Camera Reviews

Reto Ultra Wide and Slim

A Chinese company called Sunpet has had this little 35mm point-and-shoot camera in its catalog for more than 25 years now. Several companies have slapped their names on it and sold it. The best-known company is Vivitar, who may have been the first to sell it back in the mid-late 1990s. So branded, it became a well-loved, almost cult classic. That’s certainly why so many other companies have sold this camera — they’re trying to cash in. Most recently, the Reto Project in Hong Kong has reissued this camera as the Reto Ultra Wide and Slim.

Reto’s release of this camera created quite a buzz in 2022, especially given its $29 list price. That’s barely more than the cost of one roll of film and processing these days. I’m not normally one to jump on bandwagons, but I bought one of these the moment I could. Fellow photoblogger Mike Connealy does terrific work with his Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim (see some of it here), and I wanted a piece of that action.

But I’ve buried the lede. What sets this inexpensive, fixed-focus, plastic camera apart is its extremely wide lens: 22mm at f/11. It’s set in a 1/125 second single-blade leaf shutter. The lens has a surprisingly sophisticated design, given this camera’s price, with one acrylic element in front of the shutter and another behind it. Also, baffles inside the camera’s film door forces the film to curve. This combination results in remarkably low-distortion images. The lens delivers some softness and vignetting in the corners, however.

At 3 7/8″ x 2 1/4″ x 1″, the Ultra Wide and Slim is about the same size as the tiny Olympus XA. But the XA is a heavyweight compared to the feather-light Ultra Wide and Slim. This all-plastic, all-mechanical camera weighs just 2½ ounces!

The Reto Ultra Wide and Slim is available in five colors: charcoal, cream, pastel pink, muddy yellow, and murky blue. I went with the murky blue.

I’ve shot a number of point-and-shoot cameras over the years. Check out my reviews of the Canon Snappy 50 (here) and Snappy S (here), the Kodak VR35 K40 (here) and K12 (here), the Nikon Zoom Touch 400 (here), and the Olympus Stylus (here) and Trip 500 (here). Or check out all of my camera reviews here.

My first roll of film in the Ultra Wide and Slim was some expired ISO 200 Ferrania color negative stock with Kroger branding that I picked up cheap. The images showed the grain and color shifts consistent with expired film. But just look at how much of the scene the Ultra Wide and Slim captured!

Here’s a look down Main Street in Zionsville. It took me a couple of rolls to start to get the hang of this wide lens, and avoid having so much uninteresting foreground in my images.

Just look at how straight all the lines are in this straight-on shot.

I kept going with a roll of Fomapan 400. In retrospect, I wish I had chosen HP5 Plus or Tri-X for the huge exposure latitude they offer. Several of the images I made on this film were badly misexposed.

Through the windshield, Downtown Indianapolis

The winder is the cheapest-feeling aspect of this camera. It makes quite a ratchety noise when you use it. On this roll of film I felt it tearing sprocket holes as it wound the first five or so frames.

The film counter is hard to read. It’s not just that the numbers are small and my eyes are more than 50 years old. The plastic magnifying bubble over the numbers does more to distort those numbers than to magnify them. That bubble also reflects light, which further obscures the numbers. Finally, the numbers are printed in a faint red.

My next roll was some fresh Fujicolor 200. Some say that this camera can struggle to wind toward the end of a 36-exposure roll. I did not find that to be the case at all with this 36-exposure roll, or the 36-exposure roll of Fomapan that I shot.

The Ultra Wide and Slim’s viewfinder isn’t accurate — when I framed this yellow Pontiac, the cars on either side of it were barely in the frame. But then, hardly any point-and-shoot viewfinder is accurate. I don’t know why I expect better after all these years. The viewfinder also has a fisheye effect that the lens itself does not.

This simple image does a great job of showing how sharp this acrylic lens is. Reto recommends using ISO 100 or 200 film on sunny days, and ISO 400 film on cloudy days, to accommodate the camera’s fixed exposure.

