- Excellent lens
- Excellent metering (slides look great)
- Compact - very easy to carry around

- One has to manually turn off the automatic flash every time one turns the camera on. That can be quite annoying. (The flash only fires when the camera decides there's not enough light ... but there are no exposure indicators so it's anyone's guess - use the Sunny 16 rule & some common sense.)
- No manual controls
- No exposure indicators
- Barren viewfinder: nothing there
- Viewfinder sometimes hard to see; have to angle my eye properly to see it
- Noisy AF, advance and rewind
- Strap lug on the left: good for lefties, bad for everyone else.. The included neck strap is good.
- Plasticy inside

I found this camera at a local camera shop. It was brand new, unused in its original box with everything included. The shop owner let it go for $90 (it had been sitting on the shelf for a few years.)

I use this mostly as a secondary camera, for example when I want to shoot color, when I don't want to carry a heavier camera around. As another reviewer stated, it's probably not best used as a main camera. It lacks manual controls and doesn't display anything on top or in the viewfinder. The viewfinder can be kind of hard to see (only for me?)

Despite the many weaknesses I listed below, the Prego 30 performs quite well and has never disappointed me. The Apogon 3.5 lens is very nice and contrasty as well as being plenty sharp - I've gotten some outstanding results with Fuji Presto 400, for example.

Performance of this single focal length lens is just OK. (Although it's far, far better than the performance of modestly-priced P&S zooms that venture into the 28mm range...)Low distortion, though sharpness is only fair. Some vignetting, but less than on a comparable zoom. Autoexposure and autofocus are good, but with a 30mm focal length the autofocus mechanism doesn't have much to do, anyway.

It may be a Rollei lens, but the rest of the camera is Chinese. Interior finish is crude compared to my Cannon Classic 120. The sleek aluminum housing is pretty, but it's hard to grip. Even though the camera is small, it requires two hands to squeeze off a steady shot. The motors for extending the lens, focusing and winding are slow and noisy. The leather pouch is cute, but it's too tight and it's easy to turn the camera on while it's inside; when this happens, the lens tries to extend, jams agains the pouch and is hard to get out. On one occasion when this happened the whole camera froze; I removed and replaced the battery and all was well. I got a cheap nylon P&S case; no more accidental turning on, and it's easier to get out, too.

If you really need a wide-angle P&S, this one will do. It'll have to, 'cause there's not much else on the market with a 28 or 30mm lens in this price range... But Rollei could have done better. On a recent trip to China I left my SLRs home and used a Canon Shure Shot Classic 120 P&S (38-120mm) and this Rollei. It was a very effective combination and I'm glad I had the Rollei along for wide shots. Nonetheless, photos of the same subject taken with both cameras showed the Canon's image quality was better in terms of sharpness and contrast. The Prego 30 can be a very useful supplementary camera, but I wouldn't recommend it as an only camera.

Customer Service

Haven't needed

Similar Products Used:

Many P&S cameras from Minolta, Pentax and Cannon.

Very compact. Very simple to use.

Easily turns itself on it the case. Noisy motor. Slippery but very pretty metal case.

This is a simple to use P and S. It has a very nice lens with little distortion. The autofocus activates first into position and locks with the shutter release pushed in at the half way point. This is nice for on the go street photos. Exposures are nice but the flash is a little dissapointing compared to my T4 Yashica.

Similar Products Used:

Yahica T4 super