This summer we took a family vacation to the Grand Canyon as well as Bryce
and Zion National Parks. I took my Rollei 3.5F Planar and both Tele and Wide
Angle Mutars plus several rolls of Fuji Velvia 100 220. At the last minute,
as digital backup, I threw in a Nikon Coolpix A.
Some impressions:
These parks are truly international attractions. A Ranger told me that at
least 50% of the visitors are foreigners. I heard French, Spanish, German,
Dutch, Danish, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and many more languages.
If you carry a Rollei be prepared to be an attraction yourself. I found
people staring at my chest. I now know what a well-endowed woman feels like
wearing a low cut blouse :) On every trail someone chatted me up about my
Rollei.
Early in the trip while we were in Bryce National Park I had a bit of a
scare. I finished the first roll and loaded another. I have been doing this
for so long it's automatic for me and I was dumbfounded when the second roll
wound right through the camera! I thought "I wonder if I could have missed
placing the film between the feeler rollers?". Doubtful, but I loaded
another roll, this time carefully checking that it was indeed between the
rollers. Same result - wound through without stopping. This time I looked at
the counter window. Aha! It hadn't reset to zero. I didn't want to take the
time to fool with it so I picked up the Nikon and used it to take most of my
photos of Bryce. Later that night I found that if the Rollei counter didn't
reset the first time by opening and closing the back once or twice more it
would do the trick. I've owned this camera since new in 1971 and the only
service it has ever had was a shutter CLA. The winding mechanism has never
been done so I'm thinking it's time.
I was able to use the Rollei for the remainder of the trip. I just carefully
checked for the film counter to reset every time I reloaded.
One more thing: I found a lens shade for my Wide Angle Mutar at a reasonable
cost and this was the first time I used it. I found it heavily vignetted the
top of the image and I had to crop that off.
Here is a shot of a free-ranging herd of American Bison just North of the
North Rim of the Grand Canyon taken with the Tele Mutar:
https://flic.kr/p/YGDxfV
And here is a shot taken with the Wide Angle Mutar (top cropped off):
https://flic.kr/p/YGDqPZ
Allan
