Could you resist this cute little 50-year-old? I fell in love with the Kodak Instamatic 50 when I saw it at the South London Camera Fair last weekend. It wasn’t so much the camera, which is fairly standard fare for a 1960s pocket camera. No, it was the accessories—the cute little wide-angle lens, the clip-on viewfinder and the pirouetting flash unit—that got the juices running.
I just had to have it, simply for the pleasure of looking at it. The wide-angle lens, made by Kaligar, was accompanied by a telephoto sibling in a neat zippered leather case. All for £10. I wasn’t going to haggle.
This is the first Instamatic, introduced in 1963, and takes 126 film cartridges. It’s now something of a vintage classic, but it is the accessories that make it special. This is truly the Thomas the Tank engine of instant cameras. It looks like a toy but it was a serious snapper. It’s what people carried before they had a smartphone.
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I’m sure the problems can be overcome with a bit of searching, Mike. It would be just the sort of thing I’d fall for, and i wouldn’t be satisfied till I’d used it!
Ha! Yes, I agree. I think my local Snappy Snaps can still handle those Instamatic cassettes and I might just take it in and see what’s on it. Might get a surprise.
Wot?
No LCD screen?
Seriously though, a pretty little thing but nevertheless, a paperweight…
Unless you fancy using your creative juices to do this trick…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuhM7McQOpc
Stephen, it was bought as a paperwieght and I have no intention of using it. It just looks cute. There’s a cassette inside. Should I get it developed?
I believe that it is hard to get this film developed other than by someone like Adam or myself… Home tinkerers, as it were.
Is it colour?
The problem I would have is that I could not get past that stage, according to the video I posted above, there are no sprocket holes on 126 film, which makes it difficult to load in the development spooler, but impossible to scan.