Summary: The AFM35 is a wonderful camera. Great lense, possibility of bracketing, depth of field control combined with autofocus, full manual setting of depth of field control using the DOF table included in the manual.
To obtain the best results, use slide film instead of negative film. Slides taken with this camera are consistently very well exposed, very sharp and contrasty (as if a polarizer filter had been used), whereas prints from negative film that I got from several labs were of average quality, in terms of contrast and color (I am not an expert, but it is possible that lab machines are not used to dealing with such a contrasty lens that the AFM35 has), except for Reala 100. I seems that this camera was designed for professional quality use (i.e. slides), as this can be seen from the bracketing options. The prints that I got from my slides, made with a Fuji Frontier lab, are fantastic : there is a feel of "3D" when looking at the prints, as when one makes a projection of slides. Furthermore, the great advantage of slides vs. negative film is that the colors will be as in reality, and the exposure and the contrast will not be changed when making a print(whereas there is a wide degree of interpretation/ error with lab machines processing negative film). I used Fuji Sensia 100 and 200 and got great slides and prints therefrom.
The camera is not perfect :
-the flash is too hard. It is quite easy to solve this problem : take a transparent white 135 plastic film box, cut a piece of a size a bit larger than the size of the flash window, paste it with tiny bits of transparent scotch tape on the edges. Then the flash will work just fine and you will have a soft lighting.
- the plastic extremities of the strap provided to transport the camera are not strong. To solve this, buy a new strap that you like (thin or large), with metal extremities (triangle shape).
Strengths: - very cheap camera(in the US), compared to other high end point-and-shoot cameras
- very good quality, thus very good value for money
- very sharp glass lens, good contrast
- very light camera
- very solid metal body
- mid-roll rewind (the film does not fully enter its case, so that you can re-use it at another time or on another camera)
- bracketing (by 0.5 increments)
- manual settings for full depth of field control using the DOF table in the manual : allows fast shooting without autofocus time lag (provided you know some of your DOF table figures by heart)
- can be attached around your neck with a strap, like a SLR
Weaknesses: - the flash is too hard (but this can be solved : see above)
- no indication of speed
- the plastic extremities of the strap provided to transport the camera are not strong.
Summary: I bought this camera to have a quality P&S to put beside my Leica R equipment and to have a camera wich my parents can easily use... and I've found her! Contax T3 and Leica Minilux were smaller and very interesting, but I preferred the Rollei one principally for its price.
Strengths: - Controls on shutter speed and aperture
- Prime and fast lens
- Very cheaper than Contax or Leica P&S cameras
- Very nice and strong design
Weaknesses: I don't know ;-), maybe the ring nuts are a bit too hard
Similar Products Used: Many japanese P&S zoom cameras,
Minox GT
Customer Service: My only contact with customer service has been about to require the italian language instructions. They free sent it to me a week later
Summary: The AFM 35 is an interesting machine that manages to wedge itself between the higher priced - and often, higher functioning - posh P&S category and the basic models. It has the ability to support a fair amount of the more demanding needs of a serious shooter, while maintaining the basic automated features of the best of the basic models. That said, this is a camera that does not lend itself to a ready relationship... not just for the serious semi-pro and up category. This camera requires some additional adjustments even from the novice photographer. Read on...
Strengths: Impeccably elegant and retro design
Strong enough body - especially when coupled with a perfectly useful eveready case... everything fits and flows together tastefully... even the packaging is subtly appealing. Photographers care about look and feel more than most others... as they should. This camera bonds with most shooters quickly and stays out with you [around the neck, many thanks, in large part, to the two lugs and neck strap that keeps it in the available position all the time]. Right here, the camera's value maxes out [especially for the current almost halved pricing] - a full five for value!
A joy to press the shutter release button
Camera pre-focusses on AF, thereby reducing/eliminating lag times on the second phase of actual shutter trigger
Exceptionally grippable body
Perfect size for any hand - male or female - [my wife has enjoyed testing this camera with me enough to crave 'wife-priority' on usage!
good manual, with ample DOF scale info., plus a few other critical elements that allows for a good relationship between almost any photographer and this tool within mere minutes
One touch exposure compensation
Manual scale focussing capability [10 steps, best in class], and the design of the button and wheel all take but moments to sense and memorize the distance order... from that point, it feels closest to holding any SLR with the right hand, while turning a wheel or ring with the left. Perfectly intuitive for those who will likely choose to use the MF feature.
Flash is stronger than most models - [also, see below]
Incredibly sharp lens - maybe the sharpest around... ever! [See below]
High contrast images produced - consistently
Relatively quiet... though nowhere as quiet as rangefinders, or even a couple of the higher end P&S cameras out there
Mid-roll rewind is useful in changing light conditions
Fast enough lens for many available light functions [- see below]
the bulb setting offers several pre-programmed time intervals... simpler concept than having to fiddle with more button-based entries.
Full-sized tripod mount [see below]
Relatively good AF system - passive infrared, manages to handle focussing through glass with no hesitation.
Modest wight for the slightly expanded dimensions... feels very balanced in the hand, and easy to forget around the neck.
Exposure metering is definitely center-weighted, and this is a seriously proven method for high user success. [see below]
Five flash modes - all work well [see below]
Legible LCD on top deck, plus AEB and mF warning lamps within viewfinder, plus Green focus confirmation LED with out-of-focus warning blinks, as well as red LED that handles several messages including flash charging, slower than safe shutter speed warning, and a few other useful bits of info. [See below]
APerture dial is almost - if not - best in class, although it offers no in-between [half] aperture settings... feels superb in grip and in mechanical action.
Additional AEB controls available if user prefers to have less than the usual +,normal,- sequence for compensation and bracketing... plus, there is a quick 2 stop compensation mode for strongly backlit subjects.
Camera automatically denies use of flash when in the infinity distance range on MF... good, since, if flash were used in such diatnces, the light falloff and halo effects would make the shot worthless anyway.
Weaknesses: The camera is not silent - so choose other products if silence is the overarching factor. However, it is quite acceptably quiet under most normal circumstances.
The lack of aperture half-stops is a small problem. This small problem flows into the bigger problem with shutter speeds...
The lack of shutter speed indication anywhere makes this camera less than communicative under difficult lighting conditions [i.e., anything outside of balanced and plentiful light, and if/when you need to know which way to bias the exposure].
User settings for flash off or for exposure compensation - in short, any electronically set user setting - disappears after the camera is turned off [manually or with 5 minute auto cutoff]. This is not the case with any mechanically adjusted setting - the aperture and the focussing distance.
The flash, while strong, is also 'hard'. this is also 'hard' to define! the nature of the light output makes most images have a whiter than warm feel and a visible lack of softness. This combined with a hyper-contrast high sharpness lens can make for color imbalance [if checked on tests with slides NOT your run of the mill color-correcting lab prints], as well as visible loss of highlight details even with fill flash [less powered, selective firing] on B&W films.
In my work, I rarely use flash except when testing a camera... so, I studied the contrast of the lens from an available-light shooting perspective. Here too, there was a significant loss of highlight detail - especially on B&W films, and a marked boost in contrast resulting in almost beyond the human eye levels of contrast representation.
the shutter control program of this camera seems to have some trouble in low light - this trouble shows up in the camera deciding that many conditions are just too slow for hand-held photo work [although independent meter confirmation indicates otherwise]. This does not mean that the shutter can't be fired... it just means that the software is choosing something less than maximum shutter capabilities - thereby limiting aperture control under the best lighting conditions in any given day, namely, dusk and dawn. Do keep in mind that this machine will not handle the wider apertures with as fast a shutter as it will do with the narrowest apertures.
Oddly, this semi-pro camera cannot handle the in-between film speeds such as 125, 160, etc. default is 100 ASA.
