You just got to love these “Instamatics”

There isn't much to 'em, and they are actually quite unsightly, but they make some cool photos.

It's all , but it seems to last.

Mine was my fathers,  don't know when he bought it, but my guess is sometime in the late 70 ties. And the still works today, but it might be because it hasn't been used for a decade or two, I think that if you were going to use it regularly, it properly wouldn't last as long.

It doesn't get any easier.

Then, with these old Instamatic cameras. You just pop in a  cartridge, close the lid, and you're ready to go. The problem nowadays, is that it's quite expensive to get hold of a 126 cartridge, you can find them on eBay, or if your lucky in a camera at a flea market.
A downside to that, is that the film is very old – and not kept in a cold place – and that can give you some problems. Like with the film I used in my AGFAmatic. As you can see they are all underexposed, and not very usable.

I added an extra galley below, with photo's I made with a Instamatic 55x, just to show you that you can also get some really cool photo's.

I recently bought an adapter, which makes it possible to use normal film in an Instamatic. You can get them here at Camerahack I'll also make a review of the adapter once I have used it a few more times.

Mine was free!

As I mentioned earlier, I got mine from my father – which means for free – but Instamatic's come really cheap, you can find them at flea markets for a few bucks.

Awesomeness…

As far as I can figure out, I did my very first photo with this camera, way back in 1982. And that is pretty awesome. But other than that, there isn't really anything awesome about this camera, other than it's old and super easy to use.

NB: I know it's only the Kodak version, that's called Instamatic, but it is my perception that Instamatic is the common name used for these kinds of camera's.  

Camerapedia Camera-wiki.org

  • The Looks
  • The Quality
  • The Handling
  • The Price
  • The Output
2.5

In short!

It's an Instamatic, disguised as an AGFAmatic. You either love or hate em.

Pros

Cons

  • 126 cartridges
  • No settings
  • A bit expensive to use

Photo gallery

Photos made with a Kodak Instamatic 55X

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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2 Comments

  1. Fatima Codilla November 7, 2023
    • Bo47 November 10, 2023

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