Rolleiflex 6008 Integral Review

Many of my best pictures were taken with this medium format camera. It is a solid workhorse, intelligently designed, and uses superb lenses from Zeiss and Schneider. I moved up to this camera from a Mamiya TLR. The cost of the upgrade was terrifying and, coupled with the nausea-inducing customs duty in Trinidad, made me wonder what on earth was I doing? I was especially nervous that, geez, I've spent all this cash - will the pictures from the Rollei look exactly the same as my dirt cheap found it in a dustbin Mamiya?? Then on one fine day, my first roll of processed transparencies arrived and I looked at my first picture. Wow! It seemed almost 3 dimensional. Contrasty and sharp, the Zeiss 80mm lens put the Mamiya lens to shame. I also used the camera's automatic metering system for the exposure on Kodak E100VS slide film shown on right. (Okay, the picture isn't art but you get the point).


Unlike the Hasselblad, the Rollei is a tall camera which allows the film to wind on without bending and, theoretically, increasing film flatness. The film loading system of the Rollei makes it easy to change films. Film inserts make film changing even faster. It is best to buy the camera with the hand-grip. I have made successful hand-held photos with the Rollei as low as 1/15 seconds. Prints are sharp at 8"x10" but blurring would probably be evident at larger scales. The mirror is large but mirror-slap is nowhere near as bad as the Pentax 67's mirror. Like other medium format cameras, the Rollei is at it's best on a tripod with the mirror locked up before shooting. Rollei lenses from Zeiss and Schneider have electronic leaf shutters that are essentially vibrationless. Also unlike the Hasselblad, the Rollei incorporates a fully functional metering system. I took most of my photographs using the camera's spot meter. Hasselblad does have a metering prism for its cameras but you will need to shell out $2500.USD if you want it. My main complaint about the Rollei's metering system is its spectral sensitivity. Most modern camera meters are calibrated so that they give similar readings for different colours once the light intensity remains the same. The Rollei's meter is just down-right primitive in that it has no such calibration or filtering for blue light. I was going crazy second-guessing my exposure technique before I realised why my exposures just seemed so randomly off. I thus could not trust the camera's meter and had to dish out more dough and buy a separate light-meter. I don't know if this problem has been addressed in the new autofocus model.

I was still a happy camper despite having to lug around another gadget. Gadgets always have a nasty habit of adding up, and extra gadgets equal extra weight, the bane of photographers - and the Rollei is not exactly lightweight either. My next discovery was the Rollei's aversion to water. Like more Trinidadians than I care to mention, the camera hates water. By the way, photography in the rain is NOT an oxymoron; some groovy pictures can be had in damp conditions as illustrated below.


Once, while photographing in a drizzle, the camera just went dead. For a while there, it seemed that time stood still as my irreplaceable camera stopped working. I proceeded home with a sour feeling in my stomach as I pondered <gulp> warranty repairs. Luckily, I had read about other people experiencing similar problems with the camera. I then gingerly dried out the camera with a blowdryer and woila! Life! To prevent a repeat episode I added another gadget to my bag - an umbrella.

The Rollei comes supplied with a contrasty and bright focusing screen. It is a night and day difference between the Mamiya and Rollei focusing screen in terms of brightness. However, I found the Rollei's microprism at the centre of the screen far too small. Pentax focusing microprisms tend to occupy more of the screen real-estate, making critical focusing easier. The Rollei screen lacks focusing 'snap'. I found it more difficult to judge focus by looking at the ground glass on the Rollei than with the Mamiya's screen. As most experienced photographers know, a bright screen is not necessarily easier to focus with.

After taking photographs with one lens for a while, one usually feels the need for another at some point. A wide-angle for near-far framing perhaps? I went online to find the stellar Schneider 40mm with floating lens elements. (A 40mm lens in medium format is equivalent to a 24mm angle of view in 35mm cameras). Perfect! $4400. USD. Uh huh. I found myself thinking that a one-lens system wasn't all that bad.

The Rollei is a fully electronic camera that becomes an expensive paper-weight when the rechargable battery goes dead. Woe unto you if you are in the middle of nowhere and that battery goes dead. The Rollei has a proprietary battery that the owner cannot replace. Hence, with this camera system, two batteries are a must. I only had one battery since the batteries are (you guessed it) expensive. As you know, people only learn their lessons the hard way; and so it was with me. I had just lugged my heavy camera system up the La Soufriere volcano in St. Vincent, spotted a great scene (after 3 hours of uphill toil. And I mean TOIL), whipped out my camera only to find that I had forgotten to charge the battery. I contemplated cameracitide but in the end sold my Rollei system to someone who would better appreciate the camera's strengths.



The last photograph with the Rollei 6008i.

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