The rare and ellusive Rolleiflex sonnar Tele TLR

[colker]

If Rollei TLR's are the BMW, and the Mamiya TLR the Toyota............

Then the Hasselblad 135mm F5.6 T* Planar-S is the Apollo Moon Buggy 🙂

And it is not that expensive. I paid $350 for the Bellows, and $300 for the Planar, and $75 for the exotic Bellows Lens hood. And not that hard to find these around. One of Hasselblad's sharpest lenses.

And it's part of a system that contains literally HUNDREDS of extra parts. Nobody else 6x6 is EVEN CLOSE. And it can be repaired easily and painlessly. Believe it or not it's easily hand holdable, but uses a double cable release.

For my $$$ it's Hasselblad all the way. Also like Mamiya TLRs and 135mm's very much for what they are. Apples and Oranges.


Hasselblad 135mm F5.6 S Planar by Nokton48, on Flickr

Totally different cameras. Rolleis are silent and discreet. Lighter to carry around. Hasselblads are noisy... Yes, they can be handheld but bigger cameras feel better in your hands.

No one will dispute it´s build quality or lens sharpness but it´s an entirely different camera from a Rollei TLR.

I like the SWC biogon... i want it and will shoot w/ it. The rest of the system is nice to look at but it´s a studio camera best served w/ assistants loading film backs .

 

[raid]

I've seen many of your snaps over the years professor but these ones...just first rate beautiful!

Thank you very much.
Lina and Dana are teenagers now, and I am glad that I took many photos of them growing up over the past years. Their photos replaced photos of canyons and mountains and other photography targets I used to have until we had our children. No regrets. Children cannot get young again. Mountains stay in place for ages.

I had with me three cameras for a dedicated Rolleiflex Day.
2.8D, Tele , and the 3.5F. I even used a tripod and light meter.

 

[EdSawyer]

The Tele is a great camera. Somewhat rare, about 8000 made, though for some reason they are not in the same demand/price-range as the Wide. Still, a clean tele is $1000-1400+ all day long, and one without separation is $1500-2k usually.

 

[MikeL]

I like the camera and lens, and the 0.35 adapter works great for me.

I did wait for a later model (white face) since they don't have the separation tendency.