When my good friend nicolas_noir told me he had purchased 17 brand new cameras for £11, I did not hold out much hope for the sort of quality photos the cameras would produce. Always in the mood for a bargain, however, I decided to take the plunge and see what happened.
Unfortunately, after some fairly extensive searching online — I could only come up with this one photo of the Exacta camera, courtesy of “libertytradinggb” over on ebid.net from May 2011.
Aside from the photo above, I cannot find out anything about this little camera anywhere, although I believe (and please correct me if I am wrong) gvelasco mentions this camera in his amazing comparison article of the La Sardina and Vivitar UWS. In this article, he calls it an Exakta Fun but I am pretty sure as he is on about little plastic cameras with a wide lens then he must mean this one. I have found a lot of stuff online about a manufacturer called Exakta but my camera is definitely an Exacta with a C like in the photo above. Anyway, I digress.
I met Adam (nicolas_noir) in a pub at the end of last year and he had some of these cheap little 64p cameras on him to sell on, so I of course had to buy one. I wanted to use it right away to see the results so I threw in a roll of Kodak BW400CN and took the camera on strike with me.
I was absolutely thrilled with the results. The focus was brilliant, the angle was wide! All this for just 64 pence seemed to good to be true. I have used the camera since then and been even more thrilled to be able to use the hotshoe and flash a bit of colour onto the photos. I think that often, when buying a cheap point-and-shoot toy camera like this, they never seem to come with a hotshoe. Although they are a bit grainy and underexposed so I think I will use it with the Diana flash next time for a bit of a brighter flash.
I am really chuffed with the results I keep getting from this little camera, and the fact that it is so cheap means it is an ideal candidate for nights out and rough days in the park when carrying anything too pricey would be a no no. I also love the saturation of the colours I got shooting with this outdoors on a sunny day and I can tell that this is going to be a favourite of mine over the summer months.
FYI: Mine didn’t come with binoculars!
7 comments
icuresick
Looks like a repainted Vivitar IC 100
http://www.lomograph(…)ys-lca-plus
johnccc
Love it !
martinchinu
neanderthalis
Super fun find!
roald
does it have a 28mm lens? if so, i have similar toycam but comes with the name 'boshi' and i love it!
check this out - http://www.lomograph(…)he-holi-day
easilydistracted
I was going to say about the binoculars, I didnt get them either haha
jeyku
i've just paid £3.99 for one of these - now i feel ripped off! just joking - thanks for the article, really looking forward to giving it a go.