I am always looking through the vintage camera listings in Shutterbug, EBay, etc. and regularly haunt the local shops (Montreal) and I have never seen a 35mm TLR. I have only seen one MF TLR with an insert to make use of 35mm film.

Is there any historical reason for this? It doesn't seem to make sense that rangefinders are better for one format than for another (Look at the Fuji and Mamiya MF rangefinders). The only reason I can see is historical in that the original 35mm cameras were viewfinders and then rangefinders.

Any insight???????

-- Daryl Hiebert (dhiebe@po-box.mcgill.ca), February 14, 1999

Answers

There have been 35mm TLRs, but not many and nothing that I know of that's worth using except for the novelty value.

Why? Try taking a horizontal format image on a vertical format TLR (or vertical format images on a horizontal format TLR)!! Note there are no 645 or 6x7 TLRs either. The 6x6 square format is ideal since there's never any reason to attempt to turn it on its side.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), February 14, 1999.

The smallest camera I own is a 35mm TLR, a Tessina. I think it's still made. It needs special casettes, so it's not very convenient, and the negatives are very small with the problems that gives, but the quality is great, and when I need a very small camera, it's a good choice.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), February 15, 1999.

Bob and Alan, thanks for your input.

I found one up on EBay. However it isn't what I expected for a TLR. This one has the 2 lenses side by side rather than one on top of another. Check it out here. I will upload this pic to my own webserver when I contact the seller and obtain permission to use the picture....

Still, since most people compose in the horizontal, why wouldn't it be acceptable to use a conventional TLR (i.e. viewing lens on top) with the 24x36mm wide format. Besides, sometimes it desirable to have a WLF for 35mm rigs. They are still readily available and the famous little T4 has one built in... aside: I almost got one because of this, but I went with the Epic because it was $100 (Canadian) cheaper.

-- Daryl Hiebert (dhiebe@po-box.mcgill.ca), February 15, 1999.

As I said, there's a certain novelty value, but they are a pain to use if you want to switch orientation! The one in the ebay auction seems to have a conventional viewfinder too.

I have a Yashica 635, which is a 6x6 MF TLR with an adapter for 35mm film. It works great as a vertical format 35mm camera, but there's no way you're going to easily take horizontal images. It can be done, but is 1000% easier (and still a pain) with a tripod. There's no reason why you couldn't have a side to side film transport and a horizontal default format I guess, making verticals a pain to shoot. Maybe a 35mm TLR shooting 24x24mm square images would be best! Pretty close to the old 126 format from what I remember.

I think the 35mm backs for MF TLRs were made because you couldn't easily get some types of film in MF back when these things were popular. I've seen some refered to as "color backs", suggesting that color 120 film was hard to find at one time, or at least that was my interpretation.

-- Bob Atkins (bobatkins@hotmail.com), February 15, 1999.

Perhaps Daryl's question is best answered by asking: "What are the advantages of a TLR over an SLR?" The WLF isn't peculiar to TLRs, of course, I can just whip off my SLR pentaprisms. The only real advantage, it seems to me, is that the mirror doesn't need to retract, which reduces noise and vibration, and gives a continuous image. The aperture also doesn't need to be opened for viewing.

120-size SLRs tend to be large, clunky things. SLRs really come into their own at 35mm format, and smaller. So my conclusion is that MF tends to be TLR because SLR at that size is too clunky. 35mm tends to be SLR because it is small enough to be non-clunky, and people prefer SLR over TLR.

Incidentally, the Tessina is also side-by-side, and also has direct- vision viewfinder and pentaprism accessories. Also a built-in motordrive. Not bad for an overgrown matchbox.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), February 16, 1999.

The Contaflex (Contax) 35mm TLR camera of 1935, was the first 35 mm camera with built in metering in the form of a selenium cell. For waist-level viewing, the Contaflex had a Van Albada direct finder for faster operation with longer lenses. It was also a very expensive camera to manufacture.

John.

-- John Taylor (jt79@hotmail.com), February 02, 2000.

May be I am being pedantic, but aren't most range-finder in effect a twin-lens reflex? The main lens shoots the picture, the reflex lens forms one half of the optical coincidence range finder. The straight through view finder forms the other half of the range finder. O.K., so the reflex and picture taking lens don't focus together, but focusing the main lens turns the reflex lens, whose rotation indicates the focus in the range finder.

-- chuck fan (chaohui@msn.com), February 03, 2000.

You have a point, but the word 'reflex' is usually taken to mean that the entire light through the single viewing lens goes through the mirror, and on to a ground glass screen. In a viewfinder, the image that goes through the mirror is only used for focusing, not viewing.

And then someone even more pedantic will remind me that screw-thread Leicas have separate viewfinders and rangefinders, and when life is being hard I don't have time to both compose and focus, so I just use the rangefinder to do both.

-- Alan Gibson (Alan.Gibson@technologist.com), February 03, 2000.