[rollei_list] Re: Rollei 35S and the Sonnar 2.8/40
- From: John Jensen <jwjensen356@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 20:53:00 -0800 (PST)
Marc, I believe the camera used by Hillary in the 1953 climb was a Kodak
Retina, a 35mm folder, with a Xenar lens. An oldie (at the time) but a goodie.
John
From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Wednesday, November 20, 2013 8:25 PM
Subject: [rollei_list] Re: Rollei 35S and the Sonnar 2.8/40
At 04:11 PM 11/20/2013, Don Williams wrote:
> I wish I had bought one when I could have. Too late now.
>
> I once met
>
> David Breashears who topped Everest twice, once making the famous Imax film
> on the climb where so many folks died.
>
I have never met David though I did correspond with him following the '98 climb
which discovered Mallory's body. My son met him a year or two later at a
book-signing in Alaska.
The Rollei 35 was the expedition camera on the '73 US climb on Everest and went
high. The Prewar expeditions used Kodak VP's for high work, all of which seem
to have been equipped with Bausch & Lomb Tessars. The successful '53 climb
used Contax II and III cameras donated by TIME-LIFE when they upgraded to the
Postwar IIa and IIIa cameras. And the very improper Sayres climb of the North
Face in '62 was documented with a Contax IIa.
There is no hard evidence that Leica ever made an appearance on Everest until
the '84 Canadian climb but, Lord Almighty!, the gnomes of Wetzlar and Solms
have used it extensively in their advertising ever since. It is rumored,
without any proof, that Frank Smythe had a Leica II with him on the '36 British
climb but the only person to have ever claimed to have seen the camera at Camp
IV or above was Tenzing Norgay. A few Rolleiflex TLR's were carried on the '36
and '38 climbs but none of these seem to have made it above Camp III at the
base of the North Col. One of the climbers selected for the aborted 1939 climb
had argued with some force to have the Automat adopted as the expedition camera
for that climb.
So, yes, a Rollei 35 was at the summit a decade and more before the first Leica
made it up. <he grins>
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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