Despite the lens’s ultra-wide angle, I still had to tilt the camera to bring some subjects fully into the frame. However, I don’t think I could have managed this image with the 35mm lenses that are common to point-and-shoot cameras. I would have hit the building behind me before I backed up enough.

I had trouble rewinding the first two rolls I shot in this camera. I thought I heard and felt the film leader pass into the cartridge, but when I opened the camera I found a little film was still wound on the takeup spool. A few frames on each roll were ruined because of this. On my third roll, I discovered that the rewind crank had wiggled down a little bit. I pushed it all the way up before I rewound. This time upon rewinding I heard the same steady clicking noise as when I wound the film. When the film came off the takeup spool and was fully in the film canister, the clicking stopped. Aha! So if you rewind this camera but don’t hear that clicking, press the crank/spool firmly back up into the camera.

I am deliberately not showing you the many images I made that featured one or more of my fingers. The lens is so wide that if your fingers are on the front of the camera at all, you are likely to see them in your image. By my third roll I had built a habit of holding the camera only around the edges, to eliminate all chance of getting my finger in the lens.

To see more from this camera, check out my Reto Ultra Wide and Slim gallery.

The Reto Ultra Wide and Slim is a blast to use, especially after you learn how to work around its quirks. It’s the kind of camera you want to keep loaded at all times, and slip into your pocket wherever you go. On a full-sun or cloudy-bright day, load this camera with your favorite everyday color film and be ready for some fun shooting.

If you like old film cameras, check out all of my reviews here!
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Camera Reviews

Pentax ME SE

You have to wonder why Pentax went to the trouble to offer the Pentax ME SE. After all, it was the same camera as the Pentax ME save two tiny details. One of those details is obvious by inspection: smooth brown leather on the body instead of textured black leather.

The other differing detail is inside the viewfinder: on the focusing screen, the split screen is canted at -45 degrees. The regular ME’s split screen is horizontal. The canted split screen eliminates needing to rotate the camera when the subject’s lines are primarily horizontal, which is nice.

Otherwise, the ME SE’s specs are identical to the ME’s. It works with films from ISO 12 to 1600 and allows exposures from 8 seconds to 1/1000 second through its electronic shutter. You can adjust exposure up to two stops in either direction by setting a dial around the rewind crank. Its hot shoe syncs at 1/100 sec. Two silver-oxide SR44 button batteries power the ME SE. Without them, the shutter operates only at 1/100 sec and at bulb.

Also like the regular ME, this camera operates only in aperture-priority autoexposure mode, and it lacks depth-of-field preview. This camera was aimed squarely at the amateur.

To use the Pentax ME SE, turn the dial atop the camera to AUTO. Set your aperture on the lens. Then look through the viewfinder, frame your subject, and focus. Press the shutter button down partway. A red light appears next to the shutter speed the ME SE’s meter chose. If the red light appears next to OVER or UNDER, adjust the aperture until the meter can select one of the shutter speeds. Of course, if you get a shutter speed slower than about the inverse of your lens’s focal length, you should mount the camera on a tripod to avoid shake.

Pentax produced these cameras from 1976 to 1979, but you could buy them new out of existing stock through at least 1984. They commonly came in a kit with the 50mm f/2 SMC Pentax-M lens for a street price of about $120. That’s equivalent to about $330 today, making this camera a solid bargain when new.

If you like compact SLRs, see my reviews of the original Pentax ME (here), the Olympus OM-1 (here), and the Nikon FA (here). If you like Pentax SLRs, see my reviews of the K1000 (here), the KM (here), the Spotmatic SP (here), the Spotmatic F (here), the ES II (here), and the H3 (here). Or check out all of my camera reviews here.

