So Hive photo fans what camera was it? When I first went to sea as an engineering cadet in 1975 I wanted a camera to record some of my first 6 month trip to sea. In those days everyone was carrying around an SLR and bags of lenses no camera phones in those days. I went down a very different route.
The little Rollei B35. The tiny fully manual 35mm film camera taught me a lot about taking my time and composing my photos, the B35 was the cheaper little sister to the original top of the range Rollei 35, the Queen had one. 95mm by 65mm and about 260 grams with film it really is tiny about the size of a cigarette packet and was easily slipped in a pocket for a run ashore.
Originally made in Germany originally named the B35, when released in 1969 it became the 35B when manufacture moved to Singapore in 1975, mine is one of the Singapore models but still marked B35 so it must have been early production in Singapore. Production finally stopped in 1978.
It has an uncoupled selenium light meter so no batteries and they do degrade over time so we will see how that goes.
Carl Zeiss 40mm f3.5 Triotar (3 elements, 3 groups) is a great little lens
Shutter: 1/30s - 1/500s are adequate for the tiny compact.
ASA range: 25 - 1600 is useable if you can get the film.
The film settings for ASA, speed and the light meter are all easy to read and adjust on the top of the camera. These are not coupled to the camera settings.
So shutter speed, aperture, and range are all changed around the lens barrel and must be transferred manually but again easily changed.
So Hivers what do I about my loft find? It is a little rough around the edges with some. Paint rubs and a few bits of peeling leatherette, should be an easy fix given it’s nearly 50 years old and well traveled in its day I don't think it’s in a bad shape. Every thing else seems OK the shutter, film advance and rewind work fine so I guess it’s down to the light meter accuracy. It’s clean and dust free inside.
So Hivers do I grab a roll of Black and White film and see if every thing is working. A few shots on Monomad maybe on the cards. Well thats an impulse decision made I just ordered 2, 24 rolls of 400 ASA Ilford HP5 Plus. At least you can still get 35mm unlike APS cartridges.
So what does Ilford say about the HP5 Plus?
ISO 400, medium contrast, all-purpose black & white film. Ideal for action, documentary and available light photography.
High speed ISO 400
Great results in varied lighting conditions
Wide exposure latitude.
Fingers crossed it should be just right for the camera tests.
I will keep you up to date now that I’m back on the bottom of the learning curve but at least the 2 rolls should show up any camera calibration issues with the Rollei. So Hivers guess I’d better try and find a manual on line so I don’t make a complete hash of it.