Nokton, hmh, sounds like (Harlem) Nocturne and like Mike is gonna
show us his Betsy, OK, I show the lens:
By the way, shown above is the Rollei bellows unit, the Voigtländer
somehow has a different look and feel:
Different paint and even different controls ("lock" on the left with Rollei,
but on the right with Voigtländer).
The Reflex-Dynar 8/500 is nice - short and thick so nobody
expects a 500mm lens.
The same applies to the 5,6/400 in Voigtländer livery:
Talk about seeing without being seen, or "Triplets seperated right after
birth": The Sonnar 2,8/40 mounted in the Rollei 35 S (or 35 SE and Classic)
is well known the one with M39 thread and Leica M adapter is known too,
- but what the hack is in that in the middle?
Half a brother out of the "Sondertechnik" department - with T2
mount and in retro-position (OK, and a few more modifications).
Bizarre, what will come so close to my lens so lighting gets difficult
and still doesn't need an aperture to stop down??? Is it a bird? Is it
a plane? Is this a Röntgen-S-Sonnar ???
The next pic might give you an idea what to do with this special
purpose close-up device (think away the eye-piece on the torpedo
tube ...) and you're snapping the screen of the NVS 1000.
Who ever had to use a StarlightScope in real life will apreciate the
automatic cover within the eye-piece: both doors will open when
the observer presses his eye to the scope (left shown by hand on
the grey preproduction sample) and automatically close when taking
the eye back from the scope. This helps to keep dust out and Charly's
snipers away. Otherwise the green light coming out of the tupe lighting
the observer's face behind it might be taken as an invitation ...
As always the lens cap is worth a second look. A knob on the outside
is click-stopping in five positions and will open a set of three holes in
four sizes (one with grey filter), great for toying around in daylight or
when your bino is lost or broken.
Naturally sometimes our little gang has to smuggle the semi virgins in
daylight too so we use the Rollei 7x42 and in case we're - pardon "it is"
getting too bright, we utilize the set of grey filters (left):
The strap and filter pouch in the pro's version are kept in nice tones
of green and easier to clean after nbc-weapons alert. Both straps
feature snaps to hold the eye-piece caps. For super pros the binos
were available with a recticle in mils. I can hardly explain how to
calculate distances etc. with that in German, so I don't even try in
English, just believe me, the pros can do it - to plain folks the
recticle is a plain pain in the eye.
Now back to (more) civil service(s): The preproduction version of
the 1,4/35mm Distagon allows close-up focusing of just 26cm. 4cm
"more" can make a big small difference.
A good place to raise the question why the hack the row of f-stop
numbers go "1,4-2-2,8-4-5,6-8-11-16" and not "1-2-3-4-5-..." or
"2-4-8-16-32-...". The answer "One German did it and the others
just followed orders!" is neither politically correct nor in any other
way (not only since the Japs do/did it too.
My hint: it has something to do with the amount of light going
through the diaphragm that somehow corresponds with the size
(even more area!) of the opening, ... and that is growing in squares.
Starting at 1 (like 1:1 opening as big as the focal length), at a diameter
of just 1:1,4121356 (square root of 2) just half the light will path at 1:2
a quarter, at 2,8242... (or 2 times square root of 2) one eighth and so on.
So when engraving they just cut off a few digits and arond f11 they startet
to round a bit. With the shutter speed dial it is easier to tell since it is
woking in a linear way.
And? "Yeah, I know that since the big one in 1903!"? Or rather "Funny,
never thought about it!"? Or maybe even "Ah that explains a lot!"?
The book will tell you for the metric-use, focusing will have a detent (that's
important to insure precise measurements / calculations). Did you ever see how
this was done? There were at least two ways: internal and external. Internal
is shown to the left (front Planar 1,8/50, rear Sonnar 2,8/135), external to the
right (front Rolleinar 2,8/105, rear Distagon 1,4/35) - with the external kind, to
release the focus ring you press the little red button (and keep it pressed) with
internal, you go bananas (for every single focus step you will have to push a tiny
(and recessed) silver button):
Anything else worth being mentioned? Well yes, the Rolleinar 2,8/105 MC
shown here is the only Rolleinar (read: non-Zeiss-design-lens) known to me
that was used in the metric role (but maybe there are more things still
unknown to me).
A consultant of Deutsche Bank once told a competitor "Our trouble is:
your tools are way to fine!" "What???" "They enable you to split hair
(multiple times), Hr. Böttcher!" OK, in case you don't dig hairsplitting,
just go on to the Accessories, the lenses shown are widely known and
I'm just pointing out a few differences between real life and Rollei's
propaganda pamphlets (or literature quoting the propaganda).
The 3,5/15's (Distagon) aperture ring with orange feet markings looks
rather Contaxy, as does the small white knob (instead of hard to a find
red paint dot) of the 4/18. The rubberized 4/18 still lacks a filter thread,
but has a small rim on the inside to hold the E67 snap on lens cap - the
Carl Zeiss way to save us poor earthlings from vignetting filters.
