Sunday, April 07, 2002, 4:58:00 PM, Mike wrote: MI> With the recent discussion of Tessars/Xenars/Planars/whatnot, I guess some MI> folks here have quite a bit experience with TLRs. MI> Does anyone know how difficult is to change on on a 'cord Va (viewving hood MI> is "nonremovable' -- held in place by a few screws). The original screen MI> sucks a lot -- the edges are almost impossible to see.
If it's similar to my Rolleiflex Standard (or Old Standard according to other nomenclature), of about 1935 fame, the hood is held by four screws on the sides. By removing these screws, you can lit the entire hood, and reveal the screen underneath. Be careful not to dislodge and drop it! The screen in my rollei rests on two metal spring clips (for lack of better words) which press the screen against the hood, so the focus correlation is maintained by pressing the screen up against the hood. Thus the hood assembly is what correlates the focus (except adjusting the focus at the lens/helicoid level). The "belly" side of the screen is the corrugate plane of focus. The good thing is, that way, it's hard to knock it out of focus alignment, and you can safely remove it and clean the screen and mirror ** which are often quite dirty. It might be the degradation of the mirror coating which is adding substantially to the dark finder - except installing a new mirror there is than much less to do. The bad thing is, that way, any replacement focusing screen will have to be exactly SAME thickness or focus correlation will not be maintained. If the new screen is LESS thick, that's still perhaps good, as you could use paper shims between the hood and the screen to increase the thickness to the proper thickness, but if the new screen is thicker, bad luck - focus would have to be adjusted for it. Although, this is how it is in my Rolleiflex Standard, I do not know other models that well to tell you what is in your Rolleicord. **:(with some non-scratching technique!!! Practice on some busted or cheap SLR mirror first! Also, have in mind, the mirrors of old Rolleis and all old TLRs were silvered not aluminium, the silver is apparently less durable and more prone to environmental degradation, after all, my rollei is 70 years in the field working, more than many people... I can send you my practice of cleaning the screen which I used successfully on Yashica and Rollei mirrors, although a disclaimer as usual)** Hope this helps. Good light, Frantisek Vlcek - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
