A Rollei companion

Press, 22 October 1986, Page 35

A Rollei companion

The Rollei Fototechnic company of West Germany has introduced a companion to its mediumformat Rolleiflex 6006. The new camera, the 6002, is similar except it lacks the interchangeable magazine back and has Zeiss lenses made in Japan, the differences reducing the cost by more than a quarter. The lenses of the two cameras are mutually interchangeable. Although the 6002 is inexpensive by mediumformat standards, it is much more costly than most 35mm single-lens relexes. Pan Pacific Cameras, Ltd, quotes it in the region of $5OOO with the standard 80mm f 2.8 lens.

The negatives produced by these cameras are 60mm square — the old

2’4 in square; the film size is 120. The term “medium” format is today a misnomer, as larger formats are now used only for special purposes such as in processing for offset printing. The advantages of a larger format than 35mm are mainly bound up with scale. Since the negative is about four times the area of a 35mm negative,, the definition must be correspondingly better. The larger size of the components makes in general for greater robustness. Medium-format cameras are necessarily bulkier and heavier than any modern 35mm camera — especially heavier: with its standard lens the 6006 weighs 2040 g and the 6002 1800 g.