I enjoyed using this camera. There’s really not a lot to think about other than turning off the flash whenever you turn the camera on (unless you actually want to use the flash of course). It’s small and fits into the pocket easily and the sliding door offers quite a bit of protection. Just point and shoot.
I’d read a few pieces on the Internet indicating that some people have had trouble with poor focus of distant objects. I’m glad to say that I didn’t experience this problem. I did have a few slight problems with framing though. What I saw in the viewfinder wasn’t what I actually got. I also had another problem with the viewfinder: I found that I could’t see the two LEDs indicating locked focus and flash required unless I moved my eye around a lot.
I also had a few problems with exposure. I suspect (but I’m really just guessing here) that in certain conditions the camera would underexpose and subsequent film processing compensated for this in a way that made the negatives somewhat low in contrast and grainy. Most of it was fairly easy to correct in post processing though. I’d used some long expired Kodek Gold 200 and that may also have contributed to the exposure issues I suppose.
In one case I had what looked at first like a light leak, but it didn’t appear on any of the other pictures so I concluded that since the picture was taken into the light it was probably flare. I also detected some slight vingnetting in some the of the pictures. Other than that I was not displeased with the results, and some of them I really liked.
Although I liked the camera, I’m not sure that I’d every use it much even though the results were pretty good. The need to turn the flash off whenever you turn the camera on is a minor annoyance and not enough in itself to stop me from using the camera. Nor are the quibbles to do with framing, viewfinder issues, focus etc. I guess the main reason I wouldn’t use is because of an issue which concerns all cameras of this type: ignorance of what the camera is actually doing. I bothers me that I have no sense of what the aperture and shutter speeds are. Maybe I want to blur the background. I’d have absolutely no idea how to do that. Stop the motion of a moving object. How could I know how to do that. I’d trust the camera to usually get the exposure and focus right, but beyond that I’d miss having any kind of control.
Still from time to time it’s nice to get away from all the complex controls that more complex cameras have, and not to have to worry about anything other than composition.
Above: Old weathered barn door.
African mask. Not particularly sharp. Maybe I got too close? This was also the last picture of the roll, taken late in the day. Possibly the relatively dark conditions led to a slow shutter speed and blur?
Lettuce and other vegetables. The lettuce in the foreground is quite sharp and then blurs nicely into the dark background. Shows something of the camera’s out of focus areas.
Yellow corvette.
Old Ford.
For more pictures taken with this camera see: