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Minox B, Sub-miniature Camera 1968
It really is beautifully made, like a fine watch, and as you pull the camera apart you cock the shutter mechanism. You have to set the focus manually; the viewfinder is coupled to the focus dial to minimise parallax errors. For close-up work, photographing documents and secret plans, you use the measuring rings on the chain to gauge the focal distance. The exposure setting is elegantly simple, you press a little button next to the light meter dial to take a reading then rotate the shutter speed dial (the large one in the middle) until an arrow on the meter dial aligns with the meter needle. It’s quick and accurate and just the job if you are in a hurry, with the baddies about catch up with you. When you press the shutter button it makes a really satisfying (though not too loud) clockwork motor sound. There’s more gadgets; the knurled strip above the viewfinder window slides a Neutral Density filter in front of the lens, and there’s a circle marked on one of the two shutter leaves, so you can tell if you’ve taken the shot or not. There’s also an accurate frame counter, a flash synch socket, and shed loads of accessories, that Q would be proud of. There even used to be specialist films including, as I recall, infrared film for really dark conditions. Best of all, it takes really great pictures. What Happened to It? The Minox heritage lives on and the company, now owned by Leica still makes miniature and sub-miniature cameras. Personally I don’t think the modern ones are a patch on this one and its predecessors. They are still small and very cute but they just don’t look like proper spy cameras any more. As I say I bought this one over 30 years, along with a Minox developing tank, which I stupidly sold to another enthusiast some years later. I think I paid around £50 for both items, which was probably a bit over the top. Quite a few model B’s were made so they’re not exactly scarce; model As are rarer and therefore dearer. Good Minox Bs can be found on ebay for less than £100, and considering the precision workmanship I reckon that’s a fantastic bargain. GIZMO GUIDE First seen: 1958 Original Price £75.00? Value Today? £100.00 Features: Complan Lens, f=15mm, manual shutter (T, B, 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, 1/20, 1/50, 1/100, 1/200, 1/500, 1/1000), manual focus (8in – infinity)2 –stage ND filter, external flash sync, Selenium light meter, measuring chain, Power req. n/a Weight: 125g Dimensions: 100 x 28 x 18mm (case closed) Made in: Germany Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 6
Polaroid
Land Camera Model 330 1969
The 330
is a real handful, and that's before you've figured out how to unfold it and
drive the bizarre rangefinder focus mechanism. Once you've taken a picture you
need three hands to develop a print. It's a real palaver, first you have to
pull a white tab, then pinch and tug at a yellow tab that draws the print
through a set of rollers, spreading a secret chemical concoction across the
surface of the exposed negative and positive papers. You then had to carefully
time the process, making sure it was neither too hot or too cold, then peel it
apart. Most times you ended up with an image that was either too bright or too
dark, so you had to start over. It was sheer genius and Polaroid couldn't lose
with prints working out at around a pound a pop (and that was when a pound was
worth something...). What
Happened To It? The 330
was phased out in the early 1970s to be replaced by a new range increasingly
elaborate instant cameras and although briefly challenged by the likes of Kodak
and Fuji, Polaroid was the only game in town if you wanted a picture on paper
in a hurry. Then it all came crashing down in the early 1990s with the first
stirrings of digital cameras. It took another ten years before digicams and
colour printer technology came of age but it was all downhill from and
eventually even professional photographers, who had kept the technology afloat,
bailed out. This one is a boot sale bargain, it cost £5.00 (haggled down from £8.00) and it came complete with the original flashgun, leather carry case and even the instructions. It is in fantastic condition and I have every reason to suppose it is good working order but I'll have to wait until I can find a film for it. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1969 Original
Price
£40 Value Today? £25 Features:
Instant camera, 2-element 114mm, f/8.8
lens, rangefinder focus, auto ‘electric eye’ shutter manual iris
(lighten/darken), 75/3000 asa colour/black and white film, film timer,
detachable flashgun Power req. n/a Weight: 1kg Dimensions: 200 x 150 x 75mm Made in: USA Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 51
Chinon 722-P Classic Super 8 Cine, 1973
The Chinon 722-P Classic featured here is a prime example; it’s a mid-range ‘family’ model that uses Super 8 film cartridges, developed in the 1960s. As the name suggests the film used is 8mm wide, each cartridge holds 50 feet of film, enough to 3 minutes and 20 seconds of shooting. This model has only a handful of controls, the start/stop button on the handgrip and zoom rocker on the top. There’s also an on/off switch on the side and a battery test button on the top, and that’s it. Just load four AA cells into the handle, pop in a film cartridge, frame the shot in the optically coupled viewfinder and press the Start button. Everything is automatic and the only decision you need to take when to start and stop recording. When the film is finished you send it off to be developed. The more adventurous, and those making, shall we say more exotic sorts of films, could develop them at home, usually with nothing more complicated than a bucket and a bottle or two readily available chemicals. The real problem was cine came when the film was returned and the need to mess about setting up a screen and a projector. On the plus side editing was really easy, all you needed was a pair of scissors and some sticky tape. Another major advantage of cine, that’s been long forgotten in the age of video, was that with so little filming time to play around with the need to think carefully about each shot meant that each shot counted and little was wasted. The Chinon 722-P is really sturdily made, very well balanced and since this one is still working faultlessly after more 30 years, you can take it as read that it was very reliable. What happened to it? In a word, video. The first clumsy and overweight portable video outfits appeared in the late 1970s but they were little of no threat to cine. Then in the early 1980s the first camcorders were launched, they were still large and clumsy but by the mid 80s small hand-held models were coming out of the woodwork. Prices fell and by the late 80s cine was dead. Ironically it wasn’t until the mid 90s that video picture quality started to beat top-end cine but it was all over for film. There’s a still a small hard core of enthusiasts and cine cameras are a regular at car boot sales (this one cost me £2.00) so there are plenty of bargains to be had but grab-em quick, they are disappearing fast. GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1972 Original
Price
£100.00 Value Today? £15 Features:
2 x power zoom, auto exposure, through-the-lens
optical viewfinder Weight: 0.8kg Dimensions: 180 x 53 x 180 mm Made in: Japan Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 4 Kodak EK2 ‘The Handle’ 1977 (manual)
However, although the cameras were comparatively cheap, film packs were horribly expensive, costing around ten times as much as normally developed film and everyone knew most instant cameras were bought by people who wanted to take pictures that were, shall we say, of a ‘private’ nature… Incidentally, in 1977 Polaroid developed an ‘Instant Movie’ camera system, called Polavision, it was a huge flop, and the timing was dreadful, coming just a couple of years before the first video movie systems.
