Advice on a rollieflex needed.

[nigelll]

I found a rollieflex 2.8a at a thrift store last night and could not pass it up!
It seems like it is functioning ok. Should I look at a cla? Also anything ggod or bad about these I should know?

 

[Uncle Bill]

CLA is a must with a camera that age. Question what taking lens do you have on it?

 

[ZeissFan]

The Rolleiflex 2.8A is an old camera and almost certainly needs to be serviced.

I think it should have a Zeiss-Opton 2.8 Tessar. Most people believe the Tessar was pushed too far to be a 2.8 lens. I tend to agree with them.

The usual problems are the film transport and the focus. As always, look for signs of impact damage or rough handling. There are a lot of Rolleiflex (note the spelling) cameras on the market, so there's no reason to buy a beat-up camera. Given the choice of a nice Rolleiflex with an older Xenar and a beater with a Planar or Xenotar, I'd take the Xenar version any day.

 

[ZeissFan]

There were two versions of the "A" model. The earlier model has a Compur-Rapid shutter with a top speed of 1/400. The second model has a Compur-Rapid MX shutter with a top speed of 1/500 and can use the 35mm Rolleikin 2 adapter.

By the way, the Tessar should be perfectly fine. It will perform best at smaller apertures: f/8-f/16.

 

[Ezzie]

I would put a roll of film through it to get a feel for its quirks and issues, if any. At least you'll know what to expect should be adjusted when you get it back from a CLA.

Regarding the lens. The first A' were delivered with Tessars made before the war. These were uncoated, so Zeiss coated them before delivery to F&H. Its been claimed that in the process a lot of the matched lens sets got mixed up, giving the A an initially very bad reputation. F&H recalled all cameras and retrofitted them with Opton Tessars. Some may of course have been OK to begin with and never sent back. The latter batches all had Optons. In any case the proof of the pudding is in the shooting. As Mike says, the 2.8 Tessars were in any case not that well reputed, but should still perform well. If I was to run into one for a steal, I'd buy one out of pure inquisitiveness. Good CLA resources in the USA are many, Harry Fleenor, Krikor (Krimar Photo), Mark Hama to name a few. But there are others.

 

[schmoo]

No advice, but wow, what a find! Congrats on the purchase.

 

[whitecat]

If you're looking for a CLA send it to Krimar. He does great work on the Rollei's. Used him more than once and very reasonable.

http://www.krimarphoto.com/

 

[Landshark]

I'm of the "if it ain't broke don't fix it " variety.
Shoot some film, if it's working properly use it 'til it breaks.
I'd imagine that if the slow speeds work, transport works you're good to go.

On the other hand, Thrift shop suggests not a lot of money invested and the extra bucks spent on a CLA won't hurt anything but your wallet.