ROLLEI A110

The remarkable Rollei A110 uses, as the name suggests, 110 format film which was first introduced by Kodak in 1972.

110 is a cartridge-based film format essentially a miniaturised version of Kodak's earlier 126 film format. Each frame is 13 mm × 17 mm (0.51 in × 0.67 in), there are 24 frames per cartridge.

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When the Rollei A 110 appeared on the market it was advertised as the world's smallest pocket camera. It's a  serious camera despite its small size; it entered the market in 1975 high-priced (about £150GBP,  $300USD), before its production was moved from Germany (Braunschweig) to Singapore in 1978, after which the price dropped by about a third, but was still a lot of money. Mine was made in Singapore, but other than the film viewing window saying Rollei Singapore not Germany, I don't think there is any difference.

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You can't help but fall for this little camera, it is heavier than it looks, and oozes quality because of it; its a very 'cool' camera. It is one of the smallest 110 cameras being 84 x 44 x 30mm closed and 100mm wide in use. Weight is 185 g.

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It has a pull out external sleeve which acts as cover for the viewfinder and lens and is coupled to the film advance, shutter cocking mechanism and exposure metering. Double and blank exposures are prevented. When closed the battery is switched off. The camera has a 1/4" tripod socket and the special flash cube adaptor locks to the side for use with electrically fired flash cubes.

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It has a Carl Zeiss 23mm f2.8-f16 Tessar lens with four elements in three groups. A bright orange slider under the lens controls the focus scale. Focusing from 1m to infinity with scale in metres, feet and by symbols.

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With an Electronically programmed shutter, the Silicone photo-diode meter provides computer exposure control even with flash pictures and daylight fill-in. Continuously controlled exposure programmed from 4 sec f2.8 to 1/400 sec f16. Some 196,000 cameras where made.

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A110 used to use a PX27 mercury 5.6V battery, which obviously is not available now. The replacement silver cell battery S27PX is 6 volts. but this doesn't seems to make much difference.

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S27Px batteries are not easy to find, I got mine from the Small Battery Company.