A fortuitous letter to Amateur Photographer in March 2008, see page 16, has led to new interest from people who have owned Rollei cameras in the past or have recently acquired one. Dáithí ó Scannláin’s suggestion that we take out advertisement space to promote ourselves, has been achieved without cost, thank you AP!
I have read that Polaroid are soon to discontinue their film products although, talks may taking place with Harmans (Ilford) to take over B&W Polaraoid film products. Fuji will now be the only company to make peel-apart films.
It is sad too, that some of the specialist Polaroid products will no longer be available meaning that ‘emulsion lifts’ and black and white polaroid negatives etc. will be consigned to the history books. I did have a go at ‘emulsion lifts’ with the 3½ x 4½ film packs. Although fiddly at that size, it was quite good fun but also quite expensive when it went wrong (as it often did!). The finished positive has to be put in very hot water and after a few minutes, the emulsion lifts off and is left floating in the water. The knack is to remove the backing from the water and insert the paper underneath the gossamer emulsion without it getting tangled up in itself.
The other effect that I tried was to peel the film apart after about 20 seconds, to discard the blank (at this time) paper positive and to place the wet negative backing onto art paper and to squeeze them together with a roller. The effect was that the developing image was transferred from the backing onto the art paper as opposed to the Polaroid positive. This permitted transferring images onto paper surfaces (within reason) of your choice. I do not think this works with Fuji Instant colour film; I know the image lift does not. Full details on the processes were available on the Polaroid website but it seems no longer... now the best you can do is look at some of the work of others such as moncul.
Of course, a lot of these techniques can now be mimicked in Photoshop - it takes all the fun out of ‘real’ photography though! Recently, I bought a Canon Demi half frame camera at a camera fair. I know it’s not Rollei but, as with cameras of that era, the foam light seals had powdered away. I cleaned the residue off with alcohol cleaner, being careful not to get any where I did not want it to go. I then cut some ‘Fablon’ self adhesive black felt to size and put that in the grooves and ran a film thorough the camera. The images were printed out, two to a 7x5 print, by my local camera shop with an in-house print lab All was light-tight I am pleased to say and I was amazed at the image quality and exposure accuracy. The fact that the selenium photo cell still worked on this 46 year old, match needle, programmed aperture/shutter. camera is down to the manufacturing quality of cameras of this era. ‘Furry’ Fablon is available at hardware stores that stock a larger range of Fablon rolls. One metre will repair hundreds of cameras!
Contents:
Front Cover: Tass plated pavement. Photo: Wolfram Borgis, Rolleiflex 6008i 2 Latest
news from Franke & Heidecke
4 My travels to Taiwan by Ian Parker
6 Wulf Koehler by Franz Rothbrust
8 Equipment and Technique by Mohsin Latif
12 Unusual items: Rolleiflex 2.8E3 by David Morgan
14 Professional Laboratories by Stephen Skurray
4 Caption competition
15 Unusual Items: Magazin 135 by Wong Mun Keen & John Wild
16 Rolleiflex 6000 series digital lenses?
17 Flash bulbs from www.megaflash.com
18 Your Forum
Back Cover: Photos by Wolfram Borgis
