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Ok here is another doozy for you Camera Gods.....can any one give me any info or point me to the direction of any info on the rollieflex with planar lenses (carl ziess?)Any help appreciated.
Nauman
-- Nauman Saghir (nsaghir@hotmail.com), December 28, 2000
Hi Nauman,During Rolleiflex's golden age of the 50s and 60s, there were up to five models available at any one time. In descending order of price, they were
- Rolleiflex 2.8, with an 80mm f/2.8 lens, either the Zeiss Planar or the Schneider Xenotar (a double Gauss design)
- Rolleiflex 3.5, with a 75mm f/3.5 lens, again either a Planar or a Xenotar
- Rolleiflex T, with a 75mm f/3.5 Zeiss Tessar
- Rolleicord, with a 75mm f/3.5 Schneider Xenar
- Baby Rolleiflex, with a 60mm f/3.5 Schneider Xenar (twelve 4x4 negatives on 127 film)
At the time, models with a Zeiss lens were a little more expensive. Nowadays, they are a lot more expensive. Presumably, this is the magic of Zeiss's reputation, because any test results I've ever seen have been unable to separate the optical quality of the Planar and the Xenotar or, at a very slightly lower level, the Tessar and the Xenar.
The Planar lens, about which there is more information in the archives at
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0046pM
was first used used on the Rolleiflex 2.8C in 1952, and then on the 2.8D, the 2.8E, and the 2.8F, which ceased production in 1980. It was also used on the 3.5E and the 3.5F between 1956 and 1979.
If you want a classic Rollei for the purpose of taking pictures, then (IMHO) the best value for money is a Rolleicord Vb from the 70s, and the best picture-taker of all is a Rolleiflex 3.5F model 5 (the "Whiteface").
In the mid-50s, the pinnacles of photography were the new Leica M-series (for interchangeable lenses) and the Rolleiflex (for larger enlargements). Then came the high-quality interchangeable-everything SLRs -- first the Hasselblad 500C and then in 1959 the Nikon F -- which squeezed the Leica rangefinders into a niche, which they still occupy, and squeezed Rolleiflex into receivership in 1981. Sob.
In 1987 Heinrich Manderman brought together Rollei, Schneider, and B&W; and Rollei started making the Rolleiflex 2.8GX (based I think on the Rolleiflex T body) with an 80mm f/2.8 Planar lens made by Rollei under licence from Zeiss and coated with Rollei's own HFT multicoating.
A final batch of the Rolleiflex 2.8GX was made to celebrate the year 2000: see
http://www.cameraquest.com/camsnet/RolGXUr.htm
So, there you are Nauman. A bit of product geekery, a bit of history, and a bit of nostalgia. What more could you ask?
Later,
Dr Owl
-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), December 31, 2000.