My regular Pentax ME has long been my favorite SLR. It’s so light and easy to carry, and I strongly favor aperture-priority shooting. When I found my ME’s meter to be dead last fall, I faced a choice. I could either have my well-used, somewhat battered body repaired, or buy a lightly-used, working body. I decided upon the latter, and soon came upon this clean and minty ME SE. The seller had even just replaced all of the light seals. I paid $105, including shipping, which is a lot more than I normally pay for any camera. But I am entering into a long-term relationship and was willing to pay for a body in very good nick.

To test the camera I mounted the delightful 50mm f/1.7 SMC Pentax-M lens and loaded some Kodak Ultramax 400. I set the camera’s ISO to 200 because I love the look of Ultramax 400 overexposed by a stop.

Autumn in the suburbs on the Pentax ME SE

The ME SE feels just like the ME in the hand, except that the ME SE’s smooth leather feels a great deal nicer than the ME’s nubby black leather. It gives me an “ahhhhh!” moment every time I pick it up.

I kept going with a roll of Fomapan 200, which I rated at 125 and developed in Ilford ID-11 stock.

Just like the regular ME, the ME SE’s winder feels a little ratchety. The similarly sized Olympus OM-1 or -2’s winder is a lot smoother. The shutter button feels good, however, with a smooth, short travel.

The ME SE’s viewfinder is surprisingly large and bright, which adds to the joy of using this camera.

Next I mounted the underappreciated 50mm f/2 SMC Pentax-M lens and loaded some expired Agfa Agfacolor Vista 400 film. I shot it at box speed — I should have rated it at 200 or 100. This was the best-exposed image on the roll.

I shot the ME SE all over Indiana on various trips. Because of its size and weight, it’s an easy companion.

Finally I took the ME SE along on a trip up the Michigan Road toward South Bend, fresh Fujicolor 200 aboard. I mounted a 35-70mm f/4 SMC Pentax-A lens I had just bought.

This fat lens made the ME SE front heavy and thus less pleasant to shoot. Mount a prime onto the ME SE (or the regular ME) and you have a light, balanced kit.

To see more from this camera, check out my Pentax ME SE gallery.

I love the Pentax ME SE, just as I have loved the Pentax ME for many years now. I recommend these bodies every chance I get. They’re still relatively inexpensive on the used market, and they let you mount the entire range of terrific Pentax manual-focus lenses. What’s not to love?

Postscript: I got out my regular ME the other day to decide what to do with it. I decided to try another fresh battery just for the heck of it — and the meter lit right up. The camera works just fine. I have no idea why I couldn’t make it work before. Now I have two working ME bodies!

If you like old film cameras, check out all of my reviews here!
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Camera Reviews

Kodak Retina Ia

Kodak’s mission was to bring photography to the masses. They succeeded by cranking out millions of inexpensive cameras. But Kodak really invested in its Retina line when they introduced it in 1934. Made in Germany of German components, the Retina was meant to compete with, or at least carry some of the cachet of, Leicas, Voigtländers, and Zeiss-Ikons. The Retina became Kodak’s most celebrated camera. Naturally I was Retina-curious. My first Retina was this Kodak Retina Ia (one-a).

The 1951-54 Retina Ia (“Type 015” in Retina-speak) was the entry-level Retina, which improved upon an earlier Retina I (“Type 013”). The Ia’s most obvious improvement was its winding lever; the I had a knob. This Ia features the Synchro-Compur shutter with a top speed of 1/500 sec. and a coated 50mm f/3.5 Schneider-Kreuznach Retina-Xenar lens. Other lenses were available on the Ia, including an f/2.8 Retina-Xenar and an f/2.8 Kodak Ektar. Early examples offered a Compur Rapid shutter.

A defining and endearing feature of the Retina through about 1959 is that they fold open and closed. The bellows is tiny, but it’s there. When closed, you can put it in a coat pocket — but be ready for your coat to hang funny, because this camera is heavy.

There was no mistaking that this is a Kodak Retina; the back cover makes it pretty obvious.

