История компании Rollei: от оптики к цифровой фотографии.

German optical equipment manufacturer

Rollei was a German manufacturer of optical instruments founded in 1920 by Paul Franke (Rollei) and in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, and maker of the Rolleiflex and Rolleicord series of cameras. Later products included specialty and nostalgic type films for the photo hobbyist market. Originally named Werkstatt für Feinmechanik und Optik, Franke & Heidecke, the company renamed into Rollei Werke Franke & Heidecke GmbH in 1972, Rollei Werke Franke & Heidecke GmbH & Co. KG, in 1979, and Rollei Fototechnic GmbH & Co. KG in 1981. After being purchased in 1995 by Samsung Techwin, part of the South Korean Samsung Group, it was sold back to its internal management in 1999. In 2002, it was bought by a Danish investment group, and renamed Rollei GmbH in 2004. In 2005/2006, the company headquarters moved to Berlin and the company was split into two different companies: Rollei GmbH in Berlin, owner of the Rollei brand and selling various OEM equipment, and Rollei Produktion GmbH in Braunschweig, an equipment factory which became Franke & Heidecke GmbH, Feinmechanik und Optik. Following another restructuring in 2007, Rollei was split into three companies. Franke & Heidecke GmbH, Feinmechanik und Optik focused on the production of professional medium format cameras and slide projectors, while RCP Technik GmbH & Co. KG in Hamburg was responsible for Rollei consumer products like re branded compact digital cameras in the European market, and with the RCP Technik Verwaltungs GmbH owning the rights to the "Rollei" and "Rolleiflex" brands. Finally, Rollei Metric GmbH took over the photogrammetry business. Since 2009 Rolleiflex medium format cameras, Rollei 35 and Rolleivision slide projectors were being produced by the DHW Fototechnik GmbH DHW Fototechnik presented two new Rolleiflex cameras and a new electronic shutter at photokina 2012. DHW itself filed for insolvency on 2014–08–15 and was dissolved in April 2015, thereby temporarily ending any further production of cameras, lenses and accessories. A new, smaller company called DW Photo was formed with reduced staffing, and more or less the same people leading the business; the manufacturing and sale of projectors and twin lens reflex cameras, as well as that of the series 6000, was stopped, to concentrate on the Hy6 and accessories. A new battery and charger for owners of the 6000 series were however released to the market in 2019, as the original NiCd batteries could age prematurely. As of 2015 the brands "Rollei" and "Rolleiflex" continue to be owned by the RCP Technik Verwaltungs GmbH. On 2015 01 01, the RCP Technik GmbH & Co. KG refirmed as Rollei GmbH & Co. KG to market digital consumer cameras and accessories under the "Rollei" label in Europe.

Rollei was a German company that established a worldwide reputation with the Rolleiflex, a twin lens reflex camera. Rollei was founded in 1920 as the Werkstatt für Feinmechanik und Optik, Franke & Heidecke in order to make a twin lens reflex camera. The company changed its name and legal form many times: to Rollei Werke Franke & Heidecke in 1962, to Rollei Werke Franke & Heidecke GmbH & Co. KG in 1979, to Rollei Fototechnic GmbH & Co. KG in 1981, and finally to Rollei GmbH in 2004. In 2006, the headquarters of Rollei GmbH were moved to Berlin while production was transferred to Rollei Produktion GmbH, currently Franke & Heidecke GmbH, in Braunschweig. The company underwent more radical restructuring in 2007/08. The frequent name changes are an indication of a turbulent history: After the popularity of the twin lens reflex cameras declined, the Rolleiflex was supplemented with a variety of models. The company expanded its production facilities and product range at the end of the 1960s beyond what a small company like Rollei could manage. Rollei's decision to start manufacturing in Singapore in 1970 was regarded as a pioneering achievement by the photographic industry. Unfortunately, it also damaged the companies reputation as a German precision manufacturer. In 1982, after many failed attempts at restructuring, the company finally achieved success by focusing on medium format cameras along with a few other products. Surveying systems were added to the product range in 1986, and modern digital and compact cameras were included from 1991. Over the years, many great photographers have used Rollei cameras: David Bailey and Diane Arbus (Rolleiflex 3.5F TLR with 75 mm f/3.5 Planar), Brett Weston (Rolleiflex SL66 and SL66E SLR), and Helmut Newton (Rolleiflex 2.8GX), amongst others. Rollei cameras typically used Carl Zeiss or Schneider Kreuznach lenses, as well as lenses manufactured by Rollei based on designs by Zeiss, and occasionally lenses made by Japanese manufacturers.

