Opinions of Rollei Singapore lenses?

[gcrimmins]

I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience with the Rollei SL35 lenses made in Singapore. I believe lenses for this line of camera were initially made by Zeiss in Germany. Later they were made by Rollei in Singapore, under license from Zeiss. I'm wondering how the lenses made by Rollei compare to those made by Zeiss.

--Geoff

[Orio]

I have a Rollei Planar 1.8/50 made in Singapore.
I can not compare with the German version because I don't have it.
I however have several Planars in the Contax and Contax G lines and the Rollei one renders the same type of imagery. I can not see particular problems with the Singapore copy.

By the way, the Rollei lenses in Singapore were produced in the Mamiya facilities. So even if the workers were not probably trained as the German workers, the manufacturing equipments were probably more than adequate.

[poilu]

I have no experience with the Rollei
if I found a really cheap one I will perhaps try it
but some models have about the same price as contax model and I would not risk it
I read than one of the common problem is blocked aperture mechanism

[estudleon]

Several years ago, I bought a planar 50/1,8 made in Singapur, and it had mechanism problems - aperture broken. A real coincidence?

[Attila]

Lot cheaper and if you are lucky very close to genuine one.No experience sorry.

[orly_andico]

i managed to snag a rollei singapore 50/1.8 planar for $10 the other day... but they usually go for $30 to $40

KEH has a bunch of rollei 200/4 tele-tessars in the $40 range right now...

[F16SUNSHINE]

Hi all. I'm just waiting for my 1:00 and looking in with PDA. The one thing I would like to add to this thread is about adapters. I have a Kindai adapter for Rollie SL. It seems that there are a couple issues to bring up. I can not see that there is any way to put a AF chip on this adapter. On the 5d it is fine of course. For users who use APS-C sensor cams it could be an issue. Also My understanding is that the Rollie SL-Eos adapter is one of the most difficult to make correctly for use with wide angle and infinity focus thru all focals. There are some very nice SL wides however all the classic Zeiss wides (1.4/35, 2/28 hollywood, and 2.8/16 F Distagon). Hopefully someone else can help put some of the worms back in the can. As you see I don't have the complete picture but do know these could be potential issues.

[gcrimmins]

Thank you for all the replies. Orio, it's good to know the Rollei Planar compares favorably to the Contax Planars. And thanks to f16sunshine for the warning about Rollei to EOS adapters. I'll have to keep that in mind if I ever find any lenses

--Geoff