Polaroid had the instant
still camera market pretty much to themselves but in the mid seventies Kodak
and several other manufacturers bought out instant film cameras, though as we
shall see Polaroid were not about to give up their market dominance without a
fight.
The Kodak EK2 dates from 1977 and was quickly dubbed ‘The Handle’ because of the large handgrip. It’s very easy to use, pop in a 10-shot PR10 pack, crank the handle and its ready to go, the film number is shown in a small window on the back. To take a shot frame your subject in the optical viewfinder, pull back on the large blue shutter button on the right side, crank the handle and out comes the print, which develops in daylight in a couple of minutes. If the picture was too light or dark there’s a crude exposure control on the lens, operated by a thumbwheel. Indoors or in the dark you clipped on a Flip Flash, which contains a set of 10 flashbulbs. Like the Flashcube it was a brilliant way of extorting money from users, with Flip Flash bars costing several times as much as the equivalent number of single-shot flashbulbs.
What Happened to It? Kodak’s dalliance with Instant Film cameras lasted from 1976 to 1986 and was brought to an abrupt end following a two-year lawsuit bought against the company by Polaroid, for infringing its patents. Part of the ruling was that Kodak had to stop production and compensate stranded camera owners. Anyone who owned one could return it to Kodak in return for a cash, coupons and rebates. This meant that although millions of them were made relatively few are still in circulation. Unfortunately there’s little or no possibility of this or any other Kodak instant camera ever working again but makes an interesting addition to any gadget collection. Good examples, complete with case and accessories can only increase in value.
GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1977 Original
Price
£40 Value Today? £20 Features:
10-shot Instant camera, manual
‘lighten-darken’ exposure control, 10-shot ‘Flashbar/Flipflash’, manual wind Power req. 6V ‘J’ Battery Weight: 0.8kg (ex film pack) Dimensions: 140 x 175 x 140 mm Made in: England Hen’s Teeth (10 rarest): 6 Kodak Instamatic Camera & Magicubes 1972
It all sounds a bit obvious
now but before then you had to faff around with roll film, threading it onto a
roller that more often than not didn’t wind the film on properly. 126
Instamatics remained tremendously popular for more than 10 years. The 56X was
nothing special, just one of hundreds of very basic fixed focus and exposure
manual wind cameras made by Kodak and countless other manufacturers but because
they were so cheap and cheerful they were regarded as semi-disposable so
probably not that many have survived. The amazing Magicube really
deserves its own Dustygizmo slot. What makes Magicubes really clever is the
fact that they are pyrotechnic, rather than electrical devices. As you probably
know one-shot flashbulbs are filled with a fine magnesium ribbon that’s ‘fired’
by passing a small current through an element. This heats up the magnesium so
that it burns and gives off a brilliant flash of light. Magicubes were more
like small fireworks. They are fired by the camera pressing a pin in the base
of the bulb. It works a bit like striking a match, setting off the magnesium in
the bulb. It’s simple, reliable (mostly) and there’s no need for batteries.
