I never get lucky at estate sales.

Usually it’s overpriced junk, picked clean long before I get there. This time was different.

Sitting on a table was a Rollei 35S, a camera that feels antiquated by modern standards. No program modes. No endless menus. Just aperture, shutter speed, a light meter, and the expectation that you’ll figure out the rest yourself.

Even focusing is an exercise in trust. The viewfinder isn’t connected to the lens, so there’s no automatic focusing to help you. You estimate the distance, adjust the focus ring by hand, account for parallax, and make the exposure.

I loaded it with a roll of Kodak Ultramax 400 and brought it along on a photowalk led by a friend during Peacefest in downtown Waterford Michigan. It felt like the right place to put a camera from the 1960s back to work for an afternoon.

Cameras have evolved a lot since this one was designed. But stripping away the automation reminds you how photography was never about the camera in the first place.