Rolleiflex Old Standard...

This is what a $65 'as-is' Rolleiflex Old Standard from KEH looks like:


Old Standard1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Old Standard2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Old Standard3 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Old Standard4 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

Quite frankly, I was pleasantly surprised when I opened the box. The camera is in really nice condition -- anyone else selling this would have easily graded it an EX or EX+ for cosmetics. Lenses are quite clean, ground glass is good, bubble level is perfect, leather is very nice (though I did have to glue down a couple of lifting corners). Overall a real sweetie :)

Functionally, the shutter was understandably sticky. I took it apart and soaked it (following Mike Eckman's post on his site), and now all the shutter speeds work (though 1 second may be a bit slower than that). The only things I can't get to work are the B and T -- the B/T lever seems to work fine, but I don't want to personally dive too deeply into the shutter, as I think I should quit while I'm ahead. BTW I am assuming that you do not need to cock/charge the shutter in order to actuate the B or T, correct?

Oh and one more thing -- although the focus knob shows 1.7 as its closest focus point, it hard-stops at 2.2 -- this is correct, yes?

Other than that, everything else seems really nice -- I adjusted the viewing lens to infinity, checked the taking lens, and now the camera has a roll of film in it.

If anyone has any insight into the B and T operation, I'd be grateful!
 
Wow! That's a lot nicer than my $17.00 ebay Old Standard (622). The focus knob makes more than one complete rotation between infinity and the nearest distance. The closer focusing distances are not marked. The B/T issue may be a tiny spring that holds a catch in position (inside the shutter). It may be broken, missing or out of position. Of course, Butkus has an instruction manual pdf: https://www.cameramanuals.org/rolleiflex/rolleiflex_standard_english.pdf
 
I managed to develop the test roll, and here are a few results.


Rollei Test2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Rollei Test3 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Rollei Test1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

HP5 Plus @ ISO 200, D-76 1:2, 12.5 minutes. Negs scanned with my Nikon Z7 camera and 60mm f/2.8 micro on a light table, as I don't yet have a proper scanner. Hopefully soon!

The first shot is at (I think!) f/8, second and third shots are wide-open at f/3.5. Evidently I got my lens calibration right!

The sharpness is way beyond what I anticipated - matter of fact, I had to do a double-take with the wide-open shots to make sure that I wasn't imagining things.

The frame spacing on the roll was just about perfect throughout, no weirdness anywhere. Gotta say for a quick test roll taken around the house on a cloudy day, I'm quite pleased.
 
p.giannakis said:
Beautiful pictures and camera. Great find!
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Many thanks! Really the only shortcoming with this camera is that I wish that the B and T worked, but since I hardly ever use either setting, it's something that can wait for more experienced eyes to look at and fix.

I'll be really curious to see how it does with colour film.
 
VictorM. said:
Wow! That's a lot nicer than my $17.00 ebay Old Standard (622). The focus knob makes more than one complete rotation between infinity and the nearest distance. The closer focusing distances are not marked. The B/T issue may be a tiny spring that holds a catch in position (inside the shutter). It may be broken, missing or out of position. Of course, Butkus has an instruction manual pdf: https://www.cameramanuals.org/rolleiflex/rolleiflex_standard_english.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks for that link Victor.
 
Those results look great.

B/T settings don't normally break on Compur Shutters. Unless something was seriously mistreated or has become too sticky/dirty with age.
 
Mr_Flibble said:
Those results look great.

B/T settings don't normally break on Compur Shutters. Unless something was seriously mistreated or has become too sticky/dirty with age.
Click to expand...

Thanks Rick. I'm pretty happy with the way things turned out.

I'm not sure what the issue is with it -- I had Frank Marshman walk me through things to check regarding the B/T, but honestly I felt intimidated diving really deeply into the mechanism, so I went as far as I felt comfortable going without screwing everything else up. I figured that I got all the other shutter speeds working fine by simply flushing the whole assembly in naphtha, the lenses got cleaned and calibrated and everything else seems fine, so I'm happy with that. I'll likely send the camera down to Frank for him to fix the B/T at some point down the road. For day-to-day operation, the B/T doesn't really matter to me one way or another. Besides, my standard cloth cable release doesn't fit into that socket (did Rollei have a speciallly-sized cable release?), so I wouldn't be using the B/T anyways.
 
I wouldn't risk it either if the rest works fine.

I still haven't run film through that second Old Standard I picked up last year.
I'll need to check it over first (and finish the film I've got in a Reflekta)
 
One more shot from the garden -- I wanted to test the focus accuracy of the Rollei, so I focused on our little gnome friend. Pretty much nailed it :)


Rollei Test6 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

As I mentioned previously, I’ve owned a number of other Rolleis in the past, but this is easily now my favourite.
 
Erik van Straten said:
Lovely shot! Is there a Tessar on this camera?


Erik.
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Many thanks! Yes there certainly is -- 7.5cm f/3.5. It's in beautiful condition -- no cleaning marks, no haze, no fungus, nothing.

Hate to say it, but I think I snagged the bargain of the year from KEH. Now it's all up to me!

Erik, I have to extend a bit of thanks to you, as your photography has been an impetus for me to start shooting some film again.
 
Vince Lupo said:
Loving this camera. It's been producing super negs, and haven't had any issues with the camera whatsoever.

One thing I need to get is a good scanner -- this method with the Nikon Z7 isn't really working for me. An Epson V800 is likely on the shopping list, but will be a while.
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Absolutely gorgeous pictures Vince!

I have a V800 and to be honest the negative holders for medium format are an immense PITA. You have somehow to manoeuvre the edges of the negative under an inflexible lip on each side, which requires an immense amount of finger use and I've never managed it in white gloves. Often the negative remains curved in the holder, which leads to slightly out of focus images.
 
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