The most advanced Rollei 35 camera…Came out in the mid 1970s!

Amidst the likely deserved hype of a new version of Rollei’s incredible Rollei 35 camera – the Rollei 35 af, a modernized autofocus version with many new features – I had to do a post to mention the Voigtlander VF101. Made by Rollei in Singapore, this camera is nearly as small as the original Rollei 35, has an incredible lens, and has a similar removable bottom for changing film. Still, unlike the original Rollei 35, it has some significant upgrades. After shooting with the Rollei 35 (also called 35T for Tessar), the 35s (Sonnar lens), and the 35b with a selenium cell and Triotar lens, I can say I really love the shooting experience of these cameras – but hated missed focus. I’m also a manual focus kinda photographer even when shooting digital – I often leave my Fuji on manual focus.

The backstory of this amazing and solidly built shooter is more complicated than a Game of Thrones plot line – a sibling of the little-known Zeiss s312, built by Rollei and uses many of the same parts, and badge as Voigtlander. You can learn more about the history in Vicuna’s post on Lomography.com. What I want to share is how slept on this tiny little brick of engineering has been since it hit the market about 50 years ago (damn I’m old!). First, I love that it has Aperture Priority automatic as one can simply adjust the aperture to get the desired shutter speed or adjust to get the desired aperture – and either way you get the proper exposure if the shot is within the range of shutter speeds and aperture capabilities of the camera.

The camera’s lens protrudes about 1cm – not much, but still more than the Rollei 35 lens when tucked away. This makes it more of a jacket pocket camera than truly pocketable (it’s also thicker in the body than a Rollei35 by maybe 5mm). Taking a cue from it’s sibling – or perhaps estranged cousin, The VF101 has a slide-out focus ring that doubles as a sun shade – also revealing the aperture numbers and a depth of field scale. Also beating the Rollei in my opinion, the Viewfinder has a rangefinder patch for precision focusing, Shutter speed, and Aperture setting! The only other camera I own (filmwise) that has all 3 details in the viewfinder is the Olympus 35rc.

As for shooting with the camera, it’s a blast! The size is quite small and inconspicuous for street photography, the boxy shape almost looking like a children’s toy camera at a glance. But don’t be fooled, in hand this feels like a precision machine from the golden age of Rangefinder cameras. There’s a tiny knob on the front of the camera that can be set to Flash or Automatic (aperture priority as mentioned). When set to Flash – the metering seems to shut off – I treat this as an off switch to save batteries. There’s a shutter counter on top – strangely in a small square window that appears to be more of a ribbon with numbers on it than a wheel. Also – similar to the film winding indicator on the Canon QL 19/17 it has a small window on the back with a red line that vibrates back and forth as the film is wound – but is still if the film isn’t winding.

An interesting thing is that below the lens is a textured lever, it would seem like it’s there to adjust the focus, but actually adjusts the aperture while gripping and turning the extended sunshade (textured as well) adjusts focus. While adjusting the aperture, the indicator in the viewfinder also moves, and the chosen shutter speed will also be indicated by a moving needle (indicators for shutter are slow area/overexposure which are red stripes at top and bottom of the scale, 30, 125, and 500). The Rangefinder patch is actually round like on the Rollei xf35. I’ve often considered the Rollei xf35, but the automatic exposure is a turn-off.

So, how does the lens render??? Fantastic. The 40mm Color-Skopar produces excellent results even with backlit scenes one can still see the definition. As seen below as we examine the background where the street scene meets the sky.

These are original scans, shot with Fuji 200 color negative film – not edited at all. We can see that the lens still renders individual leaves from a great distance (though out of focus – bad photographer, bad!). Another shot from this same walk demonstrates the contrast and color rendering of the Color-Skopar…

A close in crop – and we see that once again our over-eager street snapper missed focus (I was zone focusing at f5.6 and 3 meters – not the camera’s fault).

Ok, ok gimme one more chance – again, a lot of zone focusing on this walk, should have stopped down to f8-f16 as it was quite sunny.

Ok, so how about the details on that pottery…

Not too shabby – and these aren’t tiff files or high-resolution scans, just the budget option from my local lab. I’m quite happy with this little machine. I’ve added a skylight 49mm filter, after shooting these shots, and my only complaint about this camera is that adding the filter makes the lens cap only retract part-way – but this has the benefit of leaving the aperture numbers in view. Trade-offs in life I guess.

Other features include a hot shoe, threaded shutter-release cable insert, wrist/neck strap holes on both sides and a right-side tripod socket. While the film-winding lever seems just like the one on the Rollei 35 cameras, it is on the right side when holding the camera (just like the xf35). Some people might like this, whereas die-hard Rollei 35 shooters may find it unacceptable.

While it lacks some advanced features like autofocus and exposure compensation, this is a great camera if you can find one – I got mine for about $250. Rollei always made exceptional quality cameras, mine works like new despite being 50 years old.