Wallace Koopmans Artlog

The Vivitar Pocket 35 is a chunky little camera, it’s like someone took a Yashica T3 and squeezed in its sides.

The camera is turned on by sliding the lens cover the same as the Yashica T3 but unfortunately that is about the end of the control you have over the camera.  Well aside from the self timer and the shutter button that’s the extent of it. There is no way to alter the ISO or override the flash two of my favourite things.  There is a green LED inside the viewfinder presumably to indicate that you have half pressed the shutter button.  It’s far too promiscuous to be indicating focus, it will turn on for anything.   Vivitar made a lot of cheap cameras over the years so it would be easy to dismiss this as yet another but really its lens sets it apart.  Rather than being some fixed focus plastic abomination the lens is a very good 35mm f3.5 Vivitar Series 1 lens.  I can’t find much information for the camera but based on the focal length and aperture and outward appearance I believe it’s likely a Tessar lens with 4 elements in 3 groups like you would find on the Yashica T3 and Olympus XA.  Interestingly the camera can be powered either by a CR123A battery or 2 AAA I guess that chunky grip is good for two things, It fits the batteries and makes the camera comfortable to hold one handed without fear of dropping it.

There is something very appealing about this little camera. The only thing that keeps it a notch bellow something like the Olympus Stylus Epic is the inability to suppress the flash.

I shot the following images with the Vivitar Pocket 35 and Kodak 400 film.