About two weeks ago, I used up my last week of vacation time this year, and took a trip to Arizona. We visited Sedona, Grand Canyon, Page, and Monument Valley. I've always wanted to visit the southwest. The desert, sand, red rocks are all foreign to me, completely different from the tropical island I grew up in, the rainy forests of the pacific northwest, or the lush mountains in north Georgia. Choosing which cameras to bring is always a headache for big trips like this. I really wanted to shoot a lot of medium format film, but still have a digital backup for difficult lighting conditions. Balancing weight and the amount of camera gear I wanted to carry with me is an eternal struggle I face. I ended up bringing my Pentax 67, Zeiss Ikon ZM, and a Canon R6 as a backup. In total I shot 12 rolls of 120, and 3 rolls of 35mm film. Our itinerary looked like this: Phoenix --> Sedona --> Grand Canyon --> Antelope Canyon / Horseshoe Bend --> Monument Valley -- > Sedona -->...
I have had this particular Rolleiflex 3.5E for a little over 10 years. I bought it back in high school for an unknown price, although prices now seems to be relatively affordable hovering between $500 - $1000. Rolleiflex is part of a greater category camera known as TLRs (twin lens reflex). It utilizes two lenses, the top one being the viewing lens that projects image onto a ground glass via a mirror, and the bottom being the more important taking lens, with a leaf shutter built-in. I've always thought of this kind of camera as a hybrid between SLRs & rangefinders: it has a lens with a mirror (although no mirror slap), and what you see is not exactly what you get (parallax error). There are many Rolleiflex models & variations, this particular model is a Rolleiflex 3.5E, with a selenium light meter, made in the mid-1950s. Like most TLRs, it takes 120 medium format film, takes a 6x6 image yielding 12 photos per roll of film. It has a Xenotar 75mm f/3.5 lens that makes beauti...