This blog post is basically me lamenting about my favourite camera, my Rolleicord Va, and its demise. It is no longer with us due to a nasty fall (thank goodness it wasn’t me – it’s far easier to forgive a second party for the mishap than myself). That being said, it could always be worse – no bones were broken. The bottom corner of the front moving mechanism, that holds the lenses and moves back and forth on a track to achieve perfect focus, hit the floor. This effectively jamming it back into the camera unevenly, much like trying to push a square block in a square hole unevenly and getting it stuck. Feeling a bit lost without my precious Rolleicord I immediately went on the hunt for a new one and because I am extremely lucky, a customer I was whining to took pity on me and sold me their Rolleicord Vb.
What I loved most about my Rolleicord Va was how straight forward it was to use. Now you might be thinking… “straightforward? Aren’t ALL TLRs straightforward?!” No they most certainly are not. They aren’t difficult, but some require more steps than others when loading film. For example on top of loading the film and rolling it to the start line the advance and exposure counter need syncing so that the advance lever stops at every frame, fiddly things like that make it a challenge to remember if you don’t use the camera all the time. I loved my Rolleicord Va because loading was SO straight forward, you load the camera, turn film so its at the start line then shut the back and wind until the exposure window says ‘1’. It doesn’t let you make mistakes, like how it stops at one when loading or how to cock and fire the shutter. It did multiple exposure with the same ease I can multiple expose on a Holga (and on the Rolleicord I got good double exposures – unlike the Holga), I just cocked and fired as many times as I wanted, its extremely light weight, even compared to its classier relative the Rolleiflex!
In honor of my fallen friend I thought I would post photos from our last walk together….
I will soon be posting about my Rolleicord Vb when I get photos processed from it.
