My Film Cameras: A Rundown
An inventory of the 35mm film cameras I have owned and operated to as well as what I love (and don’t love) about each one.
YASHICA T5
Here she is - my newest baby. My Dad bought two of these bad boys for £70 about a decade ago in Holland. The joke is most definitely on me now that they are worth £500 a piece but I really wanted to give that reputable Carl Zeiss lens a try so I begrudgingly bought one off of him (I did get a mates rate don’t worry). The lens is incredible, crisp as anything and delivers the most beautiful tones and grain but I would say it’s probably not quite worth the hype-dictated-price-tag that it carries with it at the moment. These things fluctuate so if you can get one slightly cheaper then definitely go for it! My favourite feature is how quick-off-the-mark this little compact is. It takes mere milliseconds to slide off the lens cover, press the button and shoot your shot. There is absolutely no delay between button press and image being taken and this makes the Yashica the perfect handbag companion for those off-the-cusp street shots that I can never quite capture on my hefty Canon DSLR. I have shot a few test rolls so far and almost every exposure has come back perfect.
HANIMEX 35ESM
I have a couple of these little early nineties compacts, I think I picked them up in a charity shop when I was younger. They have the most gorgeous vignette on the lens, it’s quite a heavy vignette so make sure you are a fan first but it’s the kind that looks absolutely sublime with a nice roll of black and white film. (See examples to the left!). In my opinion the Hanimex is a no brainer, so cheap (I think you are currently looking at between £10 and £20 on eBay / Depop) and have a really romantic, old-school quality to the images they produce. Perfect as a light, easy day-bag addition for holidays or as a first-time film camera and you’ll get the best results when surrounded by lots of bright sunlight.
CANON SURESHOT 105
The Canon Sure Shot was my go-to before getting the Yashica, a lot of the images on my feed or portfolio will have been taken with this baby. It’s truly a great little camera. Affordable but well made, reasonably sharp and has the most beautiful flash. I was never too keen on the results from it during the daytime (images looking watery and a bit over exposed) but at night with the flash it really brought things to life. I really recommend this one for a cheap but robust accompaniment to document your big nights-out and for messing about with flash photography indoors in Winter when the lighting sucks.
OLYMPUS OM2
The Olympus is my OG film camera! The very first camera I used and the one that got me sucked in to the world of photography in the first place. I adored this camera, It’s a really classic manual camera with a beautiful aluminium body and you can pick up great prime lenses for it too second hand. The resale price isn’t so bad on these at the moment (I think around £200?) but make note that they are heftier than your typical plastic-cased eighties automatic. They are more delicate than a point and shoot camera too with more components that can get damaged or degrade over time (I’ve got the OM1 and the OM2 and both have had issues with shutters getting sticky which is why they are currently hiding in a drawer somewhere waiting for some £££ and some TLC). The upside to opting for a camera like the OM2 is that they are fully manual so they give you that bit of extra creative freedom. The Olympus OM2 is perfect for capturing soft, glowing portraits with beautiful bokeh and is also great in low light settings, take it out and golden hour and you will never look back.
