Travel Companion

I've talked about it many times, but my Rollei 35 has risen the the ranks and is now sitting pretty as my favourite camera ever. 

Now that is a pretty big call, I mean I have alot of cameras (thanks ebay) but as a travel companion it's hard to beat. It may not have the sharpest, crispiest of lens', but it sure aint no coke bottle lens either. It's got that kinda trashy but sharp combination that is hard not to love.

The B35 model was one of the bottom end rollei 35's built in the late 60's/early 70's and to make it cheaper they put in an uncoupled solanium (no batteries) light meter. Sooo anyway, what this means is you can read the light meter, set the aperture, shutter and focus...all from waist level, it takes shooing from the hip to a new level. This means you can go for all sorts of sneaky little shots, and roam the streets firing this little mini away and G public is none the wiser.

I almost cried when I broke my Rollei in Warsaw earlier this year, got the shutter and lens barrel jammed somehow. So a few days later whilst sitting in my hotel room in Moscow, I set to work on it with my penknife (the little screwdriver bit to be precise) and rebuilt it, it was fiddly and I ended up with 3 spare screws at the end of it, but it was fixed...and worked like magic. Now try fixing a broken modern digi camera with a penknife, yup, It's just not going to happen.

So hats off to Heinz Waaske, the German designer that created the top dog in my camera bag.