Yes Rolleiflex is still making cameras!  You might have heard about their insolvency and auction, but they restarted quickly and are still in business. Their new business name is now DW-Photo GmbH and they are located in the same factory space in Braunschweig as for the last 65 years.   Here’s a little summary of what’s going on there now

DW-Photo GmbH Factory visit July 2016

I visited DW-Photo GmbH this summer and was pleasantly surprised by how their restart has gone since the auction.   I’ve got some photos and notes to share with everyone from the visit:

Overall thoughts:

They are located in the same building that the factory has been in for many decades, but in a much smaller space that is about 600 square meters. This appears to be the portion of the previous space that was the clean room area and a bit more. The lower floors with heavy machinery for manufacturing, polishing and painting the metal parts as well as the cellar are all now completely empty and so far not cleaned up let alone occupied. This makes getting to the new space a bit eerie but once you are inside their portion everything starts to look very clean and organized. Actually I have never seen it so clean and efficient looking.   DW has managed to get most of their important calibration tools needed for assembly as can be seen in the photos. Some of them are a bit old but still work well and are fine for their production requirements. I was very happy to see that they do still have their print room with many of the original engineering drawings and also their server with all the electronic engineering and production drawings and information. They will obviously have to use outside machine and parts makers to produce the needed parts but this won’t be such a problem since they have the engineering drawings and specification files.  Staff is reported to be about 10 employees though not all are working full time.

Current production is focused on the Hy6 Mod2 cameras and lenses. Hans tells me they are making about 6-10 new cameras a month in addition to doing upgrades to Hy6 Mod2 and all the service and repairs. They are working on a new production run of the 6060 film backs for these cameras that hopefully will be available some time soon.   At the moment they are not assembling any TLR cameras, nor any 6000 cameras or the Rollei 35. It did appear that they were preparing a few projectors but had limited supply.   I did see a good amount of parts for the 6000 series cameras, as well as some for the TLR’s and Rollei 35’s too when I looked briefly through their parts bins.

Service:   They can service any Hy6 or AFi body, and can perform upgrades to Mod2 bodies on most bodies that have the 3.10 firmware and the where the 3 digit in the serial number is a 3 or higher – best to ask first.   They can repair any 6000 or Hy6 lens and in fact while I was there Rolf and Sabine were working on repairing a 500mm Tele-APO-tessar PQS lens. Rolf confirmed that only 20 of these were made.

Address for service is: 

I've gotten in one more new (open box) 110mm f/2.0 lens along with a lot of new items including Hy6 Mod2's, 6060 film backs,  and some TLR accessories like lens shades.  

I also have a few other rare lenses come into my used department lately including the 30mm PQ fisheye, the 60mm Schneider Curtagon, and also the Imagon.

Not much of my new inventory is listed yet so if you are looking for something please e-mail me….

Here's a more compact sort of mini X-Act2…. 

Nathan Wright of Ohm-Image has posted an interesting review of the Novoflex Balpro T/S showing how you could use your Rollei lenses and X-Act2 lens boards and accessories with the Balpro.  You can also get camera mounts and accessories from Novoflex to mount different cameras such as the A7R to the Balpro which presumably will also fit on the X-Act2 - hmm….  Anyone tried this? 

Balpro T/S review by Nathan Wright

Novoflex website  Balpro camera and lens mounts

Here is a little bit of information that I think might be useful for those shopping for focusing screens:

 All the Rollei TLRs with non-interchangeable hoods can take the same size screen (56 mm x 62.5 mm, vertical orientation) by the use of the appropriate spacers (that I include with the installation kit for the particular model).  Those are the Rolleiflex models E, D, C, B, A, all Automats, all PreWWII models (except for the very first model which used 616 film, which requires a special size screen); the Rolleicord models I, II, III, IV, V (also called Va).

All the Rollei TLRs with interchangeable hoods (prior to the GX) take the same size screen (64 mm x 68 mm).  These are the Rolleiflex models E2, E3, F, F12/24, T, Wide Angle Rollei, Tele-Rollei, RolleiMagic, and the Rolleicord Vb.  Also, some non-interchangeable hood models may have been changed to interchangeable hood cameras by repair technicians.

The later Rolleiflex TLR models GX, FX, FW, and FT take a third size screen (55.5 mm x 62.25 mm, horizontal orientation). This is the same size as the SLR cameras from SL 66, SLX, 6000 Series and finally Hy6

Rolleiflex SLR models SL66, SL66E, SLX, the 6000 series cameras, and the Hy6 take the same size screen (55.5 mm x 62.25 mm, horizontal orientation). 

For a long time I had gotten occasionally a funny magenta or purple image with my iXpress or Imacon / Hasselblad digital backs on my Rollei 6008AF body.  I figured that sometimes a file just gets corrupted or hit a bad spot on the memory card or there was a loose cable, but on one occasion I had a number of these purple files in one shoot.       I sent some files to Hasselblad Support a few years back and Paul Claesson wrote a very informative e-mail with the explanation.   

Click the link to read the answer...

Did you know that DHW-Fototechnik makes a sliding back for their X-Act2 Cameras?

Here's a picture of what it looks like and the different components that go into it.  The sliding back takes a viewfinder adapter piece and a digital back adapter insert plate.    

click on the link to see the article

Several people have asked me recently what cables are needed for connecting their Hasselblad digital backs to the Rollei Lens Control S with electronic shutters.

Did you know you can use your Rollei lenses on your DSLR?  I didn't either until recently…. Click the link the full blog post to read more….

Just posted a big table of all the different corrective diopters available for all the different Rolleiflex cameras including - TLR's, 6000 series, and Hy6.  Covers waist level magnifiers, 45 and 90 degree prisms.  

Click on the link to see the post...