Rollei XF 35 Review

In today’s episode, I review the Rollei XF 35 which was kindly sent to us by a viewer in Australia - including some beautiful prints demonstrating the quality of the lens. The Rollei XF 35 is a simple 35mm rangefinder camera with an excellent 40mm f/2.3 Sonnar lens which Rollei licensed from Carl Zeiss. The camera was built between 1974 and 1980 and was designed for amateurs, featuring only an automatic mode, no manual settings. Yet, thanks to the Carl Zeiss lens designit creates solid images for a camera that is meant to be thrown into a bag and carried around constantly. Allegedly around 207.500 units were built of this camera - all were made in Singapore. In this case, the black version is more common as there were apparently only around 46.500 units built in chrome. 
While the camera is less famous than the more compact and manual Rollei 35, which we have reviewed here before, it is still worth taking a look. At the time, compact 35mm rangefinders were all the rage. And while Rollei licensed the lens, it is interesting that the company did not simply license the famous Konica C35 platform from 1967. For many manufacturers at the time, it made entering the compact camera market possible and became the foundation of the Konica Auto S3,  Minolta Hi-Matic 7s II, Revue 400 SE and many other cameras of that era. Instead, Rollei opted for creating its own, more complicated camera design including an ingenious rangefinder system without moving mirrors. 
I took the camera with me on a recent trip to New York City shooting some classic reportage films such as Kodak Tri-X and Ilford FP4 as well as some Kodak Portra 400. Let’s take a look how it performed.


Gear used:Rollei XF 35Oberwerth Mosel Casual Strap

Films used:
Ilford FP4
Kodak Tri-X
Kodak Portra 400

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