By itself, the flash is a weak point in this camera. When compared to the far less expensive Olymus Stylus Epic's color-balancing warm flash [albeit with some magenta cast thrown in for free!] this flash is always firing too hard or too weak. The fill flash has an unusually short throw and ends up causing heaps of halos. The full flash on the other hand can change the ethnicity of your human subjects! So, test this element carefully to match your needs for flash photography.
Don't expect controlled bracketing to include flash... Rollei manual specifically states that the use of a flash is incompatible with those modes.
All in all, take these very specific weaknesses into consideration, test one, then decide which of these you may be able to live with. I would give most any other camera with so many interesting engineering 'quirks' a 3 star rating overall... BUT, get one, hold one, press the release on one, and you will readily agree that this is one friendly tool! I like the camera enough to adjust my demands to its nuances. Hope that makes sense.
Similar Products Used: Rollei Prego Micron
Olympus Stylus Epic
Konica Big Mini F
Yashica/Zeiss/ T2
Yashica T4
[all of these were/are just for days when the bigger beasts make the back ache! Any camera on-hand is better than regretting the missed shot.]
Plus most members of the Nikon SLR family - F100 being the best of the clan.
Also use some medium format cameras - mainly older German models - for expansive sceneries.
Customer Service: Rollei c/s is good... no major worries there. However, they are skewed towards customer service, rather than some of the technical assistance biased folks at say, Nikon or Konica. Translation - know what you need from them before you call.
Summary: For its price and for its purpose, this a truly superb tool. Another reviewer wrote about vignetting, but this is probably a necessary result of the laws of optics (and I think no worse than what you will see in competing products in the P&S category). Get the back of the lens in that close to the film plane like you do in a compact design and light falloff in the corners is probably unavoidable.
Strengths: ergonomics (except for the little button that releases the manual focus dial)
build quality in this camera category
lens
exposure bracketing
aesthetic presentation (this is a beautiful tool)
Rating Reviewed by: Douglas Henderson(Unregistered User)
(Professional)
Review Date October 16, 2003
Overall Rating 4 of 5
Value Rating 4 of 5
Used product for Less than 1 month
Visitors rate this review 5.00 of 5,
1 votes
Review 5 of 14
Price Paid:
$299.00
from B&H Photo
Summary: After repeated efforts over the last few years to find a satisfactory P&S and rejecting, in order, the Rollei Prego 90, the Fuji DL Super and the Yashica T-4 Zoom (almost a keeper but for a lens resolution defect), I finally thought I'd be satisfied with a Rollei AFM35. But I wasn't.
Very, very sharp lens and good exposures ( a tad underexposed, perhaps)--but too much light fall off around the image edges, giving the same old "spot light" effect when viewing the Astia 100 ASA slides held a foot away over a light table. Tried to take test photos sure to eliminate this characteristic of past P&S's, but even F8 in bright sun left noticably darker corners and dimming as lit regions in every picture approached the borders of the slide image. Also, the default 100 ASA setting (mentioned only in the instruction book) didn't work when I used an uncoded bulk-loaded film cartrtdge of Astia film--defaulted seemed to be more like 400 ASA since the slides were so dark.
I may give up on P&S's. Have a Yashica FX-3 2000 which is stuffed into an Olympus camera case and uses Contax lens with stellar results.
Strengths: 1) Very sharp lens
2) Good exposures with assortment of landscape lighting situations
3) Only mentioned in the instruction, the focus AND the exposure are locked with the shutter half depressed--a useful feature. I think the exposure lock doesn't work with focus in manual mode--and I tried.
4) Mine came with a handy little Rollei hard "leather" case
5) Autofocus worked well
Weaknesses: 1) Very noticable light fall off from center of image to all borders--the killer for me
2) Some unreliability in auto uptake of film after closing camera film door--and the camera behaves as if the film is advancing when it isn't. The trick is to judge from the intial winding sound whether or not it seems to be straining alittle when film is first advancing before recording 1 ready exposure. If the sound is unwavering and uniform, likely the film isn't attached to the take up spool.
3) The lens won't retract after rewinding a completed roll of film until the camera back is opened and shut again.
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