After watching the John Maloof film about Vivian Maier and her amazing photography, I was over enthusiastic and brought myself a Rolleiflex 28a from the wonderful guys at West Yorkshire Cameras. It’s a lovely camera, and mine had a nice clean Zeiss Opton 80mm f2.8 lens. There is a quirk with these cameras that I didn’t know until I owned one, which is that the film needs to be laced under the last roller rather than over, in the more common manner. Thus I ran the film straight through the camera twice, before getting it loaded correctly! Thanks heavens for the dark bag. The other thing I hadn’t even thought about was the finder. I had the Yashica 635 so I was expecting the reversed view etc, that was no issue, what caught me by surprise was how dull the finder was! Everything was clean and the viewing lens good, but my goodness- dull! My admiration for the work of Vivian Maier increased – she even used it at night!! Unfortunately these days although my long distance sight if very good, for close work I have to result to goggles, and found it very difficult to use. After only one film I returned it. To the credit and good testament to the guys at West Yorkshire Cameras they pretty much gave me back what I’d paid for it against the Texas Leica – now there’s service you won’t get from ebay!
Below are a some of the first (and last) shots!
S.H.O.U.T. 