Are TLR's rangefinders?

snaggs

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I've been reading about people hand holding these at 1/15 and kneel holding 1/8 (resting it on one knee).

Anyone played with anything like a Rollei Expression 2.8 GX?

Daniel.
 
I think TLRs are rather liek TLRs. #:-]

I have tried a Lubitel TLR once and I didn't like it, however, I was 14 at that time and a Zenit SLR was much cooler.

I might like it today, if it's big enough and ugly enough.

Berci #:-]
 
TLRs are sort of a compromise between RFs and SLRs.. they focus the same as an SLR, only through the 'viewing lens'.. but don't have a mirror that needs to swing out the way as SLRs do

they tend to be VERY quiet.. it's difficult to hear the shutter on a Rolleiflex, even when you're the operator.. but the downside is they don't have parallax correction, so you need to factor that in for closeups

and generally they're a medium-format system, so you get awesome negs
 
On most TLRs you can pop open the front of the waist-level hood and use it as an eye-level viewfinder so I guess it's kinda, sorta a rangefinder.
 
kiev4a said:
On most TLRs you can pop open the front of the waist-level hood and use it as an eye-level viewfinder so I guess it's kinda, sorta a rangefinder.


Actually, this makes it sorta a "sports finder". Hard to calculate range looking through an empty hole. 😉

Tom
 
TLR's are indeed charming. They're not rangefinders, but they're frequently used in the same way RF's are -- for quiet, relatively inconspicuous street shooting or in quiet places such as churches.

Gene
 
Tomorrow my YashicaMat 124G will join me and my M6TTL at my nieces 6th birthday party. I will use 35mm B&W film, and load the Mat with Kodak 160VC. A very nice combo I think.
 
Back in the '70s I shot night rodeo with a Rollei using a strobe and sports finder and zone focusing. I was actually out in the arena with the clowns and pickup men. I had to wait for the bucking horse or bull to get into my focus zone (about 30 feet), the blast 'em. Horses didn't seem to see a flash at all. Bulls, on the other hand, homed in on the point of origin of the flash immediately, so it was shoot and run like hell! I was in my 20s then and thought I was immortal. Actually my nearest miss came wien a bucking horse that had dumped its rider kicked out his hind legs just as he ran past me. A hoof traveling at about 100 miles per hour missed my head by about six inches. If it had connected, I wouldn't be writing this.
 
kiev4a said:
Back in the '70s I shot night rodeo with a Rollei using a strobe and sports finder and zone focusing. I was actually out in the arena with the clowns and pickup men. I had to wait for the bucking horse or bull to get into my focus zone (about 30 feet), the blast 'em. Horses didn't seem to see a flash at all. Bulls, on the other hand, homed in on the point of origin of the flash immediately, so it was shoot and run like hell! I was in my 20s then and thought I was immortal. Actually my nearest miss came wien a bucking horse that had dumped its rider kicked out his hind legs just as he ran past me. A hoof traveling at about 100 miles per hour missed my head by about six inches. If it had connected, I wouldn't be writing this.


And this ladies and gentlemen is why there are SLRs with long telephoto lenses. 😀

Actually, I am sure your shots from up close are better than any coward's telephoto shots. Perhaps not the safest or smartest way to shoot a rodeo, but surely an interesting one.
 
Like I said, I was in my 20s and immortal. I don't think they allow photographers in the arena anymore. Actually, the worst pain I ever got was when I was standing in front of the chutes, camera poised, waiting for the gate to swing open, and a rodeo clown named Wick Peth snuck up behind me a and poked me in the a-- with the handle of a broom!.

You really can't get the same perspective on rodeo shooting from outside the area with a telephoto. Somewhere I have a couple of photos from those days. I'll have to track them down and drop them in the gallery.
 
I gotta admit, that takes guts.. I can remember doing a lot of things sort of like that when I was young and "immortal".. and I'm really glad no one had a camera nearby!
 
Roger Hicks said:
Look for a Rolleimeter, a wonderful accessory that actually turns a Rollei TLR into a split-image optival rangefinder. Not a screen -- a real rangefinder!

Well... sort of! Be aware that the famous Rolleimeter will not fit all Rolleiflexes. It was made for Rolleis WITHOUT a removable hood (those made before the E and F models, as well as Wides and Teles). They show up on eBay, but you will pay dearly for this little GAS-item. I would not rate it as particularly practical (though Rollei used to list all of their accessories in a "Practical Accessories" pamphlet). It is also fragile and, trust me, Rollei no longer makes replacement prisms for it!

I think the Rolleiflex functions very much like a RF camera in certain situations. For example, I am fond of the open-frame sportsfinder aspect of the hood, especially when used in conjunction with the (built-in) diopter-plus-drop-down-mirror allowing focusing on the center of the screen... with an upside-down image. It's difficult to get lost in that kind of image, but it gives you a very quick focus determination. Oh, yes, that would be a two-window approach from the back of the hood, like a Barnack camera or FSU RF.

Another way that the Rolleiflex works like a RF is the ease of use of distance scale focusing and depth of field calculation. Preset the focus, and it's child's play to 'shoot from the hip' without even opening the viewing hood (OK, it takes some practice, but you can learn to do it).

It is great for street shooting, regardless of what you consider it to be. It is easily hand-held at relatively low speeds. (Bracing a Yashica-Mat on my knee, I once made a 4-second time exposure... though I wouldn't recommend that as a 'best practice' if you have any sense of image quality.) And Rollei shutters are quiet - really, really quiet. A gentle 'ping'.

And the image quality is superb - Xenotars and Planars are fantastic lenses, even used wide open. Tessars are essentially equal, when stopped down to f8 or better. Rolleicords with 3-element Triotars are noticeably less wonderful.

Careful - GAS builds up quickly in this area...
 
No, TLRs aren't rangefinders. The very name "reflex" tells that. (Yes, I know many SLRs have a split image system, but that doesn't make them RFs, either.)

I also have a Yashicamat 124. It's a gem of a camera. Too bad they long ago quit making them, although I bought mine new.

In addition to the parallax matter, TLRs have another foible- they reverse things left to right. But the main difference is that the mirror just doesn't move as it does in an SLR.

TLRs were probably victims of technology. They existed before SLRs became popular. I can at least vaguely remember when some news photographers used Rolleis. But lack of lens interchangeability and their various viewing problems (if they WERE problems) made them a little less versatile. All this was before the Nikon F made its appearance. That did in a number of other systems.
 
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