Rollei Compactline 350

Alongside the likes of Canon, Panasonic and Samsung, a whole load of smaller, less-well-known manufacturers release low-end cameras that we tend to overlook. Rollei was a prestigious mid-format SLR maker in the 60s but has now turned its attention to low-cost compacts, so when we were asked whether we wanted to test its Compactline 350 point-and-shoot, we thought 'why not?'. With a 5x wide-angle zoom lens, a 2.7-inch screen and a price tag under £100, is it too good to be true?

Handling

Given its low-end price tag, we weren't expecting much from the Rollei CL 350. The lightweight plastic makes it feel like a toy, its low-grade screen is worthy of a compact from 2006 (the definition wasn't given, but we suspect it's around 130,000 dots) and its lens wobbles when zoomed all the way out.


The sad thing is that some big-name manufacturers don't do much better! The screen, for example, is obviously a TN panel (it goes dark when viewed from below), but its viewing angles are really no worse than the likes of the Sony HX5V! Plus, the plastics are no better quality on Pentax's latest entry-level models. On the whole then, the build and assembly are acceptable, and even the battery compartment door is OK. Although the battery is a generic Chinese model that's widely used, Rollei has at least taken care to ensure you won't put the wrong battery in the camera or put it in the wrong way round, which is more than can be said for some manufacturers. In the end, this camera doesn't look like the bargain of the century but it's certainly not total rubbish either, as only the photo/video/playback switch really looks cheap.

The blue and white menus of the interface aren't exactly stylish or particularly smooth, but they are clear and functional. The camera displays a real-time histogram in shooting mode and offers direct access to the various focusing modes (see below). The Compactline 350 even has a manual mode—something that's very rare indeed at this price (the aperture is limited to two settings separated by just under 1 EV, but the speed can be set freely from 15 sec. to 1/2000 sec.).

Responsiveness

The CL 350 doesn't start up very quickly, taking just over 2.5 seconds. The autofocus works fine but saving photos is a little long. The burst mode of one frame per second isn't exactly lighting-fast, but it doesn't automatically stop after a certain number of shots.

Another unusual feature of this camera is its three different focusing modes. In fact, as well as the classic macro autofocus, there's a pan-focus settings that locks onto the hyperfocal distance and an infinity setting that lets you bypass the autofocus completely and take photos of subjects a few metres away almost instantly (although there is still a slight lag to the shutter release).

Picture Quality

Noise is handled in a similar way to the very first 12-Megapixel CCD cameras we saw. In most current cameras, these characteristic problems have since been corrected by improvements in image processing. The Rollei CL 350, however, is clearly still stuck in the past. Apart from the fact that smoothing is visible from 400 ISO, there's a visible mauve overtone that gets stronger as the ISO sensitivity increases. This is particularly problematic at 800 ISO.



The lens isn't very good. Wide-angle images taken by the Compactline 350 are fairly accurate in the centre but blurred around the edges, an effect that you're likely to notice on a 4" x 6" print. In telephoto, the edges are a little sharper but the centre of the shot is more hazy. While a 4" x 6" print would still look OK, you can forget about an 8" x 12" print, as the fuzziness is clearly visible across the frame.

Compare the Rollei CL350 to other cameras in the Face-Off

Video

Although the CL 350 films in the 16:9 aspect ratio, the resolution is just 720 x 400 pixels (see sidebar). The mono sound could definitely be better and the image is plagued with noise. On the whole then, it's not great. One good thing, however, is that you can use the optical zoom while filming—it's fast and noisy, but at least it's there!