This Year’s Poundland Challenge has flung up some excellent high end cameras for erm… a pound (or less). This is not one of them. Any Poundland Challenge always features a few from the lower end of the market. But that does that necessarily mean awful ?
Today’s plastic lo-fi comes courtesy of Concord Camera Corp. Also known as the Vivitar IC 100. It has attracted the tag of being the Poor Guy’s LC-A but is that deserved ?
Usually when I review an SLR I tend to caveat my reviews by pointing out optical performance depends on the Lens glass and don’t focus on that side of things. But with this Ukrainian beast it really is all about the glass in the form of the Helios-81N ( гелиос-81н )50mm 1:2 lens.
But let’s not ignore the camera and we’ll begin there.
Been a busy few weeks both photography and in life. I’ve realised the regular update is becoming a a bit irregular and given it’s almost 2 months since I last did one so say farewell to the analogue week and step inside from the rain to the warmth of the Analogue Arms and grab a pint or coffee from the bar as I give you a run down of what I’ve been up to and some other news that’s worth follow
“Hello Q. Got any special gear for this mission for me? “. Q looked and sighed. “After you crashing the Aston and losing the laser beam Rolex in the midst of the current austerity squeeze not so much. What happened to the rocket Launching Nikon by the way ?”
“Boom and bust Q”
“But anyway” said Q handing him a Halina Super-Mini.
Once there was a legendary Japanese Camera maker famed for its detailed very compact cameras. But in 1988 they went very large with a camera with a passing resemblance to a star cruiser.
That camera was the Olympus AZ-300 Superzoom (aka Infinity Zoom 300 (US) and IZM-300). It would become one of the cameras that defined the term bridge.
Regular readers will know I have a love for those cheap ‘n cheerful Lo-Fi cameras that other reviewers wouldn’t touch with a barge-pole. But even for me there are some pretty inexcusable garbage that tries to pass themselves off as being a camera. Here’s my top 10 plus some views of others in what cameras you really want to avoid.
We have some surprises as we go from Halina to Leica in this list. But do you agree and what would you add ?
Last year’s Yashica Y35 launch led to one of the biggest outpouring of anger the photography community has ever seen. Whilst the Y35 wasn’t as bad some the vitriol, it was far from perfect. So there was some surprise when rumours of a Yashica branded film. But they’ve now pushed it even further with the launch of a Kickstarter for 2 new films, an analogue camera and the promise of more.
My apologies as this is way late but it has been a busy month as you’ll see. This post we’ll have a couple of trips away to discuss some new & old cameras and why I’m probably never buying Lomography 120 film ever again. But worse still it looks like the Lomography Film is now dead on the UK High Street too.
Oh and some other worthy reviews to check out and a DIY project for the darkroom bunnies.
I’m writing this a bit late into the day but this column is meant to be a bit more flexible. This week the postie brought a few more Poundland challenge 2019 cameras, a vintage classic and something for the weekend from Lomography. Meanwhile there’s some serious modding going on in film land and there the curious case of the missing F6. Pull up a chair and have a drink !
In 2015 I set out to buy cameras for a quid or less. 20 cameras later I’d amassed some brilliant finds amongst the junk. But 4 years later what does 1 quid buy you. Turns out quite a lot