I bought a Rolleicord III on eBay for £80, which felt like a bargain at the time and turned out to be a fair price for what arrived. The camera looked clean. The shutter fired. The previous owner had reportedly fitted a brighter aftermarket focusing screen. The bellows were intact. By every visible measure this was a working example of one of the most successful TLRs of the early 1950s.
Then I shot a roll through it and discovered some fine scratches on the taking lens that I had not seen on visual inspection. Those scratches caused noticeable hazing in any frame that included bright highlights. The negatives are useable. Some are even nice. But the camera came with a hidden tax that I had not budgeted for.
This is the review and shoot writeup. If you are considering a Rolleicord III as a way into TLR shooting, read this first. There are good reasons to buy one, and a few things to check before you do.
What it is
The Rolleicord III is a twin-lens reflex (TLR) medium format camera produced by Franke & Heidecke (Rollei) in Braunschweig, Germany, from November 1950 to July 1953. Approximately 87,000 units were made, which makes it one of the most common Rolleicords on the second-hand market today.
The Rolleicord line was the budget alternative to the famous Rolleiflex line. Same manufacturer. Similar build quality. Different lens, different shutter, fewer features. Where a Rolleiflex of the same era would have a top-tier Carl Zeiss Tessar or Planar lens and a film advance crank, a Rolleicord III has a Schneider Xenar 75mm f/3.5 taking lens (or a Zeiss Triotar variant on some examples) and a film advance knob instead of a crank. The Rolleicord was aimed at amateur photographers who wanted a Rollei but could not stretch to a Rolleiflex.
The key specs for the Rolleicord III:
Taking lens: Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 75mm f/3.5, a four-element-in-three-groups Tessar-design lens. Sharp in the centre, very sharp from f/8 onwards, with some softening in the corners wide open. Bayonet I filter mount.
Viewing lens: Heidosmat 75mm f/3.2, slightly brighter than the taking lens for better viewfinder composition. Same Bayonet I mount.
Shutter: Compur-Rapid leaf shutter with non-linear speeds 1, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/25, 1/50, 1/100, 1/250, 1/500, plus B. The non-linear progression is a clue you are looking at an older shutter; modern shutters use the linear 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/15, 1/30, 1/60 etc progression.
Format: 6x6cm on 120 film, 12 frames per roll. A Rolleikin 1 adapter is available that lets you shoot 35mm film instead, if you want to use the camera for portrait work on smaller film.
Focus: Knob on the left side of the body, throw of about 180 degrees from minimum focus (around 3 feet) to infinity.
Shutter cocking and firing: A single lever down under the lens block, pushed one way to cock the shutter and the other way to fire. (This is the part that I have some opinions about, which I will get to.)
Frame counter: Auto-stop film wind. The Rolleicord III is one of the first Rolleicords to use a frame counter mechanism that engages a click stop at each frame position, removing the need for the red window on the back that you find on earlier Rolleicords and most other TLRs of the era. You line up the film start with a small red mark inside the camera, close the back, wind on and the camera clicks into place at frame 1 automatically. From then on, you wind without looking and the camera stops at each frame.
Flash sync: PC socket on the lower left of the lens block, with X-sync. The flash socket on the III is not as well secured as on later Rolleicords, so the PC cable can detach if jostled.
Cable release: Standard mechanical cable release socket on the lower right of the lens block.
Other features: There is a German-language exposure suggestion table inside the back of the camera, showing recommended settings for different conditions and months of the year. Suggestions are given for March to October, suggesting the German manufacturer assumed nobody would be taking photographs in winter. Very continental of them.
Build and ergonomics
The Rolleicord III is lighter and less substantial than the Yashica 635 I was using for comparison (both cameras have a 75mm f/3.5 taking lens and broadly similar layouts, but the Yashica is heavier and feels more solid in the hand). The Rolleicord III also has a noticeable forward weight bias when fully extended, which makes it slightly less stable on a tripod and slightly more prone to tipping forward when set down on a flat surface.
