However, the skill needed to cope with the reversed and inverted focusing image, plus parallax errors in close-up work caused by the viewing and taking lenses being in separate planes, and the fact that the TLR Rolleiflex did not offer interchangeable lenses, caused it to lose ground to the heavier, noisier, more expensive, much more mechanically complex, single lens reflex Hasselblads, Bronicas, Mamiyas, and ultimately Rollei’s own medium format Rolleiflex SL 66 and SLX SLRs in the 1960s and 70s.įranke & Heideke, the Rolleiflex’s German makers, also pioneered the subcompact 35mm camera, with their revolutionary Rollei 35 in 1966. Because you looked down into the ground glass, you could stand facing one direction with the camera pointing elsewhere – great for candid work! The crude-but-effective “sports finder” – basically open gun sight apertures in the focusing hood worked well for action shots more than 20 feet away. I loved composing on the full negative-sized ground glass focusing screen, even though the image was upside down and reversed.
Personally, I still rate the whisper-quiet, relatively light, twin lens reflex as the ideal film camera platform. Last summer, Time magazine published an obituary photo of former Look and People magazine photographer, Stanley Tretick, taken at the height of his photojournalism career, with a Rolleiflex hanging from his neck. From its introduction in 1928, the Rolleiflex was the camera of choice for professionals, and for many advanced amateur photographers as well, for over 30 years.
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