That difference has some profound impacts, and it’s also the very reason why I ended-up falling in love with medium format film. Using these two cameras in the modern age has revealed a fundamental difference between using a film camera in the pre-digital era, and using one now, in the post-digital era: We consume photography in an entirely different way. The Back StoryĪs I’ve written before, when I first got back into film photography, it was via my old Kodak Duaflex II (a simple medium format box cameras that takes 620 film) and my Minolta XG 1 (which takes 135 film). But suffice it to say, this review is about one camera pick any name you want from the list above. It seems rare enough for a camera to have two different names, but 5 or 6 of them? Alas, the Rolleiflex, and its sister camera the Rolleicord, were produced in so many variations by their manufacturer Franke & Heidecke (“F&H”), and there are so many opinions about what they should be called, it’s pretty tough to know what any given camera is - let alone how it should be referred to. And that passionate Rolleiflex community? Well, what to call these cameras is a subject of debate, and my particular example goes by no fewer than six different names that I know of:
![rolleiflex 2.8 rolleikin flickr rolleiflex 2.8 rolleikin flickr](https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3608/3375196541_c930e6dd48.jpg)
To be clear, the word “Rolleiflex” has been applied to a lot of cameras (including 35mm cameras that seem to have little to do with the name as most people know it), so I want to be clear about which camera I’m reviewing here. He made Vivian Maier a household name amongst film photography enthusiasts in the process - which in turn shined a spotlight on the Rolleiflex, Maier’s predominant camera of choice for the thousands of images she took. It seems that’s only been amplified in recent years, after John Maloof bought a box of film negatives at an auction back in 2007 and set about scanning and posting them. I still don’t own a Leica (maybe one day?), and I’ve already reviewed the Hassy, so it’s time for the Rolleiflex to have a few words on this web site devoted to it.Įven if a Rolleiflex isn’t your cup of tea, there’s no disputing that the cameras hold an important place in the history of photography in general, and cameras specifically.
![rolleiflex 2.8 rolleikin flickr rolleiflex 2.8 rolleikin flickr](https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/nM8AAOSw4CFYsAFk/s-l960.jpg)
But as I noted in the opening of my Hasselblad 503CW review, for me, anyway, there are just three camera brands that achieved truly legendary, truly iconic status: Rollei, Leica, and Hasselblad. To be sure, there are tons of great film cameras, and there are myriad brands (and specific models) with passionate users. To say that there is a lot of passion about Rolleiflex TLR (twin-lens reflex) cameras feels like a massive understatement.