I shot a test roll of black and white film in my Rollei 2.8D last week. Test roll because the last time I shot a roll of film with this camera the results were sad indeed. Utter failure is a better description. I don’t know the cause, but only one exposure survived out of 12 attempts.
I was more careful this time. I made sure that the film was loaded correctly before closing he lid. I wrote the film type and ISO info in my notebook. Then I went to the backyard and shot the entire roll. Last Monday I took the roll to my local lab and got the results yesterday. Good news! The camera functioned flawlessly.
The Results
The focus was good and the light meter app on my iPhone did a great job with the exposure settings. I am really happy that there is nothing wrong with the camera. Here is the set of images from my treasured Rolleiflex Zeiss Planar 80mm 2.8D.
This is Kodak TMax film that expired quite some time ago. Great contrast and grain. I will scan some of these again (at a higher resolution) when I get the negatives back from the lab. Overall, I am satisfied how these pictures turned out. The next set of pics will be an event that I am planning to attend next weekend. There will be a car show and a parade with lots of street photography.
I am still getting familiar with shooting square. There is a freedom that comes with being “forced” to not think about landscape or portrait orientation. But it does take some practice using this camera. I’m working on it.
RiverDogs X -Words and Pictures from the River's Edge 