If you’re into Retinas, also check out my reviews of the Retina IIa (here), the Retina IIc (here), the Retina Reflex IV (here), and the Retina Automatic III (here). Other surprisingly capable Kodaks include the Pony 135, Model C (here), the Monitor Six-20 (here), and the Brownie Starmatic (here). Or check out all the cameras I’ve ever reviewed, here.

I put a couple rolls of Fujicolor 200 through my Retina Ia. I decided to “go commando” and use the Sunny 16 rule to guess exposure: on a bright, sunny day, set the camera to f/16 and the shutter to about the inverse of your film’s speed. The Retina’s shutter doesn’t have a 1/200 sec. setting, but it does have 1/250 sec., so I just used that. The photos all turned out right enough that minor tweaking in Photoshop made them look fine. Here’s the cart path on the golf course behind my house.

This shot is from the cemetery behind my church, on this land since 1839.

My dogs are always easy subjects. Meet Gracie and Sugar. The Ia’s viewfinder is teeny tiny, making it challenging to frame subjects. I thought I had my doggos centered in the frame, but they wound up noticeably left of center. That viewfinder is itty bitty, and it’s hard to frame accurately with it. I cropped the photo to fix that.

My car is another easy subject. Toyota Matrix owners all know it: it’s so easy to lose wheel covers on this car. That Schneider-Kreuznach lens delivers good color and sharpness.

For my second roll of Fujicolor 200 I stayed right in my yard. I didn’t have my car repainted — I bought a new one in blue. I’m a giant fan of Toyota Matrixes. And there’s Gracie just hanging out.

One challenge I always have with a manual-everything camera is remembering to set all the settings. On about half the photos on this roll I forgot to focus. D’oh! I remembered to focus this shot, where the lens was as wide open as the light would allow it to be so I could get a blurred background.

This shot of the back of my house shows the resolution and detail this Schneider-Kreuznach lens delivers.

We’ll wrap this slideshow with a photo of my pal Gracie. The house across the street had been abandoned for a few months when I made this; gotta remember to choose my backgrounds better.

To see more from this camera, check out my Kodak Retina Ia gallery.

The results I got from this Retina Ia helped me see why the Retina line remains well respected among collectors today. But its tiny viewfinder and lack of focusing and exposure assistance helped me see why collectors prefer Retinas II and III.

If you like old film cameras, check out all of my reviews here!
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Camera Reviews

Minolta Maxxum 5

When a reader offered this Minolta Maxxum 5 to the Jim Grey Home for Wayward Cameras, I had no idea how tiny it would be. Indeed, upon its 2001 introduction it was billed as the smallest and lightest autofocus SLR of all time. I happen to favor compact SLRs, so I was excited to give this diminutive Minolta a try.

The Maxxum 5 was introduced in 2001. Typical of late film SLRs, this camera has a list of specs as long as your arm. I’m not going to try to list them all, as the Maxxum 5 does everything you’d expect. It loads, winds, and rewinds film automatially. You get programmed, aperture-priority, shutter-priority, and manual exposure modes. It has a built-in pop-up flash, and also a shoe for Minolta’s proprietary external flashes. Its shutter operates from 1/4000 second down to a full 30 seconds.

The Maxxum 5 uses a seven-point autofocus system and a 14-segment honeycomb-pattern meter that emphasizes the chosen focus point. There’s a switch on the front to turn off autofocus when you want to focus manually. There’s also a button on the back that turns on spot metering, which uses only the center metering segment.

The camera reads the film cartridge’s DX code to set ISO from 25 to 5000. You can override that, however, and set ISO as low as 6 and as high as 6400. The camera even has an “eye start” feature — when your hand is on the grip, and you bring your eye to the viewfinder, it begins metering and focusing immediately. (I found that feature to be annoying, so I turned it off.) 2 CR2 batteries power this camera, without which it is inert.

It says a lot about the 2001 state of the SLR art that the Maxxum 5 was considered an amateur’s SLR. The advanced amateur Maxxum 7 and the professional Maxxum 9 offered even more functionality.

