First shoot with a Rolleiflex

R

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I bought a Rolleiflex 2.8E Type 1 yesterday for $350 (£220) including close-up lenses and a Weston V meter. With some help from this forum, I managed to get it street legal enough to shoot a test this afternoon.

I don't trust the onboard meter (the cover is cracked) so I used the Weston but I still have some more to learn - overexposing here and there but it was a very bright day here. I reckon that the Rollei is doing pretty good for a 1950's camera that has sat in a box for 14 years. Even the negs have a 50's/60's quality to them. Must be the Zeiss Planar.

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I am falling in love with this camera for sure and such a bargain. It's definitely worth crawling through the local classifieds 😎
 
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The entire set is excellent, your lens is great and speeds seem pretty well right. The one with the man and the dress is my fave, You're on your way very well.
 
Ronald M said:
If you did not know before, now you know how good German lenses are.

Do not expect this from a Yashica-Mat .
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I have a Zeiss Planar on my Leica and love them, but my Yashica Mat 124G is very good, although I cannot justify keeping two TLRs now. Not to the wife, anyway 🙂

Yashica Mat shots
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You did a very fine job and will love that camera.

I get excellent images from my old Yashica 635 (D variation with Yashikor lenses)) and Yashica A, and I love my Chinese Seagull !!!

I also prefer waist level composing.

What did you do? Waist level or Sports finder composition.
 
Todd Frederick said:
You did a very fine job and will love that camera.

I get excellent images from my old Yashica 635 (D variation with Yashikor lenses)) and Yashica A, and I love my Chinese Seagull !!!

I also prefer waist level composing.

What did you do? Waist level or Sports finder composition.
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Thank you. I always use the waist-level finder, with the magnifier up to my eye to focus then down to compose, wait and shoot.
 
Very nice - impressive, in fact. I love my Rollei 2.8E2 - simply a great camera. Of course, the camera is but a tool for the workman - you made the pictures, and they are darn good.
 
Been looking for one for a long time, but what a deal you got! Your first roll is why the Rollei's have their following. I would like one in any condition and any lens (3.5 will do), but where I'm at now it's not easy to find such vintage cameras.
 
DanP said:
You got some great shots, congrats.

Composing is PITA with a TLR, how do you manage?
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Right now, I am not quick with a TLR. I am slow, quiet and assured. It is a large, shiny camera but because I am looking down, a lot of people don't catch on. You can fire the shutter in their face and they won't hear it.

I don't go chasing moving subjects with a TLR, I wait for them to come to me - fishing rod versus pistol is the way I look at it.

Still practising the whole back to front thing, but it is a large square finder and looking at it from a distance helps to frame better than pressing the Leica to my eye.
 
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Interesting you should say that - I bounce back and forth between Leica viewfinders and Rollei/Hasselblad squares. The portability and quickness of the Leica (and other 35s) versus the really superior composition possible with a bigger camera and square format - never can decide between them, at least not for long. I am lucky that I can have both.
 
Max Jenkins said:
Interesting you should say that - I bounce back and forth between Leica viewfinders and Rollei/Hasselblad squares. The portability and quickness of the Leica (and other 35s) versus the really superior composition possible with a bigger camera and square format - never can decide between them, at least not for long. I am lucky that I can have both.
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Yeah, me too. But I think I may end up with the Olympus XA for full-frame pocketability, the Leica CL with Zeiss for the middle ground and the Rolleiflex for my more serious street excursions - especially for people shots.

If I had to make do with only one right now, it would be the Rolleiflex and that is after a single outing. It has so much character and it is my oldest camera.
 
Max Jenkins said:
I love those new Ektar shots you developed at home - what process did you use? I assume you scanned the negatives - very nice results.
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Thanks Max, I am writing up that whole shoot for my new blog magazine right now, but it is turning into a bit of an opus. I'll post back here when it's published.

There is an article on there about this first shoot with the Rolleiflex though. If you enjoy it, please leave a comment 😎 Thanks!
 
DanP said:
Composing is PITA with a TLR, how do you manage?
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Different strokes and all that, Dan. I consider the look-down, square format view the easiest and best of all viewfinders for composition. In fact, I bought an Olympus E-PL1 with the VF-2 viewfinder specifically so I could set it to square format and tip up the viewfinder so that I can look down into it to compose.
 
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