Fuji Half

It is a stylish little camera

Half frame cameras are having a moment right now. The attraction of getting twice as many shots on your roll of 35mm film is hard to ignore. Pentax have recently launched a new half-frame camera and there are also cheaper (although rather expensive for what they are) half frame offerings out there too.

The Fuji Half dates from 1963. It is a quality lump of metal that looks the part and unlike the new ones you can buy today it has shiny metal and proper heft. It is quite easy to use. You set the film speed on the back and it sorts out exposure (rather well in my experience) but you have to do the focusing yourself, adjusting the lens to the right distance. The film advance uses a neat little lever.

No batteries are required. The exposure meter uses a light powered selenium cell which lasts for ever, or until it breaks. If the camera has been kept in its case the cell will probably be OK, if not you will be stuck with a single shutter speed which is not much fun. The viewfinder is nice and bright, and it shows the shutter and aperture settings along with marks that help you frame close up subjects. You can use a flash with it, but you’ll have to plug it into the socket on the front and then set the aperture by hand. The frame counter is hidden on the bottom of the camera. It goes all the way up to 72, which is what you would get from a 36 exposure film.

The camera takes shots in portrait mode. If you have a film processed you’ll get two images per frame, which is rather nice. The lens is lovely and sharp and I really like the pictures it turns out.

If you are thinking of getting into photography you could do a lot worse than pick up one of these. And if you are already into photography it’s a nice thing to have around. They seem to be nudging up in price at the moment (at least in terms of what folks are asking for them on ebay). If you see a tidy one with a working meter for less than the price of a video game I think it would be worth a punt.

Minolta Vectis-S1

The Minolta Vectis S-1 camera is not particularly pretty. But it is pretty cheap. I picked up the example above for less than ten pounds. It is cheap for two reasons:

1. It uses a type of film which is no longer made.

2. It probably won’t work when you get it.

The camera uses Advanced Photo System film which was launched in the 1990’s and abandoned in 2011. But this is not a huge problem, you can still get film cassettes for it, albeit ones which will be at least 13 years old. The system uses a very complicated film loading mechanism containing many whirring and clicking parts. The first example of this camera I got made a few unhappy sounds too, followed by total lockup. But the sample above was made of sterner stuff and seems to be able to load film and take photos OK. I got hold of some film and took some shots.

I’ve not made the holders that go on top of the film yet.

The system was designed so that the film stayed in the cassette at all times. The processing and printing machinery was clever enough to get the film out of the cassette, print the shots you wanted and then wind it back in again. Of course I don’t have any of that machinery, so instead I designed a little holder which I can load up with film for the scanner. I then pulled the film out of the cassette and cut it into lengths for scanning.

The negatives are 16mm high with a “widescreen” aspect ratio

The results are pretty respectable for a twenty year old camera using fifteen year old film. Above is one of the more interesting ones. There is plenty of detail and the image is sharp enough . The shadows are very grainy though, probably because of the age of the film.

I’m not sure if I’d use this camera and film combination for any pictures that I really care about (although the auto-focus and exposure seem to work well). But it is fun to get out and play with.