While Reinhold Heidecke was working as a production manager at Voigtländer in Braunschweig around 1916, he got the idea to manufacture a new type of roll film camera. However, the company rejected his proposal because they thought there would be problems keeping the film perfectly flat. Besides, their current camera range, which used conventional photographic plates, was selling well. Heidecke tried unsuccessfully to secure financing to start his own company, so, at the insistence of his wife, he presented his concept to Paul Franke (Rollei), a salesman and former colleague at Voigtländer. Franke was so enthusiastic he put up 75,000 M of his own money and went looking for more capital. After he secured additional funding of 200,000 M, they resolved to go into business together. In November 1919, they filed an application to register the company "Franke & Heidecke", which was entered into the German Trade Register on 1 February 1920. In need of factory space, they rented several rooms in a house at Viewegstraße 32, which became the companies first headquarters. The house survived World War II intact and stands to this day. Other rooms in the house were used by a dancing school, who had to abandon their dancing lessons because of noise from the factory. Within a year, Franke and Heidecke had taken over the entire building. By 1922, business was so good that they were able to take out a loan to purchase the property outright.

To get the company going, Franke and Heidecke decided to manufacture a stereo camera in the short term. Cameras of this type were popular, and Reinhold Heidecke was very familiar with them. As they were also in Voigtländer's product range, however, Franke and Heidecke did not want to look as if they were simply copying theirs. They purchased several Voigtländer units, and from what they learned by dismantling these, constructed the Stereo Heidoscop. It included two Carl Zeiss Tessar lenses (f/4.5, 55 mm) and, mounted between them, a Carl Zeiss Super Triplet (f/3.2) viewfinder. At that time, Tessar lenses were widely regarded as the best available; they were often used in the United States, even though locally produced alternatives were available. Zeiss had an excellent reputation world wide, which Franke & Heidecke leveraged for their own products. More importantly, they differentiated themselves from cheaper alternatives. The camera projected an image onto glass plates of dimensions 45 mm x 107 mm. The name Heidoscop was chosen in part to remind the management at Voigtländer that they had restricted Heidecke in his work there. The Heidoscop was a great success, exceeding all expectations. In 1923, the company introduced a Heidoscop for 117 format (B1) roll film. It was from this product, the "'Roll film Heidoscop"', that the name Rollei was derived, which later became the name of company.

Between 1914 and 1923, the period of hyperinflation in Germany, Paul Franke lived up to his reputation as a savvy financier: he invested the income from exports (in foreign currency) so astutely that the company came through this difficult period unscathed – a rather unlikely outcome if Heidecke, alone, had made these decisions. During this period the company acquired new premises. The City Council in Braunschweig did not really want a noisy factory operating within a residential area and pressured the company to move its factory elsewhere. Accordingly, on 10 January 1923 the company purchased a plot of land on Salzdahlumer Straße, which at that time lay just beyond the city limits. Hyperinflation had devalued the currency so much that the land purchase cost practically nothing. Once the new factory had been built, much was expected of the new camera. However, Paul Franke proposed a temporary suspension of further development work because of the catastrophic economic situation. Heidecke concurred, believing that better times lay ahead.