These Zooms are shown as hand made samples in the papers only.
Here regular production together with the proper shades.
The 70-210 Apo looks like in the papers, the 28-80 is sporting a
different kind of ring for the focal length.
The Rolleinar 35-105 (PR 666) was made "fat" and "slim" following an old tradition:
and the 2,8/135 too (but I had to search it in the cellar)
was for some reason "Made in Singapore" too. Whether theses were made
by Mamiya or maybe German-Optical of Singapore - who knows!?
The 2/50 again with an other aperture ring than in the papers. By
the way, I'm still looking for 2/50 Rolleinar with a serial number not
starting with a "0"
and for the reason they didn't label it "MC" ...
The fine 2,8/80-200 again shows another aperture ring. In the papers
the writing around the front was faked and the lens showed a chrome
lens mount - not black QBM.
This writing differed from the regular Tokina AT-X lens by the way ...
inhibiting use of the fine Tokina clip-on shade :-( and requiring E77
screw mount).
The 3,2-4,5/28-105 looks different in engraving and zoom ring too.
The white indicator knob seems to have been invented (or at least
to get finally introduced) with the HFT 2,8/28 Rolleinar.
A similar pic with the (fine) 2,8/105 HFT Makro lens:
In the sales paper an f-stop simulator (Minolta/Nikon???) and a bright
chrome lens mount.
Way worse with the 2x converter: The papers show a Danubia-converter
with heavy make up (here right), later a Kenko or Yabe-converter came
to us (" ... and it was good" not "fantastic" or "super" but "good").
Came with bold and usual pyramid rubber.
Here a pic of the Schneiders (literally translated "Taylors", maybe
they'll sew my new blue jeans):
The 2,8/35 plain sucks. The fine 4/35 has a lens mount held by a
few screws ... "true Rollei" lenses will carry an "HFT" engraving
(shown better in my section 3 with the Rolleiflex SL 35 E's Autodrive).
Under the Rollei Strobonar label some nice Honeywell flashes were released.
The slave trigger "Foto-Eye II" (where is #1?) has a cute rubber band in
the back to get mounted to potato masher type flashes.
The "AUTO STROBONAR 280S by Rollei" right has a diffusor close to the one
seen on the beta4 some 20 years later and auto exposure (to switch to full
power, the black cap is fitted over the photo cell).
Some people confess their preferences with a rainbow bumper sticker
though the car already carries a license plate from Cologne.
(Translator's note: Cologne is the fourth biggest city of Germany, with
more fagots per square mile than a regular CSD parade in San Francisco.
You can tell were a car's license plate in Germany is issued by the first
group of letters, "K" stands for "Köln" or Cologne.)
I prefer to confess my orientation with a pin, tie and/or tie clip.
There is only one tie (quickly chosen), but a choice pins and clips ...
for several occasions ...
for ladies, gentlemen and real men.
How will I light the ladies' cigar(ette)s???
The lower (gas lighter with piezo-ignition) was a Xmas present to
the Rollei staff from managing director Hr. Zettel. He made new
friends at the speed of light with the accompanying remark "damit
Ihnen allen ein Licht aufgeht!" ("to bring a little light into your
thoughts") in Braunschweig (but that's only hearsay, your honor).
Beats me (with a number seven iron), why the Golf-towel was blue
when all other merchandise was black or grey.
In case you think its easy to con a photo dealer into giving away his
Rollei-calculator, rest assured, it is easier to get his permission to spend
a weekend at the seaside with his teenage daughter (as he knows we are
just interested in cameras etc.). In case you have one, you can try to
figure, how many weekends I had to spend with sixteen year old hard
to educate photo dealers' daughters at the seaside.
Disclaimer: Herr Neuse, I never touched your daughter, honestly!!!
Talk about calculations the pictured number is not Pi, but "22/7" and
that is a tiny bit closer to the real number than "3,14" and not a single
button more to press. How do you calculate (with) Pi?
Right! The first two are too easy and pretty inane, but we were young
and needed the money! Answer number three is bit more interesting to
the Rollei nut: lens caps for upcoming editions of the Rolleiflex 2.8GX
in search of a color catching with the customers (fortunately Hong Kong
customs confiscated the worst and saved us from a few gay colors ;-)
The next pic shows the regular 2,8GX's lens cap and an attempt to
make a WLF without the usual sportsfinder frame ...
an adapted SL 66 E/SE/X finder mounted to the TLR-finder base, the
(later?) mass production part (in the foreground) naturally came with
the usual sportsfinder frame.
Maybe some guy was inspired by the Leica M6 Panda when working
on the relisted Rolleinar for the 2,8GX ...
Flat black barrel and chrome trim along the rim or
a shiny chrome barrel and a black trim?
Make your choice!
I haven't written that mutch on the slide projectors yet ...
But this simple piece of bent metal is another ingenious (patended) invention:
It keeps your fingers from geting burnt when changing a burned out bulb.
