As anyone who follows me on facebook knows, I have been yearning to get back into shooting photography the old fashioned way - with film. I was traditionally taught photography - darkroom style. Including developing and printing my own images. Despite how far digital has come, I still think there's something romantic about film.
Unfortunately, my old Minolta isn't up to the task so I began to research film cameras to find a camera that will give me the vintage feel I am looking for. I knew I wanted to shoot medium format - which uses a much larger negative than 35mm, and in a square format. This helped narrow it down.
I have also been very moved by the work of Vivian Maier, and upon reading more about her, learned that she shot with Rolleiflex cameras. She certainly wasn't the first to use these cameras. In fact, Rolleis were used by a who's who of brilliant photographers such as Karsh, Robert Doisneau and Richard Avedon. And even my dad knew what a Rollei was when I asked if anyone in the family might have one forgotten in an attic somewhere (he laughed at me). I think my family was more of the Kodak Brownie type.
My mind made up, I turned to eBay. And got confused. Really confused. Not only had I never used eBay, but I had no idea there were so many iterations of Rolleis. And the more I read and researched them, the more confused I became. And then there was the small issue with the prices. A minty Rollei that was a favourable model was easily going for as much, and often more, than it would cost me to upgrade my Canon 5D to a 5D Mark II.
After A LOT of reading, I finally narrowed it down to wanting a 2.8 E or 2.8 F - ideally with a Zeiss Planar lens. Of course, so does everyone else it seems.
I bid on a few cameras, and kept getting outbid. I have to say, eBay is a very stressful place. I don't like losing. And I was seriously getting obsessed watching and waiting for just the right camera. And don't even get me started on the sellers who don't allow bids from people with 0 feedback...what's a girl to do? I have to start somewhere.
This week, I finally found my Rollei. It went into a hardcore, down to the wire bidding war. Luckily I had figured out that maximum bid thing as I ended up winning by just $2 at the very last second. Makes me wonder if the whole thing is a scam, but either way, my camera should be on it's way here from Germany as we speak. I even picked up a couple of rolls of film today so I am ready when it gets here.
Next will be to figure out how to use it...