More importantly for Kodak and the other manufacturers they were very
profitable as they cost several times as much as ordinary flashbulbs What happened to it?Magicubes were always a bit of a con, most users disliked them because they were expensive and incredibly wasteful and they all but disappeared when cheap electronic flash systems were developed. Sales of 126 Instamatics
had started to tail off by the early 1970s so Kodak introduced the 110
cartridge format in 1973, which enabled cameras to be made even smaller and
cuter. After an initial burst of interest that too started to wane, so Kodak’s
next attempt to maintain their market share was the ‘Disc’ camera format in
1982 (pencilled in for a future Gadget of the Week). It didn’t do very well and
by that time first generation digital still cameras were just starting to
appear. Kodak never saw it coming
and plugged away with its core photographic film business and in 1994 it introduced
its last gasp effort, the clever but ultimately doomed APS format. But by then
it was too late, digital photography had started to take off, Kodak belatedly
jumped aboard the bandwagon but it lost out by being so slow and it has seen
its film camera business virtually disappear. But relics like these live on and
are becoming collectable, especially the more elaborate Instamatics; there was
even an SLR type. Look out too for Disc cameras; because of the format’s lack
of popularity and relatively short life they are comparatively rare and good
examples could become a worthwhile investment. Check out the Kodak Classics website for everything
you ever wanted to know about these cameras
GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1972 Original
Price
c £20 Value Today? £1 Features:
Fixed focus
f/11, 43mm lens, 1/50th sec shutter, manual wind, Magicube socket, optical
viewfinder Power req. n/a Weight: 200g Dimensions: 110 x 65 x 60 (very approx) Made in: England Rarity: 4 (1 = common, 10 = Hen's teeth) Nimslo 3D Camera 1980
It’s an ingenious design and one of the key selling points was that it used ordinary 35mm film. When you click the shutter it takes four images through each of its four lenses. The horizantal distance between the lenses -- the outer ones are spaced approximately to equal to that of our own eyes -- means that each image is taken from very slightly different angle to it neighbour. The really clever part, though, is in the processing. The four images are layered one on top of each other, and on top of that is a thin, grooved transparent film, called a ‘Lenticular’ screen. The grooves act like prisms, so as you alter the angle of the print you see the different layers, giving a strong impression of depth. It’s a bit like one of those toy badges, where the image changes as you move it What Happened to it? Nimslo prints could look spectacular but it took practice to get it just right as you had to pose your subjects and any objects in the field of view to ensure that they were at the optimum distances from the lens, to get the full 3D effect.
Unfortunately only a couple of laboratories were able to handle the special process; it took weeks, sometimes months to get a film developed and it was eye-wateringly expensive. The camera limped on for around 10 years, sustained by a small band of devotees, but it simply cost too much and it was never going to be become a mass-market product. A specialist company in Canada still provides a processing service for Nimslo film and a number of the other 3D cameras that have come (and mostly) gone over the years. If you would like to know more about this fascinating topic pop along to stereoscopy.com.
GIZMO GUIDE
First seen: 1980 Original Price £80 Value Today? £100 Features:
Continuously
variable electronically controlled shutter, fixed focus (1:5 6/30mm) lenses,
35mm film 100 - 400 ASA, manual wind and rewind, flash hot shoe, cable release
socket, double exposure prevention Power req. 2 x alkaline button cells Weight: 0.35kg (ex batteries) Dimensions: 137 x 74 x 43(very approx) Made in: UK Rarity: 8 (1 = common, 10 = Hen's teeth)
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Copyright (c) 2007 - 2008 dustygizmos.com
This is real James Bond kit, a classic sub-miniature spy
camera that was first developed back in 1936 by a German chap called Walter
Zapp. The Minox B, which I have here was made between 1958 and 1972, and I
believe this one dates from the late 1960s, due to the type of photo cell used
in the light meter. When I first acquired it, over 30 years ago, film was
readily available and developing was easy too, I actually managed to get films
processed through my local camera shop but now only a relatively small number
of companies can handle the tiny cartridges, which contain 9.2mm wide film. 
I hope
someone will write in and tell me that film packs are still available for the
Polaroid 330 Land Camera but until they do this one is purely decorative.
That's a shame because it's a really funky looking gadget, dating form the late
sixties but those bellows give it the look and feel of a film camera from the
1930s. The 330 was based on a design - the 100 series -- that first appeared in
1963 but Edwin Land, who pioneered the instant film camera, produced his first
models in 1947.
I have to admit straight away that I never got on with
cine. It always seemed to involve a lot of time, effort and expense for very
little result. There’s only so much you can cram into a 3-minute home movie and
in most cases it’s just a few wonky shots of kids cavorting on the beach.
Nevertheless, I absolutely love the mixture of precision mechanics and
technology, and it came to a peak in the seventies, just before it was killed
stone dead by video.
Instant cameras were
all the rage in the sixties and seventies, remember, there were no digital
cameras back then. The concept was brilliant, the film developed on the spot,
so no waiting for prints to come back from the chemist. It was sold as a fun,
family friendly technology.
Two for the price of one
this week with the Kodak Instamatic 56X and the ‘Magicube’. The Instamatic
camera range started in 1963 and was the first commercially successful attempt
to create a totally idiot-proof camera using a drop in film cartridge. The
‘126’ cartridge was fully enclosed and all you had to do was pop it in the back
of the camera, wind it on, point and shoot.
Named after its US
inventors, Dr Jerry Nims and Allan Lo, the Nimslo camera was one of the most
successful attempts at a 3D photographic system to date. Prototypes were developed in
the late 1970s and it finally went on sale in 1980 for around £80; the cameras
were built in the UK, by Timex Ltd. at its Dundee plant.