The viewfinder hood opens at the top of the camera. Mine has an upgraded brighter focusing screen, fitted by the previous owner. The screen is clear and sharp, which makes ground-glass composition easier than with the original Rolleicord screen (which by 1950s standards is usable but dim by modern aftermarket standards).
The single-lever shutter cocking and firing mechanism is my main ergonomic complaint. The same lever does both jobs. Push one way to cock. Push the other way to fire. The lever is stiff in the cocking direction (requiring a deliberate push) and lighter in the firing direction (so a small accidental nudge can fire the shutter on a cocked camera). I prefer the separation you get on a Yashica 635, where a small lever on one side cocks the shutter and a separate button on the front fires it. The Rolleicord arrangement requires more deliberate handling to avoid mistakes.
(I will caveat this by noting that this is a personal preference. Plenty of Rolleicord owners get on fine with the single-lever design and develop muscle memory for it. I found myself making mistakes with mine.)
The shoot
I drove out to a hilltop church overlooking the Severn estuary. The church sits on its own with wide views across the estuary in one direction and (less photogenically) views of a nuclear power station in the other. The graveyard around it is one of the more atmospheric burial grounds in the region, with weathered headstones leaning at various angles and views out over the water. The wind on the day was strong enough to make the audio on the video genuinely difficult.
I loaded a roll of Ilford FP4 Plus at ISO 125, which is my standard testing film. FP4 is consistent enough that any variations in the results are clearly the fault of the camera rather than the film. The spot meter gave me a reading of f/6.3 to f/8 across most of the scene, dropping into the cloudier patches.
Loading the Rolleicord III is straightforward once you understand the auto-stop mechanism. Take-up spool goes in the top. Fresh roll goes in the bottom. Pull the paper leader up to the marked red line inside the body, line up the start arrow on the backing paper with the red mark, close the back, latch the top and start winding. The first wind gets you to frame 1 with a click stop. From then on, no more red window checking. Just wind until the next click.
Frame 1 was a low-angle shot up towards the church, spire dominating the upper third of the frame. Metered at f/6.3.
Frame 2 through Frame 5 were various compositions of the church with headstones in the foreground and the wide views out over the Severn. The TLR working method (look down, compose, focus, look up to be aware of surroundings, take the shot) is genuinely different from working with an SLR. I was reminded of why people who shoot TLRs as their primary camera tend to love them. The whole pace of shooting is more deliberate.
Frame 6 was a tight composition through a line of leaning headstones. Tricky to focus precisely with the strong wind, but I got something I am pleased with.
Frame 7 to Frame 10 were various other compositions around the church and graveyard.
Frames 11 and 12 were tighter detail shots of individual headstones.
Total shoot time about an hour, including walking around the graveyard taking my time.
The discovery
I developed the roll at home and was disappointed by what came out.
The frames are not bad. The compositions are good. The exposures are mostly on the money. The Xenar lens, where it is sharp, is sharp in the way you would expect a Tessar-design lens to be. But several of the frames have noticeable hazing around bright highlights. The frames looking up at the church (where the sky is the bright element in the composition) have a milky quality across the bright areas that should not be there. The frames where the brightest parts of the scene are darker (heavy overcast, mid-tones throughout) are fine.
The pattern points to a lens problem rather than a light leak or a development issue. A light leak would produce more localised brightening, usually with a pattern that suggests where the leak is. A development issue would affect the whole frame uniformly. The hazing I was seeing was concentrated around the highlights, which is what you get from internal lens flare or from light scattering off scratches or coating damage on the front element.
I pulled the camera apart and inspected the taking lens under a magnifier. There are fine scratches on the front element. Not cleaning marks (those would be lighter, finer and more numerous). These look like actual scratches from something getting onto the front element at some point. There are also some marks on the rear element that might be cleaning marks or might be coating damage.
The scratches are not visible to the naked eye in normal handling. They only show up under magnification. But they are exactly the kind of damage that causes flare and hazing in high-contrast situations, which is what I saw on the negatives.
What to do about it
A scratched taking lens on a Rolleicord III is a genuine problem with no easy solution.
