is the Rollei 35 the most dropped camera ever?

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Huss

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Looking for one of these. It seems that 95% of the ones I see for sale have dents. Is it really that difficult for people to use these w/o dropping them? Or are they made out of super thin ultra dentable (it's a real word, look it up..) metal?
 
Yes...lol..
those lil cams have a mind of their own..
Mine slid across the long seat of my Mitsubishi pickup back in tha day when I took a corner hard..I observed it sliding fast like a downhill skier..and hitting the door hard..bouncing off..and plopping itself under the seat with a bang...
Man was I pissed..as in..dent time..
Still works great though..lol..
 
Believe it or not, but its top plate metal is soft. I have to remove it on two cameras I owned.
 
Huss said:
Looking for one of these. It seems that 95% of the ones I see for sale have dents. Is it really that difficult for people to use these w/o dropping them? Or are they made out of super thin ultra dentable (it's a real word, look it up..) metal?
Click to expand...

Just like a Japanese sedan from the sixties.:eek:

PF
 
a good friend dropped his in a snow bank, never to be seen again, at least by him.

I used a wrist strap on mine...no problem. no dings or dents.
The Mercedes of small film cameras (from that era).
 
Possibly. The one that i inherited from my father, allready had a dent.
On the plusside it's still going strong. The pictures are fine.
don't forget to use the wriststrap!
 
Without a dent it´s not a real Rollei 35;-) I own five, all are dented or the viewfinder frame is bent, but this is only a cosmetic problem. It´s the price Heinz Waaske had to pay for creating the smallest mechanic 24x36mm camera.
 
There's a real gotcha with the Rollei 35 if you put it on a tripod. I slid mine back on the tripod head to center it and, unbeknownst to me, unlocked the back latch. It took a while but the whole top fell out on pavement. I had it a long time through a lot of adventures so I helped Harry Fleenor retire by the time it was fixed and back.
 
I bought one of the early ones new not long after they came out. I think it had a Tessar and was made in Germany. Not long after I bought it one on my friends picked it up, fumbled it and it landed on the top corner on the concrete. It almost made me ill and my friend never offered to pay for the repair. Matter of fact it was the last time I saw her.

I bought a new 35S several years later and one of the account execs at the ad agency I worked for wanted to buy it. I finally said yes and fortunately collected the money. The buyer took it to the beach and left it in the bottom of a bag that he and his wife threw saltwater soaked beach towels in. When he returned to work a couple of weeks later he asked me to look at HIS camera that was no longer working. I popped the back off to find it full of sand, salt, moisture and rust. It had rusted so badly that the rewind wouldn't work and my friend had forced the rewind to such a degree he had torn the film in half.
 
OTOH, last year, my Rollei 35S, which was dented when I got it in '78, took a 6 feet flight and hard landing on a concrete surface, only to come out without a scratch! (It took me a week to have the courage to check it out after I picked it up!).

I do agree with Petronius (whose work with the Rolleis is outstanding) that a Rollei 35 without a dent is not really a Rollei 35 ( :) )

Paul
 
I thought to save time, the factory hit each Rollei 35 with a toffee hammer on all four corners before they left the factory, just in case some people managed not to drop their Rollei
 
Hmm. I've owned my 35SE for 35 years, use it reasonably often, and have had no mishaps with it.
 

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lxmike said:
I thought to save time, the factory hit each Rollei 35 with a toffee hammer on all four corners before they left the factory, just in case some people managed not to drop their Rollei
Click to expand...

I was thinking it might have been a shipping accident, son-in-law of president that was the factory delivery driver who kept tipping the truck over on the entry ramp to the expressway........

B2 (;->
 
Yes they are quite soft, and the metal stretches quite easily so you can't always pop the dent out. I've worked on quite a few now and it's not really worth the effort or time to try and remove a dent. Rarely does it affect function.

The earlier ones are indeed better built and as someone forced to use glasses, the VF is better, IMO.
 
The design of the strap connected to the back!
Mine is now modified by use and fall Technics!
It's smaller than when it left Singapore.
No longer needs the battery, meter is past dead.
Slow speeds inoperative.
Any other camera either I would fix or dump!
I just love the little box and Tessar.
 
I think the iPhone may have overtaken the Rollei 35 as most dropped camera. Were there Rollei dent repair kiosks in every mall back then?
 
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