Halina 1000 Review – 70’s plastic fun to take on the Diana Mini

Halina 1000
Halina 1000

The Halina 1000 is wee bit of an oddity.  Launched in the 70’s it was  the little sis of the  Halina 2000 & Halina 3000. Unlike those  scale focus, multiple settings cameras, the Halina 1000 was pretty much all plastic fixed focus fun with minimal settings. Pretty basic by the standards of the day but now presents sharper alternative to the Diana Mini in the Toy Camera class.

Portal
Rheged, Near Penrith 2014. Halina 1000 with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200

Stylistically it shares the same currently en vogue retro silver & black styling of it’s more capable siblings. It’s a bit bigger than a Olympus Trip 35 but is pretty much all plastic.  I was shooting this camera when a passer-by asked if it was one of those new fangled retro CSC cameras.

Wrapped up for Yule
Carlisle 2013.  Halina 1000 with Kodak BW400CN

There really isn’t much to say about the camera’s function. It has a plastic fixed focus lens with a fixed shutter speed (I’m guessing between 1/60-1/125). The only user settings are 3 pictograms which widen the aperture from sunny to cloudy to bulb (odd the bulb setting is wider). My guess is sunny is f/16 and cloudy f/8. There is a hot shoes flash point, tripod mount and erm….. that’s it. In fact you even have to manually reset the film counter on top every time you load by turning the small black dial around the red disk and there is no filter thread or cable release. There is however a double exposure prevention lock.

The Citadel
Carlisle 2014. Halina 1000 with Fuji Superia 200 expired 2006

The exposure system works pretty well. I assume it was geared for 100asa which was default speed in the 70’s but it copes well with 200asa. If you apply a bit of logic you can shoot faster film fine (e.g. on dull day shoot 400asa at sunny). Focus is actually not bad. Like most plastic fixed focus cameras it’s sweet spot is a few meters out. But when aperture is smallest (ie. sunny) as you would expect but can manage pretty well with distance in sunlight as Depth of field kick in.

The Boardroom
Carlisle 2013.  Halina 1000 with Kodak BW400CN

Here’s the rub. I think this is a worthy alternative to the Diana Mini. Granted it lacks the compactness, vintage square masking, ability to shoot half frame, 50’s styling, B setting and cable release of the mini but it has a style all of it’s own and it’s also easier to get more useable shots per roll.  The mini can produce a dream like vintage soft focus shot but you’ll probably struggle to get useable stuff along side it. For experimental stuff  the mini  wins hands down but as a P&S the Halina has it IMHO.

Quality Meats
Carlisle 2014. Halina 1000 with Agfaphoto Vista Plus 200

Haking produced the Halina 35 (aka Ansco 35) which seems to be basically the same thing with minor styling variations. The later Haking Junior G provides more aperture settings but again largely based on the 1000, as was the Ansco 1065

CNV00040
Dumfries 2014. Halina 1000 with Fuji Superia 200 expired 2006

Relatively rare on ebay but don’t spend loads. No lightseal of note and seems fairly robust for plastic.

Alternatives

  • Diana Mini – even more compact retro styled manual fun
  • Halina Panorama – more basic camera geared for panorama
  • Goko UF – rare flash compact with fixed ‘universal’ focus
  • Pentax Pino 35 – Fixed focus with flash & glass lens
  • Any Color optical lens camera – until it breaks….

Helpful links

14 thoughts on “Halina 1000 Review – 70’s plastic fun to take on the Diana Mini”

  1. I have recently purchased a very beautifull plastic fantastic from the 70’s, made in Spain, the Werlisa Color Club. With only three settings, sunny, cloudy and flash for shutter speed, is a joy. I would love to post a picture, but a simple google search will do the job for you. I also have a Ricoh 500G and I think it’s just an amazing little camera.

  2. You mention a double exposure lock. Will it take double exposures if I want to?

    Regards,Strphen

    1. That’s a good question and one I didn’t have answer for but I got the camera out. I haven’t film tested this but yes I think you can. The 1000 like many cameras should allow you to do this by you pressing in the rewind button on the base when you wind on. You will need to keep the film under tension first by gently turning the the rewind knob until it just starts to tense up. You’ll need to hold it there while winding on. This is because although the winding sprocket fully disengages the take up spool doesn’t so will still wind the film on if you don’t. However it will be unlocked so as if you were rewinding so if gentle tension is there it won’t wind on (don’t over tense or you could snap film, damage camera or more likely rewind)

      I think this should work but I haven’t tested – I just commented about the lock as some cheap cameras don’t lock to stop MX

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