You can have the lens recoated by a specialist optical workshop, which removes the existing coating and polishes out the scratches, then applies fresh modern coatings. This is expensive (£200 to £400) and is only worth doing if the camera is otherwise pristine. For a £80 camera, it is not economically sensible.
You can buy a donor lens from a parts camera and swap it in. This requires sourcing a working Rolleicord III lens block (eBay, around £40 to £80 depending on condition) and doing the swap yourself or paying a repairer to do it. Worth considering if you can find a donor cheaply.
You can live with the hazing and work around it. Shoot with a lens hood (the Bayonet I lens hood is cheap and helps reduce flare). Avoid heavy backlight or strong directional light pointing at the camera. Use the camera in overcast or even light, where the highlights are not bright enough to trigger the scratch flare. This is what I am doing for now.
You can sell it on for what you paid, disclose the scratches honestly and put the money towards a cleaner example. The Rolleicord III used market is steady and a clean working example with no lens damage will fetch £150 to £200 in good condition.
Comparison with the Yashica 635
The Yashica 635 (which I reviewed in a separate piece a couple of months earlier) is the natural comparator to the Rolleicord III. Both are TLRs from the same era. Both shoot 6x6 on 120. Both have 75mm or 80mm f/3.5 taking lenses. Both have similar control layouts and ergonomics.
The Yashica is heavier and feels more substantial. The Yashica has separate shutter cocking and firing controls, which I prefer. The Yashica has slightly more aggressive lens character (the 80mm Yashinon is a bit more contrasty than the 75mm Xenar, in my experience).
The Rolleicord is lighter and easier to carry for long sessions. The Rolleicord has the auto-stop frame counter, which is genuinely useful. The Rolleicord has the brand prestige (which matters to some people more than others).
If I had to pick one as a “first TLR” recommendation, I would currently say the Yashica 635. The build feels more reassuring and the ergonomics suit me better, and the price on the second-hand market is similar (£60 to £120 for either in working condition). The Rolleicord III is a credible alternative if you find one in clean condition with a clear lens.
Verdict
This is a hard one to call.
The Rolleicord III is a beautiful camera from a notable manufacturer with a deserved reputation. It is light, well-made, has a clever auto-stop wind mechanism and produces 12 sharp 6x6 frames per roll when the lens is in good condition. There is genuine pleasure in shooting one.
Mine has a scratched lens that I did not spot at purchase. The hazing in the bright highlights is a real problem on certain shots. The camera is still useable, but it is not the unalloyed pleasure that a clean example would be.
For £80, I am philosophical about it. The camera is 70 years old. Some wear is to be expected. I have a working 6x6 TLR with character flaws that I can either live with or address. The frames I have so far are not without merit; the better ones are genuinely good.
For someone considering a Rolleicord III as a first TLR, my advice is:
Inspect the lens carefully before buying. Hold the front element up to a strong light and look for scratches at multiple angles. Cleaning marks are common and forgivable. Actual scratches are a problem.
Ask the seller for a test shot. Any seller who has actually shot the camera in the last year can provide a single negative or scan as evidence. Sellers who cannot are either flippers (who have not used the camera) or storage-clearance sellers (who have no idea what condition the camera is in). Adjust your bid accordingly.
Budget for a CLA. Even a clean Rolleicord III is likely to benefit from a clean, lube and adjustment service from a competent vintage camera repairer. £80 to £120 for a CLA on top of the £80 to £150 purchase price gets you a camera that should run reliably for another decade.
Or buy a Yashica 635 or a Mamiya C220 instead. Both are credible alternatives. The Yashica is similar in concept and execution. The Mamiya is heavier and has interchangeable lenses, which is useful if you want to grow the system over time.
What’s next
The next video on the channel is going to be another vintage camera review (more details when I have decided which one). After that, more 6x6 work, hopefully with a cleaner lens.
If you have a Rolleicord III and you have stories or tips to share, the comments are open. If you have one with a scratched lens and you have found a workaround that does not involve £300 recoating, I would especially like to hear about it.