Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/02/16
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 06:21 PM 2/16/2007, Alastair Firkin wrote: >the 1965 post war baby was really a bit of a failure. Of course, that >makes it all the more collectable. The shutter is a bit "stiff", but >that is probably because it looks like very little film went through >it. 127 was dying when it came out: the film was more expensive than >the larger 120 format and there were few new cameras. Rollei of >course kept making them ;-) The final 127 Rollei, the "Black Baby", is a highly prized as few were made and it was not in production for long. It did correct the shutter woes which afflicted a lot of the Baby Greys and is sought after both as a user and as a collectible. 127 film has certainly not cost more than 120 film in the US at least for the past 40 years, as I regularly shoot both. It is an interesting format. In the early 1960's, when 120 was the primary professional format, there were informal discussions between various companies (my notes are not at hand at the moment, but I recall that Franke & Heidecke and Victor Hasselblad and AGFA and Kodak and Ilford were involved, and several Japanese companies) about attempting to make 127 the new professional film, with "Baby Hasselblads" joining Baby Rolleis and the like in the marketplace. The idea is intriguing: the boom in emulsion qualities meant that a 4cm by 4cm negative in 1965 provided more information than had a 6cm by 6cm negative in, say, 1950, so that quality would be retained with about a 40% loss in weight and bulk. The idea died a-borning as 120 was just too entrenched among studio and wedding and event photoraphers and 35mm was becoming the new universal format for action photographers. WWII US combat photographers used Graflex cut-film cameras or Rolleiflex cameras, with 35mm being the fall-back allowed for only the very best, such as Capa. The Korean War saw this change, though US Army photographers held to the 70mm Combat Graphic, that Contax on Steroids. Capa died during the French time in South-East Asia with a Contax at this side and a Nikon RF in front of him. And Viet-Nam was almost totally 35mm. But I'd have loved to have seen a Rollei SL44 or that 127 Hasselblad! Marc msmall@aya.yale.edu Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!