ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: What became of the old Rolleiflex cameras?

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS: What became of the old Rolleiflex cameras? Is there a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 9 Derry Street, London W8 5HY; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.

uk By Charles Legge Published: 01:31, 6 August 2024 | Updated: 01:48, 6 August 2024 e-mail View comments QUESTION: What became of the old Rolleiflex cameras? What other forgotten camera makes are there? Paul Franke and Reinhold Heidecke founded Rollei in Germany in 1920 to produce Heidecke's invention, a twin-lens reflex camera (TLR). It had two lenses of identical focal length — the top one a 'viewing lens' and the bottom one a 'taking lens' (the lens the film is actually exposed through). Rolleiflex was the name used to refer to Rollei's premier line of medium-format TLRs, made from 1929 right up until the 1980s.

They were high-quality cameras featuring Zeiss Tessar lenses, and used by the best photographers of the era. In the late 1930s, Franke and Heidecke introduced the Rolleiflex Automat, which featured Rollei's first automatic film-loading system. With personal cameras becoming increasingly popular, Franke and Heidecke began producing 35mm cameras in the 1960s.

The Rollei 35 (1966) was one of the smallest fully manual 35mm cameras ever made. Photographer Robert Doisneau with a camera Rolleiflex during 1992 in France To fight costs, some production was moved to Singapo.