34 Facts About Rollei

Rollei expanded its production facilities and product range at the end of the 1960s beyond what a small company like Rollei could manage.

Rollei ruled out a cloth shutter curtain for the same reason, choosing instead a Compur mechanical shutter.

Rollei management believed that many Rollei photographers only made contact prints from their negatives because they had no access to enlargers.

Rollei suffered massive losses resulting from its inability to collect monies owed by debtors from "enemy states".

The allied occupying forces wanted Rollei to survive as a company, even helping it procure lenses from Zeiss, which had ended up in the Soviet occupation zone.

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The difficult supply situation forced Rollei into using lenses from the West German manufacturer Schneider as well.

Rollei promptly set Rollei onto an extremely risky course, which, despite some early successes, ultimately ended in a complete fiasco.

Rollei's approach was diametrically opposite to the company's previous management policy, as illustrated by the following example; when the British occupation forces queried Rollei as to the secret of their success, the response was: "there was no secret – it was the result of 25 years experience and concentrating on a single camera type".

On top of that, despite declining profit margins and tough competition from the Japanese, Rollei continued to target its advertising at the amateur market.

Nevertheless, Rollei owes its survival as a company to the SL66 camera system, along with its enduring reputation for quality.

Rollei now faced competition – not from a small company like Hasselblad, but from large, well-financed Japanese companies who could afford to advertise heavily in glossy magazines and trade journals.

Rollei introduced a new bayonet lens mount for the SL35, the QBM .

At this point Rollei still lagged behind the large Japanese companies who already offered fish-eye lenses, super-telephoto lenses and zoom lenses.

In 1978, Rollei introduced a new, electronically controlled camera, the SL35 E However, it lacked the reliability that was now expected of consumer products.

In 1967, Rollei started to sell flash units, but without much success as this market was already crowded with offerings from other manufacturers – not just other camera makers, but consumer electronics companies such as Metz.

In 1968, Rollei introduced flash units for studio photography; there were three models, each with a different flash head.

The A110, a successor to the Rollei 16, was a pocket-sized camera that used 110 film cartridges; it was compact, stylish and highly regarded.

Between 1977 and 1979, Rollei commissioned a little known Japanese company to manufacture a range of three, basic pocket cameras.

In those days, risky investments such as this were not that uncommon; Peesel's imperious demeanor within Rollei had so impressed the bankers that they were confident of their investment.

On 26 August 1974, after Rollei made a loss of 37 million DM on revenue of just 137 million DM, Peesel left the company "by mutual agreement".

The banks considered liquidating Rollei, but decided instead that restructuring the company would be more worthwhile, setting out the following requirements:.

So, Rollei was able to exhibit at photokina after all, but not in its customary location – that had already been allocated.

Rollei negotiated a contract with IEC, the Industria De Equipamentos Cinematograficos S A in Sao Leopoldo, Brazil to manufacture Rollei slide projectors and enlargers under license.

Rollei was now perilously close to bankruptcy, so the search began for a new owner.

The management of Rollei was shared between Otto Stemmer, a former employee of Agfa who became the technical director, and Hannsheinz Porst, who became chairman of the board.

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Rollei initially made contact with USH through its Singapore subsidiary, Avimo Ltd.

Rollei simply made the products and received test and measurement instruments from USH in return – equipment that it would otherwise have built itself.

Early in 1995, Rollei was purchased by Samsung Techwin, a part of the South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group.

Rollei's system was substantially cheaper than other high-end systems of the time.

So, the number of Rollei cameras produced increased yet further – albeit slowly – reaching a total of 3.

Yet the 35 RF was neither developed by Rollei, nor was it based on any of the earlier variants of the Rollei 35.

Rollei offered three lenses of its own design made by Zeiss.

Rollei GmbH continued to manage Rollei's rights and licences from its headquarters in Berlin until early 2010.

KG, which has been selling Rollei-branded consumer products since 2007 under the terms of a Europe-wide licensing agreement, purchased the Rollei brand on 1 January 2010, thereby extending its rights to the brand world-wide.