cocopunk

The Kodak Ektar is a great camera for a specific purpose: when you plan on taking a lot of pictures without developing them until later. Like when you’re traveling, for example. If you are away from home in some exotic locale, you probably won’t be dropping off your rolls at a development place. Because you are doing other things.

What it’s not so good for is taking a few sporadic pictures here and there, when you aren’t in full “I must photograph everything” mode. For me, it’s efficiency is paradoxically it’s flaw; I don’t really want to take 70 pictures all at once. But that’s just personal style.

If I go for a walk with my camera, I might take ten pictures on a Saturday afternoon, and finish the roll over a few weekends. Carrying around a camera while getting a cup of coffee is like, my whole deal. I don’t do photo shoots; I run errands while carrying a camera.

Shooting half-frame, it might take seven such weekends to finish the roll. Cost-effective! Also a little excruciating! But perhaps you are more patient than me and can happily wait months to see what you shot.

Of course, that efficiency is not itself a flaw. It just depends on what you want to do with a camera. As a travel camera — a quaint notion — it’s great. It’s wonderful if you’re out somewhere snapping with reckless abandon, only to sort through your precious artifacts and memories weeks later.

But that’s simply how it is to shoot half-frame. Aside from that, the Kodak Ektar is itself, well, fine.

It’s nothing more than a cheap, plastic point-and-shoot, with all the obvious limitations. You can’t adjust the aperture or exposure. Like a “toy” Lomo camera, you can only really shoot in daylight. (And even then, some shots in daylight will be over or under exposed. Black and white film will be more forgiving than color, though.) There is a flash if you’re okay with that 2010 American Apparel hipster sleaze look:

Bright daylight-only can be a substantial caveat though, when you’re talking about 70 plus frames. So many photos! But only if you have the good light! For example, the afternoon light on the left looked gorgeous but it needed a couple stops of exposure more. And on the right, a little over exposed:

I also found that point-and-shoots just aren’t as much fun for me. I actually like wrestling with all the buttons and levers and light readings to try and get something good. That’s part of the fun.

Another thing about using something that is not an SLR is that I forgot the viewfinder is not actually looking through the lens. Sometimes the carrying strap was dangling in my photos, or my finger was in the frame, and other stupid things like that (see below). Live and learn. But these limitations are entirely reasonable given the cost ($40-$50).

If I wanted to shoot more half-frame photos I would probably try to find an affordable Olympus Pen F, which is an actual pint-sized SLR. Pretty much any vintage half-frame camera will offer more exposure controls than a point-and-shoot (or at least have automatic exposure adjustments).

Even if I were traveling I would probably shoot digital, to be honest. So the Ektar is fun and interesting, but not quite suited for the real world. It looks cool, though.