[Rollei] SL66 Do's and Don'ts

[David Seifert <dseifert >]

Dan,

The SL66 is the king of the interlocks!  You will find that you will be 
unable to remove the back if the darkslide is not in place.  You will find 
that you can't release the shutter with the darkslide in place.  Sometimes 
people use specially modified darkslides to get the camera and back 
separated when thing go seriously bad.  I took my "locked" SL66 to Harry 
Fleenor and in a matter of seconds he had it made right by using the 
special darkslide and some special knowledge.  Too many people have the 
special darkslide but not the knowledge.  Where things get bad is if you 
remove the back then dry fire the camera and then try to reattach the back.

Whether you wind immediately after exposure is your choice.  I tend to do 
so in order for the camera to be at the ready when it is time for the next 
shot.  It is only critical that shutter be cocked  prior to removing the 
back.  Since rear body caps are all but unavailable it seems unlikely that 
any prudent person would store their SL66 body without a back 
attached.  This being the case the admonition about having the shutter 
cocked prior to removing the back probably only applies to changing backs.
It has often been discussed whether shutters should be stored in a cocked 
or uncocked state.  It seems that Synchro-Compur leaf shutters are designed 
to be stored in the cocked state, as counter intuitive as that seems.  My 
understanding is that the only exception to this is that perhaps the older 
Compur-Rapid shutters should not be stored with the shutter speed set to 
the highest speed which tensions a second spring.  Apparently the springs 
in these things a incredibly strong and aren't weakened by just being 
tensioned.  I suspect the same is true for the SL66  FP shutter.  I had an 
SL66   with shutter curtains so badly decayed that the shutter would hang 
in the course of traversing the film aperture.  The camera needed new 
shutter curtains but no new springs or other parts were needed.

Does this answer the question?

Best Regards,
David Seifert


At 08:25 AM 4/19/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Thanks for the links, David.
>
>As to shutter winding, let's see if I've got this right.  On my Rolleiflex
>Automat, its best to avoid winding the film and cocking the shutter until
>I'm ready for the next picture.  Same with my Nikon F, by the way: the extra
>large shutter release (AR-1?) tends to release when I put the case back on.
>On the SL66, its critical to wind it after snapping the picture.  Is that
>right?  What about the darkslide?
>
>Dan

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