Camera Talk

Went to use my little Rollei XF 35, and the film advance mechanism broke.

For a while, these were cult cameras, but I don't know why. The first one I bought was around 1979, and it broke 15 feet from the camera store.

The next one that I bought a few years back had a rangefinder that sometimes was aligned and sometimes wasn't.

This is the third one, and now the take-up spool doesn't rotate.

A pretty camera. But pretty useless, too.

Plastic gears and such just don't last as long as metal ones. Seems the older models have dried lubrication issues.

PF

Yep. It was nothing like the rest of the Rollei 35 family (which was made of metal). And the much-vaunted Sonnar lens (in other Rollei cameras) never seemed to be much above "Optical lenses" in my XF35.

I still use mine from time to time but only because it's there.