Lomography

Kodak Instamatic 33
written by agrimony on October 18th, 2008 , 8 comments (7 votes)

I found my instamatic camera on a flea market when I was in Amsterdam this year. It only cost 10 € and so I bought it without knowing anything about it. First I was a little bit disappointed when I noticed that normal 35mm film does not work with this camera. But I went to my photography shop of trust and asked about instamatic film. They surely had one. But it was rather expensive – 5,90 € per film because it is in little demand today.
The insertion of the cassette is really as simple as it is promised.
The camera has two exposure settings – one for cloudy weather and flash and one for sunny weather – pictured as weather icons. The Kodak Instamatic Camera does not have a standard flash shoe and so you cannot use your normal flashes. It uses flashcubes and I guess they can’t be found easily nowadays. So it’s better to just take photos outside on a sunny day – the ASA of the 126 film is always 200. I took my photos on a bright sunny day and they are very colourful and the exposure is ok too.
I made a big mistake when I took my first two rolls of film: When you take one photo and you turn the transportation wheel you can see the number of the next shot several times. That somehow confused me and so I did not turn the wheel far enough. You feel some kind of resistance when you reach the end of one shot while turning the transportation wheel. I recognized it when I only had about three or four shots left. That’s why there are yellow stripes in some of my pictures.
I am happy with my Instamatic 33 Camera because it is an easy use camera. It is very robust and I also like the easy insertion and removal of the film cassette. A disadvantage is the price of the film and that you can only get it in special photography shops. Also the development can only be done at a special shop and this can be a little bit circuitous when you live in a one-horse-town.

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