Over time my dad got this camera and started using it himself until he later progressed to other film formats. It would’ve been amazing to see what he captured during his time there, in an age so far removed from ours. I don’t think we ever found the negatives from his time in China. On the layover in Hong Kong, he bought this camera to document life in China. My grandfather was an ophthalmologist – an eye doctor – and was asked to come to visit China and lecture at schools there in the ’50s. It was his father’s camera, my grandfather’s, bought in 1955 in Hong Kong. Now, this particular Rolleiflex was my dad’s but he was not the one who originally bought it. This camera is the Xenotar-equipped version, so it’s ‘cheaper’ but still provides amazing results. To simplify production the automatic film start sense mechanism as used on the F was abandoned and instead the way of the Rolleicord was used, a. The lenses came in 2 varieties: the extremely expensive 80mm Carl Zeiss Planar f/2.8, and the slightly less expensive 80mm Schneider-Kreuznach Xenotar f/2.8. After the bankrupcy of Rollei in 1981, its successor,the Rollei Fototechnic GmbH, had produced some special versions of the Rolleiflex 2.8 F.These were so succesfull that the managment decided to bring out a new Rolleiflex, named the GX.
ROLLEI ROLLEIFLEX 2.8 SERIES
The 2.8 series was named after the very fast f/2.8 lenses that they used, premium technology at the time. It was, to be specific, a Rolleiflex 2.8D – the fourth revision of the line, made in 1955. The first Rolleiflex was introduced in 1929, but the model my dad had was from the 2.8 line that they introduced in 1949. Fun, but not nearly comparable to a proper Rolleiflex.
I already had a TLR, a Yashica-A camera I thrifted years ago, but that was a low-priced budget model. This viewing lens matches the taking lens, so what you see in the finder will be a fairly realistic view of the image that you will capture. The top of the camera flips open to reveal a waist-level finder, which uses a mirror to show you the scene through the viewing lens. This camera design has 2 lenses on the front, the upper one being the viewing lens and the lower one being the taking lens. Their most famous series of cameras was the Rolleiflex, a series of high-end TLR (Twin-Lens Reflex) cameras that popularized the TLR design for the mass-market. Because the first Rolleiflex was introduced in 1929, and the popular 2.8f and 3.5f models were made more than 50 years ago, finding one in pristine condition can be difficult. Rollei was a German manufacturer of cameras founded in 1920 by Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke. There are numerous concerns and things to look for when buying a used Rolleiflex TLR.