Take that cheap camera on holiday

The flights are booked, the hotels reserved, the list of must-visit restaurants checked and doublechecked. But there's one task that still hasn't been crossed off – which cameras do you take?

Film photographers rarely travel light when we go on holiday. If you're anything like me, you've got a cast of cameras that could be taking the trip with you, and working out which come and which stay behind can take some time.

This summer, I spent a week with my wife in southern Germany. I'd been at the Bievres International Photo Fair outside Paris beforehand and my camera bag ended up full of scores from the camera stalls rubbing shoulders against what I’d taken from home.

Along with the Leicaflexes, Minoxes and Voigtlanders, I'd also brought along a decidedly un-German camera: a Hanimex 35HS.

The Hanimex is not a shining example of Teutonic engineering but a cheap-and-cheerful plastic camera made in Macau by Haking in the 1980s. Like many other cheap cameras of the time it was rebadged by the Australian photographic importers Hanimex.

The Hanimex is the kind of thing you could find in a car boot sale for a couple of quid if you’re lucky; it has a focus-free lens, single shutter speed, and an aperture you can change according to the weather conditions (cloudy, sun/cloud and sunny). It's a decidedly simple camera, but cameras like this took the photos that many of us remember from childhood photo albums. When the weather's bright and sunny you don't need an all-singing auto exposure system anyway.

I'd put a roll through another of these cameras a few years ago, and when I got the scans back was pleasantly surprised by how good they were. So when another near-mint example came in a box of cameras, I decided to shoot it too.

I've sold a lot of these cheaper cameras like the Hanimex 35HS on Cameraburo, and I've always described them as the perfect "festival camera"; the camera you can take with you when you don't want to damage or lose something more expensive. So it seemed like a no-brainer to put my money where my mouth is and take one of the cheapies on holiday too.

I finished two rolls on the little Hanimex, including one on a day trip into Switzerland on a blazing hot day that gave two full fingers to my mental image of snow-covered Swiss scenery.

This roll of Kodak Gold 200 – a film that should be in every photographer's summer camera bag – include some of my favourite of the trip, snapped in and around St Gallen near Lake Constance. You can see some of them here:

I love all sorts of cameras, from obscure Soviet SLRs to consumer compacts, and enjoy having a few cameras to hand on holiday. Film photography is one hell of a deep rabbit hole to fall into and it's easy to find yourself seeking out cameras cult and coveted, and then feel the need to wring as many pictures out of them as you can.

But these cheap cameras have their place. They're a perfect vessel for any expired film you might have lurking in your fridge, and it can be fun to distil photography down to the bare basics – raising that viewfinder to your eye and pressing the shutter button. You're on holiday. You're allowed to relax.

A penny-pincher's Pentax

Aaron Gold has written a handful of fantastic camera reviews for Kosmo Foto, and his latest hits the blog this Saturday – the Pentax MV.

After the advent of the Pentax bayonet mount (Pentax K to me and you), the Japanese camera maker built a clutch of smaller SLRs that rivalled the famous Olympus OMs. The Pentax MV was their model aimed at the cost-conscious and got rid of any fripperies that weren't absolutely essential.

He says: "The MV was an ME that had been given the K1000 treatment. It used the same basic chassis and Seiko electronic shutter, but most of the features that weren’t directly related to exposing film to light were removed. Gone were the ME’s exposure-compensation dial, self-timer, shutter lock, film wind-on indicator, and power-winder socket."

Check out the rest of his review on the weekend to see what he thinks about this particular Pentax…

Coming soon on Cameraburo

Christmas will soon be with us, and I'm busily adding new cameras to the online Cameraburo shelves for anyone with a camera on their shopping list – here's some that will be appearing on the site in the next few days:

·      Canon AE-1 w/ 50/1.4 (Film tested)

·      Yashica Microtec Zoom 90 (Film tested)

·      Olympus Trip XB3

·      Canon Sure Shot EX

Til next time, happy shooting

Stephen Dowling
Kosmo Foto