RE: [Rollei] Can someone describe the Rollei 2.8 FX?

[Marc James Small <msmall >]

At 12:35 AM 11/19/01 -0500, Austin Franklin wrote:
>That still goes back to my initial question, why no one else used it, or a
>similar mechanism, or why Rollei didn't adapt it to the GX etc.?  

Austin

Please read ALL the messages in a thread:  I posted the answer to the above
more than 12 hours back.  The factory lost the F series tooling in their
bankruptcy but managed to hold on to the T series tooling.  Thus, when they
decided to bring out an updated TLR, it was Hobson's Choice as to which
body to use as a base, and the Automat mechanism was gone, lost with the
tooling, melted down for scrap somewhere or other.

The Franke & Heidecke patent on the Automat mechanism expired in 1957
unless they made no protected improvements which might have extended this.
By 1957, TLR's were on the wane and every significant rival design (the
Minolta Autocord, the Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex, the Yashica line, and the Mamiya
line) was already established.  I guess the other manufacturers just
decided not to retool, as this is a VERY expensive proposition, once the
F&H patents had expired.  Had TLR's enjoyed a resurgence of sales in the
1960's or '70's, one of them might have chosen to do a major redesign and
to add the feeler mechanism, as Hasselblad did when they changed over from
the 12 back to the A12 back.  But Zeiss Ikon and Minolta left the TLR field
in 1960 due to slumping TLR sales, and neither Yashica nor Mamiya ever made
a substantive redesign of their models after 1957.

Marc

msmall    FAX:  +540/343-7315
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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