ChristyBassman.com

Our Favorite Things - Metal and Plastic Cameras

September 23, 2007 – 3:59 PM

This sort of thing never happens to me. We were in Wilmette, planning to go finish off my roll of E-6 slide film in the Lomo Fisheye camera on the Ba’hai Temple. We got sidetracked by a sign for an estate sale once up there, however. Our excuse as we detoured was that they might have some cool cameras. I didn’t think they would actually have any cameras there, maybe some overpriced antique furniture.

Well, shock of all shocks, they actually had cameras there. Three cameras looked very much like Russell’s Kodak Retina III, but not in the pristine shape his is in. The one that caught my eye immediately was this Polaroid Captiva SLR that’s the size of a Buick. It was priced at $3. I have no clue (and still don’t) as to whether it even works, but for $3 it’s a cheap gamble. When I was younger I thought it’d be fun to have a Polaroid camera just to see the photos get spit out and developed before my eyes. I never had one, and now that I’m in my 30s I thought it’d be fun to have one for the lo-fi, retro quality I expect the pictures will return.

I guess I knew these cameras were quite sizeable, but you really have to hold one in person to understand how huge they really are. This Captiva has a built-on shoulderstrap. The way the camera hangs from it, you get the impression that the manufacturers intended the camera to be hung around the neck, like the albatross of the camera world. Unfortunately the camera is the size of an old 1970s tape deck, and after half an hour of walking around with this heavy thing slapping against your front torso you’d be black and blue. No, I definitely bought this cheap monstrosity for kitsch and curiosity factor. I have no plans whatsoever to walk around with this monster hanging on my front, like Wesley Willis stuck in a 70s time warp. When I find some Polaroid 500 film for it (anybody have advice on where to find this for less than the price of a kidney?) I look forward to sharing the results on Flickr.

Russell’s choice was much classier than mine: An antique No. 1-A Pocket Kodak, born at Eastman Kodak Company in more prosperous times, in my hometown of Rochester NY. Once we got it home and figured out how to open it, we found that the bellows inside was completely disintegrated. But we got these cameras so cheaply, and this Kodak is such an otherwise clean and interesting relic of photographic history.

Despite the name “Pocket Kodak”, this camera would not actually fit in any modern pockets. It does, however, manage to still be slimmer and smaller than the more recent Polaroid, which makes me laugh. It probably was quite the slim and petite camera model for its day, and has a tasteful handle on one end for carrying. The lens and shutter machinery is clean and beautiful to look at. Kodak clearly put a lot of love, pride, and craftsmanship into the cameras of this time period. I haven’t researched what type of film or slides this camera takes, as it’s functionally useless without an intact bellows, but I’d be curious to research that later on.

We did eventually make our return trip to the Ba’hai Temple, where I finished off the roll of film in my fisheye lomo camera. More later on if I can actually convince anybody to cross-process it in C-41 for me.