The first prototype of the new camera, named the Rolleiflex, was finally completed in 1927; it was built for absolute reliability and featured a rigid, injection moulded housing made of aluminium. Heidecke wanted to avoid conventional leather bellows for focusing the lens because of an earlier, bad experience: around 1916, he conducted an experiment with a Kodak camera; he left it in a cellar, and when he later retrieved it, he found that rats had eaten the bellows. This convinced him that a camera designed for photojournalism and operation in the tropics had to work perfectly, which excluded components that might rot. He ruled out a cloth shutter curtain for the same reason, choosing instead a Compur mechanical shutter. Focusing in the "Rolleiflex" was achieved by moving the carriage that held both the viewfinder and the imaging lens, i. e. the camera had so called "metallic bellows"; that is, the plate enclosed the sides of the case. It was crucial that the plate remained parallel as it moved during focusing; to achieve this, Heidecke developed an ingenious design which proved to be highly successful. Behind the imaging lens and surrounding the opening for the optical path was a large cogwheel which drove four smaller cogs located top left and right, and bottom left and right. Each of the four small cogs drove rack and pinions (toothed rails) attached to the lens assembly. This system functioned perfectly, and, thanks to high quality components, also for many years of service. Only the viewfinder and back of the camera, both made of aluminium, had to be handled with care, which remained the case until the camera went into production. One more prototype was produced in 1928, and then the big moment finally arrived: on August 10, the first camera went into series production. Altogether, 14 units were made that year. Then, at 11am on Monday, 11 December, selected journalists were invited to a press conference in the festively decorated production area. Paul Franke put together press packs for the occasion, which led one magazine to publish a test report without ever actually handling the camera. Although Franke had forgotten to prepare sample photographs to distribute to the press, he neatly avoided this oversight by distributing empty, labelled cartons around the building, just for show.

Demand for the new camera exceeded production capacity by a wide margin. Even though it was quite an expensive product, orders for 800 cameras were received in the first month alone. A Rolleiflex fitted with a f/4.5 lens cost , with a f/3.8 lens it cost This success made it possible to obtain credit to buy a new factory and thrive in the midst of the Great Depression. In the old factory, a further 23,720 cameras were produced up until 1932. In 1930, the company moved into the new factory on Salzdahlumer Straße. It comprised two floors with a total area of , sufficient space to manufacture 20,000 cameras annually. Although the site was well served by public transport, it lay some distance from the city centre, so the company built a canteen and shop for its workforce, which now numbered 309 employees.

Wilhelmine Heidecke, Reinhold Heidecke's wife, suggested building a "ladies camera" – a Rolleiflex that used 35 mm film. This was the first Rolleiflex to come on the market that used a crank handle to advance the film, a popular feature that emerged on the 6×6 model shortly thereafter. The Rolleiflex 4×4 – known as the Babyflex outside of Germany – used 127 format film and came in two versions with either a f/3.5 and a f/2.8 Tessar lens with a focal length of 60 mm. Unfortunately, sales were disappointing, so production never resumed after the war. The company management believed that many Rollei photographers only made contact prints from their negatives because they had no access to enlargers. However, this was not practical in the case of the Babyflex as the negatives were simply too small. As a result, it was not until 1957 that a new version came onto the market priced at DM355, firstly in grey, and later (from 1963) in black. By the time production ceased in 1968, over 67,000 units had been made. By this time few amateur photographers made contact prints any more, preferring instead to take 35 mm transparencies (slides), which could be viewed on a slide projector.

