I do not think that I keep trying to convince myself that film is best…… but I leave you to judge (he winks).
Looking at the current array of photographic magazines, any mention of film cameras is sadly absent, except for within the second-hand dealer’s advertisements. It was not long ago, when second-hand listings included quantities of Rollei cameras and accessories; now, only a few dealers give Rollei items any space at all. There is little money to be made on second-hand film camera equipment now, especially on Rollei.
On the one hand that is an bonus for us because it means that, providing we can find that long sought after item on our wants list, we can buy it for a lower price. The downside is that our collections are worth less but this is not necessarily true; some of those hard to find mechanical items, in good condition, are holding their value and hopefully will continue to do so. On the other side of this coin, with the plethora of digital cameras available at competitive and continually falling prices prices, dealers have to make their money somewhere. So they search out the unsuspecting “digi-shop-a-holic”. Besides spending a “tidy sum” on the digital camera and special digital compatible lenses, there are all the special, essential, digital accessories: the special digital camera bag (?) - £70 (prices taken from dealer’s advertisements); the special digital flash (?) - £450; the digital portable data storage (digital negative file) - £200; the digital white balance filter (?)- £80; the pop-up digital screen sunshade (most Rolleis have these viewfinder hoods built in) - £35; the digital sensor cleaning kit (a ‘digital’ puffer brush) - £110; the digital preview monitor, which relays “real time” images (a ‘digital’ ground glass screen) - £250 etc. etc.…..
A recent article in Amateur Photographer compared four current Canon compact digitals, to see what difference an increased number of pixels (6MP, 7MP, 8MP & 10MP) made to image quality; conclusion; the largest number of pixels (and thus price) does not necessarily give the best results. Another article elsewhere, suggested that the best ‘digital camera’ is in fact a film camera combined with a negative scanner. I take the bold stand and suggest, therefore, that there is no need to ditch our lovely old Rollei cameras and equipment when trying to compete in the digital forum.
I am not against digital cameras, don’t get me wrong, they do have their uses but they are not always the best tool to do some jobs. If you have access to a computer, there are some excellent photographs by Rollei users on flickr which are can be seen on Flickr... search for Rollei!.
Contents:
Front Cover: ‘Toby’ by John Wild
3 Rollei Pinhole Camera
3 Sales and Wants
3 Rollei 35RF addendum by Ken Williams
4 ‘40 years of Rollei’ by Dennis Camp
6 Your Forum
8 ‘Decisions decisions’ by Ian Parker
10 Rolleiflex TLR sub-format adapters by John Wild
14 The Rolleiscop 5x5 New Home Slide Projector
18 David Morgan looks at "THE MODERN ROLLEIFLEX AND ROLLEICORD GUIDE"
19 and Back Cover: Photographs by Ken Roberts
