Rollei 35 pictures

My Rollei 35 Xenar was made in 1971.... This tattered McGovern / Shriver sign dates from 1972.

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I took a Rollei 35S and a Rollei 35 w/ me on a recent trip to the Czech Republic and Germany. They were the only film cameras I took with me. I appreciated the light weight and compact size of these cameras on walks and other excursions. I loaded bw in the 35S and color in the 35. Very pleased with the results.

Rollei 35 (Singapore), Tessar 40mm f3.5, Kodak Color Plus 200:

Rose Garden by Steve Macfarlane, on Flickr
 
Any focusing tips for the Rollie 35?

Forget trying to focus every shot; use hyperdistance or zone focusing instead. The Rollei 35 can be an incredibly fast street photography camera. When I’m taking photos of people on the street, I’m usually around 10 ft from the subject, so I set the focus to 10 ft/3 m, set the aperture to f5.6 or smaller, and adjust the shutter speed accordingly. That’s what I did with the photos above in #632, 633, and 636. The smaller the aperture, the greater your depth of field, so you don’t need to guesstimate distance on every picture. Basically, I use three focus settings for about 90% of photos with a Rollei 35: 10 ft, 20ft (see #635 above), and infinity. Use f.8 or f.11 if the light will allow, and let depth of field do the rest. It’s also handy to be familiar with a specific distance, as a frame of reference; in my case, it’s 6 ft., since I’m 6’ 1” tall, so I try to visualize the distance to an object if I were lying on the ground, and adjust the focus as needed.
 
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