In 1932, Salomon Kahn, the owner of the renowned Fotostudios Kardas in Berlin, approached Rollei, asking if they could build him a large Rolleiflex for the 9 cm x 9 cm film format. Kahn explained as a pretext, that his customers liked to keep the negatives because they had doubts about the durability of prints. Moreover, roll film was much easier to archive than glass plates. In fact, Kahn had concealed the real rationale behind his request because Franke & Heidecke supported the Nazi Party in order to get the workers they needed. Fearing the consequences of leasing to a Jew, the owner of his studio had already shut off his water supply. This meant that Kahn had to develop his negatives at home, whereby roll film was easier to transport than plates. A roll film camera would also facilitate house calls. Having built a small Rolleiflex, the obvious next step was to make a larger version. Indeed, the slogan "you see what you get" had already been envisaged for it. Such a camera would make studio work more straightforward; at that time, the photographer had to stoop under a black cloth to adjust the camera, and then address the subject from this awkward position. Nevertheless, after the failure of the Babyflex, the company proceeded with caution by initially building some prototypes. One was delivered to Kahn, and the others were shipped abroad in pairs – one to be retained by the importer as a demonstration unit, the other to be delivered to a reputable studio. The project was eventually abandoned after Salomon Kahn was arrested and nobody else showed any interest in the studio camera. Of the 14 prototypes that were built, one still exists: it currently belongs to the Municipal Museum of Braunschweig.

In 1933, the Rolleicord, a cheaper version of the Rolleiflex, came onto the market. It had simpler Zeiss Triotar Lens, a steel back plate, and a knob instead of a handle for winding on the film. The Rolleicord 1 cost ; altogether 2,699,505 Rolleicords were manufactured until production ceased in 1976. The later models (III VB) uses Schneider Xenar lenses that have better optics.

The release of the Rolleiflex Automat in the middle of June 1937 marked another significant milestone for Franke & Heidecke. Prior to this, after taking a picture, two separate steps were required to advance the film and cock the shutter. The Rolleiflex Automat combined the two, whereby advancing the film automatically cocked the shutter. Not only did this innovation speed up the whole process, it also eliminated accidental double exposures resulting from inadvertently forgetting to wind on the film. It also had a film feeler mechanism that automatically started the counter, so no red window was needed. The Rolleiflex Automat won the Grand Prix award at the Paris World's Fair in 1937, which generated a lot of interest. The company founders we so taken with their new creation that they immediately commissioned the construction of a second factory. The new factory, comprising three floors with a combined production area of , provided sufficient space to house a further 700 workers. It was completed in 1938, and by the end of that year the 300,000th camera had come off the production line. In retrospect, Reinhold Heidecke regarded the Rolleiflex Automat as his favourite camera.

During World War II, the company was required by the Nazis to support the war economy. As a result, Rollei was unable to develop any new models from 1940, and production of its stereo camera finally came to an end. Rollei also suffered massive losses resulting from its inability to collect monies owed by debtors from "enemy states". Furthermore, bureaucratic formalities and controls hindered exports to neutral countries. This situation, combined with the collapse in overseas trade, forced Paul Franke to reduce the workforce to 600 people.

Alongside its renowned cameras, Rollei – like its neighbour Voigtländer – was now engaged in the manufacture of equipment deemed important to the German war effort: precision optics for binoculars, periscopes, telescopic sights (for sniper rifles, for example), and theodolites for directing artillery. Although these products consumed the bulk of the companies resources, some regular product development was still possible, and work on tempered glass lenses as well as flash synchronization continued, albeit on a small scale. The cameras were used inter alia in military reconnaissance. As Braunschweig was one of the centres of the German armaments industry, it was subjected to frequent, sometimes heavy aerial bombardment, which seriously damaged the city. On 1 and 15 January 1944, and again on 13 August, Rollei too suffered air raid damage to its factories. By the time the war ended on 12 April 1945, almost 65% of its plant and machinery had been destroyed.

After the war, Braunschweig ended up in the British occupation zone. The allied occupying forces wanted Rollei to survive as a company, even helping it procure lenses from Zeiss, which had ended up in the Soviet occupation zone. Franke & Heidecke started over with 72 workers, and by Christmas 1945 the workforce had grown to 172 employees. Everything the company made in 1945 was delivered to the British Ministry of Defence. The difficult supply situation forced Rollei into using lenses from the West German manufacturer Schneider as well. However, this was not a problem as Schneider's quality control was equal to that of Zeiss. Paul Franke's untimely death in the spring of 1950 had serious consequences for the company though. Not only did his passing mark the end of an era for Rollei, the loss of his business acumen also led the company to the edge of ruin on more than one occasion.

