Wallace Koopmans Artlog

Nothing says Instant film quite like a 70’s camper van

Ever since I acquired a Pentax K-01 I have been looking to prove that its design isn’t as bad as it has been made out to be. I now have physical evidence that it is not the worst camera design in history ( I myself never thought that ). May I present to you the Chinon Handyzoom 5001. If you are a mason or a fan of masonry you will feel right at home with its brick like shape.

As its name suggest its handy to zoom, wait no that’s not right it’s unhandy to zoom even two handy, but that would be a lot harder to advertise. I wonder if the designers thought okay we have designed the worlds first ‘Auto Programmed Zoom Composing system ‘ so let’s hide the zoom buttons. Let me clarify, the camera has two on positions, with one mode the camera automatically zooms to help frame for portraits in the other mode the zoom works normally, if you can locate the buttons. Here is a hint they are underneath on the left.

It has a few other buttons on the top such as Flash mode, spot AF and BLC ( back light compensation) or maybe that’s Bacon Lettuce & Cheese because there isn’t any feedback when you press it. The manual says make sure you press it hard to be certain.

You should also remember that the camera automatically selects bulb mode, keeping the shutter open as long as you press the shutter button, when you have the flash turned off and the red LED in the viewfinder is solid red and not flashing. On second thought don’t remember that just put the brick down before someone gets hurt. Almost every feature of this camera requires memorizing some unrelated thing in order to use it, for this and its terrible ergonomics I crown it the worst camera design ever. Earlier I deposed this blogs monarch and crowned myself Emperor of camera design so I have the authority to do that.

And if you choose to disregard my warning and use one its lens is a
35 mm-70 mm. F/3.7 to F6.8 built with 8 elements in 6 groups built into a brick.

Is it natural to reveal

In a mirror pose set

To strangers how you feel

I don’t recall how we met

Have we shared a meal

Was it the Internet

That image is surreal

The one of the cassette

With the 1970’s appeal

I’m sure the original developers of this lenticular camera system couldn’t have envisioned wiggle grams, but without the ability to print these images, as they were intended, this is a pretty good substitute. The idea is similar in a way. With The original prints you view one image at a time by changing the angle that you view the print at either by moving the print or your ocular system (eyes it sounded more technical). Each of the four images are visible at a different angle because of the lenticular filter in front of the image. With a wiggle gram the images are shown in place and in sequence giving the 3D effect.

These were shot using the Nishika N8000 of course and another post about it can be seen here Nishika N8000

Once I returned from my Calgary trip I still had some Ektar frames left on the Olympus Stylus Epic so here are some of them.