Rolleiflex 3.5B – Thoughts After 3 Rolls

This past week I received the lab scans from my third roll through the Rollei. For fun I thought that I’d try a roll of Lomo Turquoise. In early April I posted a single shot from the first roll of a bronze moose in front of a local barber shop. Here is a shot (as close as I could compose) of the same subject using Kodak Gold 200.

I think that I prefer the black and white, what do you think?

Here are a few additional shots from that first roll of HP5+:

Same sculptor and located directly west of the above moose (in fact you can see a bit of the mountain lion in the moose shot).

The moose and mountain lion are along the main street in the tiny town of Troutdale, Oregon. All of these shots were essentially me just becoming familiar with the Rollei and making sure that I was getting the exposure expected. For those of you who may have seen other posts of mine here on 35mmc these next shots may seem familiar. Typically, I return to nearby haunts while taking the initial shots with a new camera.

The red shed is a small bar located on the property of the Edgefield McMenamins. Two brothers began purchasing various properties in Washington and Oregon and turning them into hotels and bars. There are more than a few in the Portland area and as of 2024 they had accumulated a total of 56. The larger properties hold outdoor concerts in the summer as well as serving as a location for weddings and other events. They brew their own ales, whisky and rum (and charge a pretty penny for them). When shooting at Edgefield I will often focus on oaken barrels outside.

Having completed the 1st roll and feeling comfortable with the camera, I loaded it with some color film that has been lying around and took the camera along on a walk through the BLM’s Wildwood Recreation Area located about 25 miles from my home. This location has picnic and camping sites along the Salmon River near Welches, Oregon as well as a nice trail network through the woods.

Steelheads are actually a form of trout although to me they look like and live lives similar to salmon. I’m not sure if these fish are supposed to be steelheads or salmon but for years I have called this sculpture “stainless steelheads”. The Salmon River is a swift moving tributary of the Sandy River which empties into the Columbia. During the warm days of summer, families can be found along the banks with their kids splashing in the freezing water coming down off the snow left on Mount Hood.

This guys sits on the table on my back porch and is included here because I just repainted his hat and I wanted to see how the red came out on the Kodak Gold.

And now for my little experiment with 120 Lomography Turquoise. The box speed is listed as between 100 and 400. It appears to be sensitive to the exposure (over/under). I’ve included a few shots from recent trips. This next shot was from my trip to the Oregon coast the week of 15 April where I also had the F2 along loaded with Kodak Portra 400. This shot is also in the article entitled: A few from the first roll through the F2.

This next one is from a trip over to Rowena Crest approximately 65 miles east of Gresham. Rowena Crest is a bluff overlooking the Columbia River and is covered in wildflowers. This shot was taken on 9 April.

While this Lomo Turquoise film produces interesting color, the reality is that with simple Red/Blue channel swaps on your digital file these scans can easily be “returned” to natural color. Perhaps this film would have been more interesting 50 years ago?

Conclusions

First of all, I really like the Rollei. Of all my film cameras I suspect this will get used more. The featured image shows the two dials located between the framing and taking lenses. These dials can be linked allowing you to set your exposure based on an EV value from a light meter that provides one. They can also be uncoupled allowing you to set both shutter speed and aperture independently. This is how I’ve been shooting. I find the handling of the Rollei to be superior to the Mamiya 645 that I wrote about some time ago.

Having recently shot 35mm Kodak Portra 400, I have to say that I like the way the Kodak Gold 200 renders. I suppose this has more to do with the faster film yielding more grain which I don’t care for in color. To me, grain seems to enhance a b&w shot whereas it detracts in color.

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