On Friday I bought a Rollei Prego 70 at a local thrift shop. The Prego is a small 35mm point and shoot film camera.
When I saw this in the shop, I couldn’t resist. It was only $18.00 and in like new condition. I looked the camera up on eBay and I saw asking prices starting at $50.00 and up.
When I saw this camera, it satisfied three “needs”:
- It’s a Rollei.
- It’s very small.
- It’s completely automatic.
This camera has some features I really like. It also has some draw backs, so I will break it out into pros and cons.
PROS:
- Excellent optics.
- Compact size.
- Recessed power button. (it is difficult to accidentally turn the camera on.)
- Powers off automatically after a couple of minutes. (batteries are expensive.)
- Easy to find CR2 lithium batteries.
- Easy to read LCD display.
- A nice, big, adjustable wrist/neck strap.
CONS:
- Not particularly sturdy.
- The zoom buttons are too close to the shutter button.
- There is a long shutter button lag time.
- Small viewfinder.
- The flash defaults into AUTO mode when the camera is powered on.
- The battery is expensive.
I took the camera out on a photo-walk and for the most part, I really enjoyed using it. The flash is set to auto and it takes several presses of the recessed flash setting button to get it to turn off. The flash can also be set to turn to fill flash which I think is a nice feature.
I found the metering system to be ok, but the lens is very good and flair is minimal, even when shooting straight into the sun.
My day with the camera was shot with Kodak Tri-X, and I processed the film in ID-11 and the negatives seemed a little thin, I just feel like the development time I used from the Massive Dev Chart App is a little short. This is a camera I will always keep in my bag loaded with a roll of film.
