The Kodak Tourist I bought was the lowest-spec model, with fixed focus and a fixed shutter speed. I did not enjoy it at all. There are Tourists with better shutters and lenses and maybe I should try one someday. Anyway, read my updated review here.
Last updated on 1 July 2020 by Jim Grey
Bizarrely, given their heritage, I don’t think I’ve ever owned a Kodak camera in the few hundred that have passed through my hands. Jim, you seem to have used most models they made!
I have mixed feelings about Kodaks. They’re bloody everywhere and so many of them aren’t interesting. Yet there are gems among them. This Tourist was absolutely NOT one of the gems. But my Kodak Tourist is a gem, and my 1980s point-and-shoot VR35 K40 was a gem. You never know about Kodaks.
It’s true: some of the Great Yellow Father’s output was strictly cheap units to sell film. Others leave you wondering why they made the thing at all (I’d put the Tourist in that class). And then there were some really fantastic cameras, and not just the German imports either.
The Ponys and the Signets of the 1950s were surprising performers, for example.