “red special” and backup 35mm shooter.  This wasn’t my Ansco Cadet or my Kodak Brownie Super 27’s, my 127 rollfilm toy cameras.  And it wasn’t my Holga 120N, my Chinese lomographic camera.

No, this was a whole new adventure.

And it wasn’t like I hadn’t thought about a TLR before.  For a long time, I wanted to get a Yashica 44LM – a 127 film camera with a built in light meter.  But I kept getting outbid and outsniped for Yashicas on eBay, and eventually I just said forget it.

But a workhorse like a Rolleiflex… oh man.  I can’t wait to test this bad boy out.

I did some research on the Rolleiflex Teri gave me.  It’s a Rolleiflex Automat MX, manufactured between 1951 and 1954.  It’s a twin lens reflex – the top, or “viewing” lens is a Heidosmat 75mm 2.8, while the bottom or “taking lens” – the one that will expose to the film – is a Carl Zeiss Jena Tessar 75mm F3.5.  It has flash synchronization, as well as the ability to shoot with a shutter speed of 1/250 to 1/1, as well as bulb.

But I needed to test this camera out., and that meant packing in some 120 rollfilm.  Although there were plenty of filters and gizmos in the camera satchel – including an attachment that would allow the Rolleiflex to take 35mm film – I left all the toys in the satchel, and tossed a roll of 100 ISO black-and-white Croatian “efke” film into the Rolleiflex.

Let’s go, Cardachrome – next stop, the Albany Pine Bush.

It was a beautiful sunny late autumn day in the Pine Bush, and I looked around the preserve for simple photography subjects – leaves and bark and tree branches and walkways and the like.  After I finished with my twelve shots, I removed the roll of exposed efke film, and tossed in a roll of Fujichrome Velvia slide film and shot another dozen pictures.

First thing Monday morning – two rolls to be developed at McGreevy Pro Lab in downtown Albany.  It’s a sign of the times – McGreevy recently modified their development schedule, so that all of the three film formats that can be developed at their location – C41, E6 and B&W – will only be physically developed on Tuesdays and Fridays, with an extra day added if one needs digital scanned copies.  Which, because I don’t own a flatbed scanner that can handle 120 film, is something I have to add to the mix.  So film dropped off on Monday will come back to me on Thursday, with a scanned CD of the images.

Here are some of the efke shots.  All photos below (c) Chuck Miller.

And here are the Fujichrome shots.

Well now… This works…

And now I have a new shooter in my arsenal.  So let’s see – I’ve got two Japanese cameras (my Nikon D700 and my Nikkormat FTn), a Russian camera (my Kiev-19), two American cameras (the Ansco Cadet and the Kodak Brownie Super 27), a Chinese camera (the Holga), and now a German camera (the Rolleiflex).

I’ve got a United Nations of Photography in my camera bag!!