Hello my friends. Carrying on from last week’s blog entry, we continue in the world of photography. This week, we will look at my first camera and some very different formats of taking pictures.
Let’s explore and welcome back ☺️
I ended the last blog talking about a “little gem” of a camera which was a defining format for a simple load, wind, point and shoot system which was extremely popular from the early 70’s onwards.
This is the Kodak 110 film photography system introduced to the world in 1972. It was a scaled down version of their 126 film format. It was a clever self contained film cartridge which came in either 12, 20 or 24 exposures per film which was indicated on the cartridge itself.
The beauty was that the film could be dropped into an appropriate camera, film door closed and you simply wound the film on until the frame counter registered the first frame in the little window on the cartridge. No need for fiddly manual loading of a film roll or lining sprockets up etc.
The Kodak Instamatic 192 from 1975 was my first ever camera, ( that was my Grandmother’s “wee little gem” as mentioned last week), which I was gifted from her when she got a new camera. l was around 6-7 years old at the time.
It had two exposures settings for either bright sunny conditions or hazy sunny conditions, shutter release button on top, (which to a kid like me, looked like a smartie), a sliding lens latch and finally a film door release.
On top of the camera and shown in the picture is Kodak’s magicube extender and flash cube. Now, l didn’t have this, (I think they thought it too much for a young child), but it was an interesting way to do indoor photography.
The extender arm would be placed in a circular groove on the top of the camera and clicked in with the 4 sided flash cube on top of that.
Then as the shutter button was pressed, the cube flash would fire. Then as you wound onto the next available exposure, the magicube would rotate to the next unused flash bulb side on the cube.
Each cube would be 4 flash pictures then you would dispose of it and use a new cube.
Quite ingenious and l can remember my Grandmother using these for parties and other indoor social events.
So, when l was gifted this, it was without the flash system but l didn’t care. I had my own wee camera and outside pictures would be just fine with me.
I can remember the processed negatives been absolute tiny at a size of 13mm x 17mm. But there was a way to view them after the pictures had been developed.
This extreme simple plastic negative viewer allowed you to snip the 110 negatives to size, take off the flat square end and place the image inside. Then all you did was either take it outside or hold it up to a light source and viewed it from the opposite end which had a tiny circular magnified window.
My Grandfather had a much more advanced version of this as show below.
It was the same method as my little plastic viewer but this took actual slides, was battery powered and had its own internal lights. It with triggered when you popped a slide in from the middle, held that down and the lights would come on allowing you to see the slide through the viewing window.
He would use this to identify and load the slide carousel, (shown in the last blog entry), to make sure he had the correct slide and what order he was showing his pictures in.
The camera my Grandmother upgraded to so she could give me the Kodak 192 was this:
The ITT “Magicflash” 110 film camera from 1979. The main differences was that it had a built in flash, so no more need for the extender bar and the magicubes from the Kodak and the film loading and film advancement was automatic and this was all powered by the same batteries as the flash.
This was very much a jump forward for her as she found that she took more pictures indoors than out and this was something she could keep in her handbag without any other bits needed.
My Mother had one of these as well and apart from my Grandfathers amazing Leica, the 110 film format was what we used for a good number of years.
All these cameras and film formats were amazing but they all had the same problem for the average casual user. You had to use the entire roll of film then send them away to be processed before you could see the results. That could take weeks at this point but that was about to change.
Around the early 80’s my Father came home with one of these:
The Polaroid Spirit 600CL instant camera. It was a photographic system that defined the start of a decade where things had to be more convenient, easier and faster.
It’s was just a simple yet brilliant camera and most people either owned one, knew someone that did or at least had their picture taken by one. These things were everywhere when l was a kid.
That distinctive instant camera sound of the click, whirring and whinging as the film came out the front is just something l will always remember.
It was simple, easy to load, came with either colour or black and white film and after a bit of post photograph taking waggling, you had a picture in under a minute in your hands.
You didn’t get many pictures to a film cartridge, (8-10 if l remember rightly), and of course no negatives. These cameras were not feature packed, just point and shoot with a built in flash.
The cost for the camera and film would have been roughly £100 for the camera and the a single film pack about £8 in 1981, (about £350 for the camera and £20 per film in today’s money), so not cheap by any means but you paid for the novelty of instant results.
The pictures they took were “passable” and for the average consumer, good enough to capture the moment. For serious photographers like my Grandfather it was more of a gimmick and he wouldn’t touch one with a 10ft pole 😂
But technology moved on quickly and yet another new photographic format was just around the corner. Only a year after the wave of the instant camera came the disc camera.
This was my Grandmothers next camera to replace the ITT 110. The Kodak 4000 disc camera system from 1982.
This was very similar to the 110 with its easy to load film cartridge but this time it was a unique flat disc film format, (hence the name) with 15 exposures per film. Fully motorised with built in flash and the film was rotated for each shot make for sharper images.
When processed, the negatives would come back on the internal disc from the cartridge shown in the image above. Its selling point was ease of use, good image quality and extremely thin compact design.
My Grandmother loved this camera and subsequently I would be bought my own disc camera for my 12th birthday from her.
The Halina tele disc 328 from 1985 was my next personal camera from the Kodak 192 and it was a huge jump. Built in flash, automatic film advance, disc based film system and also a twist normal/telephoto lens system giving it the “tele” in the name.
It had a hinged protective case that would close while not in use and as soon as the case was folded down the camera would activate. Like my Grandmother, l loved this camera and having that swivel lens on the front was so cool to me at the time.
Next week, we look at my first 35mm camera and the first camera with a fully adjustable and replacement lenses l would use that went from hobby to fully project and educational use.
Thank you so much for reading, your comments, your sharing and general interest in the blog. I hope you will join me next week and we can explore together again. ☺️👍🏼
We don’t tape the top 40 
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