The Maxxum 5 was a ton of camera for its price — $403 for just the body. I’m sure almost all of these came with the 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 Minolta AF Zoom kit zoom lens, however. Mine came to me with an almost certainly superior 35-70mm f/4 Maxxum AF Zoom lens.

If you like auto-everything Minolta SLRs, you might also enjoy my reviews of the Maxxum 7000i (here), the original Maxxum 7000 (here), the Maxxum 9xi (here), and the Maxxum HTsi (here). I’ve also reviewed the Minolta SR-T 101 (here) and SR-T 202 (here), as well as the delightful rangefinder Minolta Hi-Matic 7 (here) and later Hi-Matic AF2 (here). Or check out all of my camera reviews here.

I brought the Maxxum 5 with me on a trip to Chicago in mid-January. I had three rolls of film with me, and I began with Kodak Ultramax 400.

Temperatures were in the mid to upper teens all that weekend. I had a hotel right on the Chicago River, in the Loop but right across from the River North neighborhood. I photographed the river’s bridges and the neighborhood extensively, keeping the Maxxum 5 inside my coat until I was ready to frame a scene. The camera performed flawlessly even in such low temperatures.

The viewfinder is small, but bright. The focus points the camera chooses light up clearly inside the viewfinder.

I walked for a couple hours that night with Kodak T-Max P3200 in the Maxxum 5. I got uneven results. The negatives were very thin — either the Maxxum’s meter is way, way off, or the lab bollixed the development. I’m leaning toward blaming the lab; I think the Maxxum’s meter is right.

Chicago River at night: Minolta Maxxum 5

Several shots had vertical light streaks through them, like this one. Normally I develop my own black-and-white film, and I wish I had done so this time.

Still, a number of the shots I made turned out well enough, like this one.

The next day I loaded Fujicolor 200 into the camera and kept shooting. Despite all of the Maxxum 5’s modes and options, I never varied from straight-up Program mode. But then, I’m sure, neither did 95 percent of people who bought this camera new.

The 35-70mm zoom lens is on the small side, which befits this small camera. I have 50mm prime lenses that are almost as large. The lens offers macro mode, which I used on a couple shots. I was pleased with this lens’s sharpness.

I had only two minor complaints with the Maxxum 5. First, the strap lugs are right by the door hinge on one end, and the door closure on the other. Every time I loaded film, the strap got in the way of closing the door.

Second, the button to open the camera back is in a nonstandard place: on the back, lower right, below the door. I was a little worried that this would make it easy to accidentally open the camera. But while researching to write this review, I learned that the Maxxum 5 will open only when film is not wound around the takeup spool.

To see more from this camera, check out my Minolta Maxxum 5 gallery.

Auto-everything SLRs from late in the film era, like this Maxxum 5, are the great bargains of film photography. You can pick these up on eBay every day for under $40, and sometimes for as low as $20, usually with a lens attached.

On the balance, Minolta made wonderful auto-everything SLRs, and the Maxxum 5 is no exception. I like them more than the contemporary Nikons and Canons that I’ve tried. The Maxxum 5’s small size and rich featureset distinguishes it from the other Maxxums I’ve used. This camera is a keeper.

If you like old film cameras, check out all of my reviews here!
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Camera Reviews

Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

The Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6 is an instant camera in Fujifilm’s extremely popular Instax line. Its mission is fun — photos of your crew at the football game, selfies with your partner, and snaps of your family good times. This camera is point-and-shoot simple: turn it on, frame in the viewfinder, press the button. With a click and a whir, a square photograph ejects out of the top of the camera. It develops in about 90 seconds.

Fujifilm has produced a dizzying array of Instax camera models. They all fall in one of three series: Mini, Square, and Wide. Each series makes small images of 1.8×2.4 inches, 2.4×2.4 inches, and 3.9×2.4 inches, respectively.

