Which spool first?

[k38]

If it is a "real" Rolleiflex you need to get the film (paper) under the sensor. The newer, very expensive models did away with the sensor and just have you line up the dots and arrows like a Rolleicord or a Mamiya TLR. Both ways work fine, but you better know which your camera uses. (Said the guy who once reeled a whole roll of film through a Rollei 3.5 E till his boss told him about the sensor !)

We Live and Learn (and laugh at ourselves)

Dwight

[PeterW]

There were some 'real' Rolleiflexes that you could load take-up spool first. I'm restoring one at the moment, fairly long job. It's a Rolleiflex Standard from 1932-33. I think the International RolleiClub call it a K2, but I don't think that was the official F&H designation. It doesn't have a sensor or a sensor roller, just the normal rollers one each end of the film aperture. It ran until the late 1930s.

Now I think about it the guy I watched loading the Rolleiflex that gave me the idea for starting this thread must have been using one of these pre-war models otherwise he couldn't have loaded it take-up spool first. I'm not all that well up on Rolleis, the one I'm restoring is the only 'flex I've got, though I've also got a 'cord, so I didn't pay a lot of attention to the model at the time. Wish now that I had. Using a 1930s camera he'd had for years as his ONLY camera would have made a good chatting point, and we could have gone and had a coffee while we chatted.

PeterW

[PeterW]

When I used to load Valerie's Hasselblad magazines for her on an assignment I used to take out the exposed film and the empty spool, break the seal on a new one and load the leading edge of the backing paper into the take-up spool to make sure I'd got it square. Then I'd put both spools into the magazine making sure the backing paper was taut.

Our experience was that if you got the backing paper even slightly askew in the 'blad magazine it ran to one side and got awfully stiff to wind. When you took the exposed roll out, the backing paper was cockled at one side and riding up on the spool flange. Don't know if the same applies to other 6x6 SLRs.

PeterW

[k38]

I guess "real" Rolleiflexes mean the automat and later. I think the Rollei T has no sensor either. I put "real" in quotes so as to denote that there are lots of models!

I never really knew how the sensor was any better than the match the arrows to the red dots method. I have loaded a lot more Mamiyas than Rollei.


Dwight

[kiev4a]

When I went to work at a daily newspaper in the late '60s we had a couple of f2.8 Rolleiflexes with the sensors. For news work it saved a lot of time. Youjust pulled the fil through to the take-up spool, closed the camera back and cranked until it stopped. Easier to do in dim lighting situations, too.

[barrington]

People say Leica M's are difficult to load which is nonsense..Hasselblads are! Talk about faffing around? I know where Peters coming from! lol

Barrington

[brianshaw]

kiev4a said:

I alway put in the loaded spool in first. This is sorta like discussing whether toilet paper should feed off the front of the roll or the back of the roll when mounted on the wall.

Front of the roll.

errr, I mean... loaded spool first.