When the Rollei 35 was designed, most electronic flash units were big too much for the little camera; Rollei preferred to place the hot shoe on the camera bottom to avoid heavy loads on the camera top where some mechanisms could suffer damage. The Vivitar 283 looks big for the Rollei 35, it works with the camera, but the flash-camera combo is uncomfortable to handle due to the Rollei 35 small size and the fact the best position to take the photograph is with the camera bottom up to diminish some horrible shadows risk, a smaller flash is a "must" for this camera (taken with a digital P&S and the camera automatic flash,click on thumbnail).-
