[rollei_list] Re: Rolleiflex SL 35 E
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 13:44:36 -0500
At 09:13 AM 3/3/2014, Cmfreaza wrote:
Two points(I am writing vÃa cell Phone from the
farm): 1) Rollei electronic shutter was a Rollei
development, it has a symmetric design, it means
shutter drive is distributed on both shutter
sides allowing to fit the lens at the exact
center of the camera body, it was thought for
2000/3000 cameras but the vsl3E and Sl35 E also
have the lens at the exact center of the body,
an unique feature at the time. Seiko and Copal
electronic shutters had the drive on one of the
sides only and then the lens position was not at the exact center.
Rollei Fototechnic used the Rollei electronic
shutter manufactured in the Singapore era for
the 2000/3003 cameras due to the reason
explained above. It would be too expensive to
change the camera body design to use a Japanese electronic shutter.
Yes and no, Carlos. Voigtländer began working on
the development of an electronic shutter in the
late 1950's. The head of the Zeiss Foundation,
Heinz Küppenbender, demanded that Voigtländer be
merged with Zeiss Ikon so that Zeiss Ikon would
have access to this technology. (There was
another reason: the Zeiss lensworks wanted to
pick up the Voigtländer optical engineers.) The
formation of ZIV enabled Zeiss Ikon to start
developing its sequel to the Contarex, the
SL2000F. When Küppenbender retired, the Zeiss
Foundation promptly killed off Zeiss Ikon (well,
not quite -- the eyeglass line and the slide
projectors stayed around though the present
'Zett' firm actuallly uses a former Voigtländer
brand and includes both the Leica and Zeiss Ikon
slide projector lines.) At that point, cameras
under development or in production were sold
off. Rollei bought the former Icarex/SL706 and
the SL2000F lines from Zeiss Ikon. The SL2000F
came with an electronic shutter which is
identical to that used by Rollei for its version
of the camera and, later, for the SL35E and the
300X cameras.. (Nothing else makes sense: why
reinvent the wheel?) (Another firm, a consortium
known as 'Wulf' or 'Wolf' -- accounts differ --
purchased the successor to the Icarex, the SL750,
but that never entered production through a
slight misunderstanding. Wolf had thought that
Zeiss was going to pay for them to produce the
camera or, at the least, give them a
factory. Sorry about that, folks! Zeiss just
sold them the plans and the prototypes. That had
a mechanical shutter, incidentally.)
I recognize that Prochnow invested a lot of
energy trying to make a case that the Zeiss Ikon
SL2000F was of not special interest and that the
Rolleiflex SL2000 was a design unique to
Braunschweig. Well, the Rollei electronic
shutter was first conceived at the old
Voigtländer works in Braunschweig but most of the
design work was done at Stuttgart at the Zeiss
Ikon factory. I admire Prochow both for his
technical knowledge and for his devotion to the
breed but his claims about the Rolleiflex 2000
simply run against the historic record and the
technical data. As Daniel Webster once advised
the jury in a patent case -- Henry Clay was his
opposing counsel -- 'if you can show me a dime's
worth of difference, then you ought to rule
against my client'. And there is not a dime's
worth of difference between the Zeiss Ikon
electronic shutter and that used by
Rollei. (They may have used different
batteries. That bit sticks in my memory from
discussions twenty years or so ago with some of
the guys who'd worked on the development of these
cameras -- Rolleiflex not only got the cameras,
but it also got some of the engineers.)
This is hardly a major issue save to folks such as Carlos and myself.
Be at peace, Rollei folks!
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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