The Square SQ6 comes in five colors: gray, blue, red, white, and gold. There’s also a Taylor Swift Edition with her name plastered all over the front. I went with gold because that color was on sale.

The camera sets exposure automatically, but focus is fixed. There are two focal lengths, normal and close, which to my eye look more like wide and normal. I wasn’t able to find any information about the lens, such as aperture or those focal-length measurements. I’m sure Fujifilm thinks this camera’s normal user photographs so casually as not to care about such details.

The Square SQ6 offers several modes: selfie, macro, landscape, light (which adds a stop or two of exposure) and dark (which reduces exposure by a stop or two). Selfie and macro mode use the close focal length; all others use the normal focal length. There’s also a double-exposure mode which lets you press the shutter button twice before the camera ejects the photograph. The mode button is on the back; press it to cycle through the modes, which are arrayed across the camera’s back near the top. A small light glows over the mode you select.

The built-in flash defaults to always firing. You can turn it off by pressing the no-flash button on the camera’s back. The camera also comes with orange, purple, and green plastic filters that snap onto the flash, to cast your photo in colored light.

The Square SQ6 also includes a self timer. The button is on the back with the mode and no-flash buttons. Press it, then press the shutter button, and the shutter fires ten seconds later. There’s a tripod mount on the bottom of the camera so you can put yourself in group photos.

By the way, if you’re into instant photography, I’ve also reviewed a bunch of Polaroid cameras: the venerable SX-70 (here), the OneStep 600 (here), the One600 (here), the Colorpack II (here), and the Automatic 250 (here). Or check out all of my camera reviews here!

Instax Square photos are small, and sit comfortably in the palm of your hand. While the image area is 2.4×2.4 inches, the print itself is slightly larger at 2.8×3.4 inches. Polaroid SX-70/600/I-Type prints are noticeably larger, at 3.5×4.2 inches. I scanned the images in this review on my Canon CanoScan 9000F Mark II to 1,000 pixels on the long end. I’m displaying them in this review at 500 pixels on the long end. They look small on the screen, but when viewed on the Web it’s still larger than the print’s actual size.

Fujifilm produces a color and a black-and-white film for its Instax Square cameras. The color film is good and saturated, as you might expect from a photo system whose mission is to be a part of fun times with family and friends. This film especially loves blue.

Methodist church - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

I used Landscape mode for the photo above, which put the in-focus patch between 6 feet 7 inches and infinity. I used Normal mode for this photo, which put the in-focus patch between 1 foot 7 inches and 6 feet 7 inches.

Sidewalk Closed - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

The black-and-white film has a creamy look and a pleasing tonality, though shadow areas block up easily. I favor the black-and-white film and shoot it most often in this camera.

Bowl on her head - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

It’s a bit much that Fujifilm uses the term “macro” for the SQ6’s close-focusing mode since it lets you focus only from 12 to 20 inches. At that distance you get a lot of horizontal and vertical parallax error because of the viewfinder’s top-left placement. In this photo, I hadn’t figured out yet how much to offset the subject in the viewfinder.

On the table - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

It turns out that the O in the center of the viewfinder creates the top and right bounds for macro mode. Why Fujifilm didn’t use framing lines like every other camera in the history of cameras is beyond me. Even when I used the O to frame in macro mode, I still cut off some of my image on the right.

Nativity close up - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

I rather liked selfie mode. There’s a little mirror on the front of the camera, right next to the lens. The idea is that you put your face in the mirror and press the button. But much like macro mode, selfie mode suffers from parallax. To get a photo with your face in the center of the photograph, put your face toward the left of the mirror.

Outdoor selfie - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

I’m not a double exposure kind of guy, but I tried double exposure mode anyway to see how it worked. Here’s a picture of our garish loveseat in front of the living room window plus a bathroom mirror selfie. Yawn. But as you can see, this mode works.

Double double - Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

The viewfinder is the SQ6’s fatal flaw. It’s just so inaccurate, which makes it hard to get a photograph that matches what you frame. When I made this photograph, the house filled the viewfinder. I also forgot to turn on Landscape mode so it would be more in focus.

