All Day, Every Day
Rollei 35 LED by Rollei Singapore
By Thomas Jooss
9 March 2008
This is the camera that I carry with me all day, every day, except when I'm not wearing pants, which rarely happens when I go anywhere.
I got my first Rollei 35 LED - along with my Zeiss Ikon/Voigtländer Icarex 35 S TM - from my uncle some time around 1996. My uncle had inherited those cameras from my grandfather, whom I never knew because he passed away two years before I was born.
Being an SLR from the late 1960s the Icarex was much too bulky and heavy to carry around for everyday use, but the Rollei was perfect for the job. It was compact, light and rugged enough to carry it around in my pocket all the time.
Unfortunately, after two or three years, the wear and tear of three decades of heavy use over three generations of my family was too much for the film transport mechanism: it failed. Fixing it was not possible, at least not on any budget even remotely sensible, let alone available to a high school student. So I had to go find a replacement. I ended up buying exactly the same model again. I replaced its strap and carrying bag with the ones from my grandfather's camera and it has served me as well as its predecessor ever since.
It has taken an incredible amount of abuse, was banged about, slept on, got wet and endured just about anything you can imagine (and probably some things you can't), and despite all the scratches, dings and other assorted optical flaws it accumulated over the years it still works like on the first day. Which basically means "not very well, unless you know the camera very well"... without the necessary experience it will only produce photos as underexposed and grainy as the main photo of this story here.
The Rollei 35 LED, like all the Rollei 35 models, doesn't have a rangefinder, so you have to guesstimate the distance. Its light meter only has three LEDs in the viewfinder that indicate low, correct, or high exposure respectively, and it is, especially in low light conditions, not as good as the one in its higher end siblings Rollei 35 (T) and 35 S. This isn't that tragic, however, because the 35 LED only offers shutter speeds from 1/30 s to 1/500 s plus bulb, lacking the slow shutter speeds of its siblings, so low light photography isn't really an option anyway. Except, of course, if you try and go for the correct shutter speed of, say, 1/4 s in bulb mode, which works surprisingly well with a little practice and something to support the camera on to reduce shake.
Also, the f/3.5 40 mm Triotar lens isn't as sharp as the f/3.5 40 mm Tessar lens used in the Rollei 35 (T) and probably the f/2.8 40 mm Sonnar lens of the Rollei 35 S as well. I can only confirm this for the Tessar lens, though, since I never had a Rollei 35 S, but I do own a Rollei 35 with a Tessar lens that I got roughly a year ago, and it really is sharper than the Triotar on my Rollei 35 LED. But since the Rollei 35 is also significantly more expensive and doesn't have an exposure display in the viewfinder (only a needle on the top of the camera) it hasn't replaced the 35 LED as my constant companion.
For someone without any knowledge of photography whatsoever, like me when I first got it, the Rollei 35 LED presents a steep learning curve. But once accustomed to its peculiarities, it is a fantastic camera to carry all the time if you still want to use film or, like me, just never got around to buy a decent digital camera. It is small, relatively light, almost unbreakable and (except for the meter) fully mechanical. So if the battery fails or you don't need the meter anyway you can still take pictures without any battery at all. About that: The mercury batteries for which it was designed aren't made any more, so in addition to compensating for the meter's peculiarities one has to compensate for the different battery as well. But, after using the camera for all that time, this comes to me quite naturally now.
There is another drawback: Basically, being stored at body temperature all the time reduces the life expectancy of the film I use dramatically, so I'm limited to 12 exposure rolls to minimize the time the film has to endure these less than optimal conditions.
Despite all these issues, after more than ten years of constant and heavy use and the countless amazing, grainy, gritty photos it has given me, I wouldn't want to miss my cheap, low end, down and dirty Rollei 35 LED, except maybe for a Rollei 35 TE, which adds the advantages of the 35 LED to the higher end 35 (T) model.
But even if I got one of those, I'd probably still continue to carry my trusty Rollei 35 LED instead, for it is my precioussss and weee neeeedssssss itttt...
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