Equipment & Techniques > Medium Format / Film / Digital Backs – and Large Sensor Photography
Franke & Heidecke closes
Rob C:
I´ve been the Rollei TLR route too, as most of my working photographer generation has. They were good cameras and quite reliable - as far as I was concerned - but they were very limited in practice because of non-interchangeability of lenses. It´s not much use offering a single, slightly longer lensed version and another wider lensed version. 135mm was fine for heads in 35mm camera terms, but even a 150mm is rather short on 6x6, never mind a 135mm! On 6x6 I found 180mm as with the Mamiya TLR to be a good length but hopeless to use because of the parallax correction system - could Rollei have made a 180mm work better?
Rollei did make slrs early on (SL 66 - not a Mercedes) but they used focal plane shutters (back in the dim past of Hasselblad 500C days) and even Hasselblad gave those up for a few years in favour of lens shutters though they did re-introduce a few fp versions later on as specialist alternative cameras.
However, all these special considerations aside, Rolleiflex TLR cameras became just too expensive to make sense, and sense has to be made if you are working in photography for your keep. Despite having a couple of ´blads I would have liked to have gone back to a standard 80mm version of the Rollei TLR if only to provide hand-held options without mirror bounce in available light shooting. But not at the price.
Feet and shooting comes to mind, and I don´t mean mine.
Rob C
mattlap2:
--- Quote from: Christian Miersch ---Eric, guess you have a point there. After all they cant have been totally incompetent if they lasted that long.
Christian
--- End quote ---
Christian,
It takes surprisingly long for some very bad businesses to disappear. While Rollei made some truly great products over the years, they also had their share of missteps as well. Many of the mistakes were made on the business side, others were the result of just bad timing. Combined they took their toll and added enough baggage that they could not keep their heads above water.
They had a number of very weak importers in the United States. Repair was not thru the importer in the United States, it was done thru Marflex until their demise. Their price structure was extremely high compared to even Hasselblad. HP Marketing was their importer for many years, and never really did the line justice. After HP it went thru at least one or 2 importers, before being sold via DSM, and then finally a short stay with Sinar Bron.
They never really had a direction to their product line in the later years. The 6008 was a beautifully designed camera, but had initial quality control problems. The first batch of cameras were full of defects. The first 5 systems I delivered to customers were all defective for entirely different reasons. Eventually they got their act together but by them many of the initial customers went to other systems.
Their scanning back was top notch, but they missed the move to capture devices. At one time they had actually announced a capture back, but I don't think a prototype was ever shown or any delivered.
In the end, they were just unable to play catch up and the weight of earlier mistakes took their toll. I am surprised they lasted as long as they did.
Matt
EricWHiss:
Actually a lot of complaints about this system are probably also voice for other makes - certainly I have read many on this forum anyhow. I guess this is the issue with MF cameras in general. It's going to be very interesting to see how the landscape changes for this format over time. So many factors in play.
cmi:
--- Quote from: mattlap2 ---Christian,
It takes surprisingly long for some very bad businesses to disappear. While Rollei made some truly great products over the years, they also had their share of missteps as well. Many of the mistakes were made on the business side, others were the result of just bad timing. Combined they took their toll and added enough baggage that they could not keep their heads above water.
They had a number of very weak importers in the United States. Repair was not thru the importer in the United States, it was done thru Marflex until their demise. Their price structure was extremely high compared to even Hasselblad. HP Marketing was their importer for many years, and never really did the line justice. After HP it went thru at least one or 2 importers, before being sold via DSM, and then finally a short stay with Sinar Bron.
They never really had a direction to their product line in the later years. The 6008 was a beautifully designed camera, but had initial quality control problems. The first batch of cameras were full of defects. The first 5 systems I delivered to customers were all defective for entirely different reasons. Eventually they got their act together but by them many of the initial customers went to other systems.
Their scanning back was top notch, but they missed the move to capture devices. At one time they had actually announced a capture back, but I don't think a prototype was ever shown or any delivered.
In the end, they were just unable to play catch up and the weight of earlier mistakes took their toll. I am surprised they lasted as long as they did.
Matt
--- End quote ---
Matt,
what you say seem to echo some stuff of the translated comment. I think both views must be true at the same time. On the one hand a good and utilized product and on the other hand also the problems mentioned. But I am not the one to judge about it, I didnt knew about F&H until the posts here at LL. As Im reading these threads slowly an image begins to form for me. It reminds me of the decline of the high-end 3D market back at around 1997-2000 with the advent of NT and cheaper and more powerful Intel processors. The MIPS with their R-processors couldnt compete anymore to Intel, NT machines got better and better, and this affected also prices for the high-end 3D softwares, wich dropped dramatically. A lot of consolidation was going on ever since, and the market for Highend 3D animation broadened. I dont want to draw too much parallels, but this here reminds me of it, with the same type of discussions also.
For the people now unemployed, and the photographers wich maybe will not make it, it is a sad story of course. I think F&H tried their best, and I also feel from what I gathered that they must have had a sense of social responsibility and maybe tried to preserve the jobs for their people as long as possible. This makes sense, they where in their niche and could go on and on and on like they where used to. I also feel they where acting in a certain german spirit, to perfect existing things, or to stay with existing things for as long as possible, because it is good enough, or because the business just works. I feel that maybe it must have been like this at F&H, or Leica. Like perfecting combustion motors: dont talk about Anti-Gravitation or wind energy. Maybe one could call it anti-progressive, but it is not bad per se, it is just that a certain niche has set, and people are working with it - real innovation has to come from elsewhere. Then of course with all consequences. For the market as a whole and for photography in general the current development will be good undoubtely.
Thats roughly how I would view it.
Christian
dseelig:
I had a Rollie 6008 and 6003 cameras. I loved them if I still shot in a studio situaition I would still own them. also the lenses were very expensive. I live out west and for landscape work they were heavy and lenses weighed a ton with those leaf shutters built in. However they were my faviorite medium format camera bar none and with Rollie dying I am saddened. I do not know what the problems with the HY 6 were I played with a few but all too briefly seemed like a great camera.
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