I used the Square SQ6 to photograph my family’s Christmas celebration. Perhaps I should have chosen color film for it, but I had one pack of Monochrome left and that’s what I shot. I found that when I filled the viewfinder with the person I was photographing, I got images like this, with lots of surrounding context. How frustrating. Why can’t what I see in the viewfinder reasonably represent the image I’m making?

To see more photos from this camera, check out my Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6 gallery.

The Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6 is a fun camera for making snapshots of family and friends. It’s tricky to use this camera for anything else. The Square SQ6 just isn’t a great camera for the kinds of subjects I usually photograph. The film is pretty good for instant film, but you’ll never mistake it for Tri-X or Portra. The viewfinder’s top-left placement creates parallax that takes skill and luck to overcome, and is this camera’s fatal flaw.

Even though I’ve owned a few hundred film cameras in my lifetime, only a handful of them were brand new when I got them. Of them, only this one was still available for sale new at the time I wrote a review of it.

But if you want one, act fast: Fujifilm might have discontinued this camera, as it’s no longer listed on the official Instax site. You can still buy them here and there, but probably only out of available stock. Once that dries up, you’ll have to turn to the used market to get a Square SQ6.

If you like old film cameras, check out all of my reviews here!
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Camera Reviews

Camera reviews in 2021

Even though I’ve deliberately shrunk my collection to a manageable 30-ish cameras, I still like trying a new-to-me old camera. I’m just likely to pass it on to a next owner now when I’m finished with it. Here are the cameras I reviewed in 2021.

Minolta Maxxum 7000i. This workhorse auto-everything SLR did stunning work through the zoom lens I bought to go with it. It handles so easily.

The Apple iPhone 6s camera. The camera in the iPhone I used for several years did really good work. My only real complaint was that its default viewing aspect is so wide.

Kodak Monitor Six-20. I’ve owned this camera for years, and reviewed it once a long time ago. I’ve used it enough since that I wrote a new review based on my further experience with the camera.

Minolta Maxxum HTsi. This small, light auto-everything SLR is a pleasure to use. Minolta was really knocking them out of the park in this era of its cameras.

Nikon F50. This early Nikon auto-everything SLR was heavy and didn’t have all the usage idioms down yet. But it remains a capable shooter.

Nikon F-801s. I didn’t love this camera; I found it to be ponderous and slow. It’s an early auto-everything SLR for the semi pro or advanced amateur.

Aires Viscount. This 35mm rangefinder camera was a real surprise — it handles pretty well and has a fine lens.

Pentax ME F. This was the first autofocus 35mm SLR to reach the market, but it was challenging to use and thus a dead end.

Canon Snappy 50. This early 35mm point-and-shoot camera still delivers the goods today.

Sears KSX-P. This 35mm SLR was manufactured by Chinon for Sears, and is a fine performer. This camera is a real sleeper.

Ansco Standard Speedex. This viewfinder camera for 120 film comes from Binghamton, New York, and still makes very nice images.

Minolta XD-11. This manual-focus SLR is on a lot of people’s top-SLR lists. I thought it was fine, but I didn’t love it.

Yashica TL Electro X. This manual-focus 35mm SLR is heavy and solid, and its lens is very good.

Kodak VR35 K12. This 1986 35mm point-and-shoot is large and clumsy, but boy does its Tessar-design lens return lovely images.

Nikon N70. The quirky user interface on this 1990s 35mm SLR isn’t as bad as everybody says — but it’s not great, either. Fortunately, the camera is capable anyway.

Nikon FA. An updated review of Nikon’s most technologically advanced manual-focus 35mm SLR ever.

Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Category Archives: Camera Reviews

Reto Ultra Wide and Slim

Pentax ME SE

Kodak Retina Ia

Minolta Maxxum 5

Fujifilm Instax Square SQ6

Camera reviews in 2021