After Paul Franke's death, his son Horst Franke succeeded him. Overall, he proved to be less effective as a manager than his father. In particular, he lacked the flexibility required to adapt to changing circumstances; for example, he failed to reduce the workforce in difficult times, whereas Paul Franke had done so immediately at the onset of the war. To begin with, Rollei had no real competition, which yielded ever increasing sales of its cameras. In the 1950s, almost every press photographer owned a Rolleiflex, and quite a few amateurs did as well. The camera was so popular that it bred over 500 imitations, more than half of them from Japan. The factory grew rapidly; by 1956 – the year the millionth camera was sold – the workforce numbered 1600, and by 1957 the workforce had grown to 2000 employees.

Hans Hass, the underwater diving pioneer, approached Franke & Heidecke to see if they could make him a special housing suitable for underwater photography. As a result, Rollei developed the Rolleimarin, an ingenious underwater camera housing rated for depths up to 100 m. It was made from two cast metal parts. The top part contained a glass prism that was attached to the camera's focusing screen. There were also knobs on top of the housing for adjusting the exposure and aperture settings. On the bottom, left hand side of the housing was the focusing knob, and on the right hand side, the winding handle and a frame counter. There was also a filter turret. A special flash bulb could be attached for flash photography, in which case a battery pack had to be installed inside the housing. Of course, a viewfinder frame could also be screwed onto the housing. Although there were many imitators, none could match the quality of the original Rolleiflex – that is, until the Mamiya C Series from Japan appeared in 1956. Mamiya initially offered three sets of interchangeable double lenses for it: normal, telephoto and wide angle. Later on, additional double lenses with focal lengths of 55 mm and 250 mm were introduced; one even had a dimmable viewfinder lens, which enabled depth of field adjustment through the viewfinder. By comparison, the Rolleiflex only had a single, fixed normal lens, although the Rollei Magnar tele converter lens with 4x magnification was available as an accessory. This could be attached to the front of the primary lens while a mask (which did not magnify the image) was placed over the focusing screen. In addition, Zeiss offered two double lens converters which attached to the viewfinder filter bayonet and the primary lens bayonet. The 5 element Mutar tele converter magnified 1.5×, weighed 327 g and could render an image accurately in the viewfinder up to a distance of 4m from the object. The 4 element Mutar wide angle converter magnified 0.7×, weighed 437 g and could render an object accurately from a distance of 1 meter. In all cases, for the best image quality, closing down the aperture two stops was recommended. This explains why conversion lenses of this type were only regarded as a makeshift solution in comparison to fully interchangeable lenses. In response to the challenge from Mamiya, Rollei created a camera comparable to the C Series and gave it to photojournalists to test. Although they were enthusiastic, Rollei did not believe – much to the astonishment of industry experts – that it could manufacture removable lenses with the required precision. Instead, as a compromise, the company introduced in 1959 the Tele Rolleiflex with a Zeiss Sonnar f/4, 135 mm lens. This camera was particularly well suited to portrait photography. Meanwhile, plans for another model with a 150 mm lens were abandoned. The Wide Angle Rolleiflex (also known as the Rolleiwide) with an f/4, 55 mm lens followed in 1961. It only remained in production until 1967, which today makes it one of the rarest Rolleiflex cameras – excluding special editions. Its main advantage lay in its ability to photograph large crowds at heavily attended events. Reinhold Heidecke kept on making new cameras right up until his death in 1960, although no one bothered to admonish him over the development costs any more. One of his projects was the Magic, which required several expensive machine tools to be built – expenditure that could not be justified relative to the small number that were produced. In contrast, Agfa preferred the opposite approach, of always developing as many models as possible from an existing camera housing. The Magic, although intended for amateur photographers, was relatively expensive at 435 DM. It featured an automatic exposure control system driven by a coupled selenium light meter which could select shutter speeds from 1/30 sec to 1/300 sec and apertures from f/3.5 to f/22. There were only two manual controls: one for focusing, the other for selecting either a shutter speed of 1/30 sec (for flash photography), or Brief (for long exposure night photography). Its successor, the Magic II, cost 498 DM and also featured manual exposure control.

