This is the story behind one of the greatest, and smallest, classic 35mm cameras... the Rollei 35. First, we need to know a little about its designer, Heinz Waaske.
Conscripted into the German Army during World War II, Heinz Waaske was severely wounded and taken prisoner. After the war, he worked as an apprentice precision mechanic for electronics firm Telefunken and then, in 1948, got a job at Wirgin, the makers of the Edixa cameras. He soon became head of the prototyping workshop there – quickly moving up the ranks to become its technical designer and, eventually, head designer, where he was responsible for many cameras but notably, the Edixa Reflex..
He saw the need for a small 35mm camera to compete with Yoshihisa Maitani's half-frame Olympus Pen. Waaske was convinced that buyers of 16mm sub-miniature and half-frame cameras chose them not because of the small film formats but because of the small size of the cameras. He thought the world needed a small, but full-frame 35mm camera. So on his own time, he designed and assembled one at home, having the mechanics in the Wirgin prototyping shop make the parts. One barely larger than a package of cigarettes.
In late 1964, Heinz finally presented the fully functional prototype to his employer, Heinrich Wirgin, who angrily asked, "So you have wasted time on your own construction in my prototyping workshop?" It was only then that Wirgin told his chief designer that he had already decided to end camera production, and Waaske was out of a job!
Waaske soon found new employment - this time at Franke & Heidecke, makers of the Rollieflex and Rolleicord 6x6 TLRs. When their managing director, Heinrich Peesel, accidentally got a glimpse of Waaske's tiny prototype, he quickly decided that the camera should be further developed for mass production, but using only parts from Rollei's suppliers.
Waaske's little camera was presented at Photokina in the fall of 1966 as the Rollei 35, with a Zeiss Tessar 40mm f/3.5 lens, and a precision-made diaphragm and shutter assembly made by Compur, using Waaske's patented design. Surprisingly, the early models did not have any form of built-in light-meter, though that was cured with the arrival of the Rollei B35 in 1969. The B35, which featured an uncoupled selenium cell meter (no battery required) sensitive from 25 to 1600 ASA. Later models would use the more sensitive CdS light meters. In case you were wondering, the “B” in B35 stands for “Belichtungsmesser”, or “exposure meter”.
The uncoupled meter on your scribe’s B35 still works accurately, but, of course, the photographer needs to manually transfer the settings to the camera. The shutter speed is selected by a ring around the base of the lens at the camera body, while the aperture and focusing are set at the front of the collapsible lens. On later models with CdS meters, the shutter speed and aperture were set by dials on either side of the lens. The lens could be pushed back into the body for an even more compact camera. There is no rangefinder, so setting the focus by guess and by gosh. Although various lenses were offered over the years, all were semi-wide-angle 40mm lenses with lots of depth of field, and thus quite forgiving of focus errors.
The cameras were beautifully made, with a precision feel and the viewfinder was bright and clear. Film loading was done by removing a combined bottom and back, similar to the Leica CL or the Nikon F. To keep things compact, the hot shoe is on the camera’s baseplate.
Today, the Rollei 35 series remains one of the smallest 35mm cameras ever made, with only the Minolta TC-1 and Minox 35 being smaller.
Over 30 years, some two million Rollei 35 cameras were manufactured, first in Germany and, from 1971, in Singapore, until production ceased in 1981. All were equipped with German-made Schneider Xenar or Carl Zeiss Sonnar, Tessar or Triotar lenses. Despite a perception that German-produced Rollei 35 cameras were better built, camera repairmen report that quality control at Rollei Singapore was on a par with Germany.
After Franke & Heidecke’s bankruptcy in 1981, the Rollei 35 continued to be manufactured in Germany by DHW Fototechnik, formed by some former F&H employees, right up to 2015. Simply astounding for a film camera in the digital age.
In 1978, Waaske started his own technical design office in Braunschweig, Germany. He worked not only with camera builders but also on many other projects. His work was characterized by a "technical minimalism," using just a few parts to provide as many functions as possible. He was very critical of the “collectible” camera editions and tartly rejected all requests to design military equipment, arguing that “he’d had enough of war”. He passed away in 1995 in Braunschweig, and a street in the city was named Heinz Waaske Weg in his honor.
Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras
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