By the end of 1950s, the market for twin lens medium format cameras had gradually become saturated. More and more amateur photographers and photojournalists were using 35 mm format cameras, while studio photographers preferred single lens medium format cameras. Although they were more expensive, single lens cameras offered film holders, which could quickly be swapped (an assistant loaded the film), as well as interchangeable lenses. Hasselblad was the market leader in this segment. The Swedish company introduced their first camera, the Hasselblad 1600F, in 1948. However, this model was regarded as being technically inferior because its shutter was unreliable. To solve this problem, the 1000F was released in 1952 with a reduced shutter speed range, but the focal plane shutter was still prone to failure. While it was no threat to the fully developed Rolleiflex to begin with, that situation changed when the legendary Hasselblad 500C featuring a Compur leaf shutter appeared in 1957. The management of Rollei under Horst Franke were caught napping, having failed to produce a camera that could match the latest Hasselblad. As a consequence, sales plummeted and the company got into financial difficulties. In the end, Horst Franke relinquished his position as general manager.

DHW Fototechnik (founded in 2009 by Rolf Daus, Katherina and Hans Hartje and Frank Will) in Braunschweig a revised Rolleiflex FX N TLR, and the DHW Electronic Shutter No. 0 HS1000, which was based on the former Rollei Electronic Shutter. The Rolleiflex 6008 AF and Rolleiflex 6008 integral 2, the X Act2 camera, the Rollei 35, and the Rolleivision projectors were continued to be sold as well. In 2014, DHW filed for insolvency and was dissolved in April 2015.

After DHW's insolvency and asset sales, the same management team started the business again with a further reduced number of employees under the name DW Photo. The manufacturing of TLRs and projectors has been dropped to concentrate on the Hy6 system.

Rolleiflex 3.5F TLR with 75 mm f/3.5 Planar — as used by David Bailey and Diane Arbus. Rolleiflex SL66 and SL66E SLR with rise and fall lens plane and exceptional close up abilities — as used by Brett Weston. Rolleicord Vb — A medium format twin lens reflex camera designed for non professional users, like the rest of the Rolleicord line. Rolleiflex 2.8GX as used by Helmut Newton
Rolleiflex 2.8FX N latest version of the classic TLR
Rollei 4.0 FW TLR with 50 mm f/4 Super Angulon — classic reissue. Rollei 4.0 FT TLR with 135 mm f/4 Tele Xenar — classic reissue.

Rollei 35 compact original viewfinder (Germany) with 40 mm f/3.5 Carl Zeiss Tessar. Rollei 35 S compact camera (Singapore) with 40 mm f/2.8 Zeiss Sonnar made by Rollei. Rollei B35 compact viewfinder camera with built in selenium meter and collapsible 40 mm f/3.5 Carl Zeiss Triotar. Rolleimatic compact camera with unique film transport mechanism. Rolleiflex SL2000 F (and 3003) SLR — unique 35 mm system SLRs with interchangeable magazines, Carl Zeiss lenses, both waist level & eye level finders, and motorized film advance. The SL2000 F was introduced in 1981. Rolleiflex SL35 range — 35 mm SLRs produced from 1970 until the late 1980s, using Carl Zeiss optics. Other lenses, like the Schneider, and the Rolleinar (manufactured for Rollei mainly by Mamiya) were also available.

Rollei Prego series — a line of 18 consumer digital cameras with resolutions up to 10.1 megapixels (as of September 2007) marketed by Rollei GmbH.