Pete's Photographic Blog

I have a confession to make.  I have worked for Kodak Ltd in the UK since 1979.  Therefore I need to declare my interest when I review any Kodak products.  The purchase of this camera was driven by my interest in Kodak's history.  The camera was manufactured in Stuttgart, Germany at about the same time that I was born.  Therefore double interest.  I picked this fully working example up on Ebay for £25. The Kodak Retina range of 35mm cameras are well known in photography.  They were produced between the mid-thirties right up until the end of the sixties.  There is plenty of information on the whole series on the internet and they are relatively easy to pick up at a reasonable price.  The model that I am looking at here is a Kodak Retina Automatic III. The camera comes in a good looking hard leather case with silver chrome trim and red velvet and plastic lining.  The top of the case cannot be separated from base but the whole c...

"David Bailey.  Who's he?"  Anyone over a 'certain' age from the UK will remember that television advert.  The Olympus Trip 35 was a small, cheapish camera that could be used by professionals because it had a Zuiko lens, "as used on the Olympus OM-1, one of the best cameras in the world".  When I was shooting film in the eighties the Trip never appealed to me.  I bought a Canon Sureshot instead.  However while trawling through the local charity shops I came across an example for £10 and couldn't resist it. The camera was in fairly good shape but did have a dent in the base plate where it had probably been dropped.  A good test for the Trip is to cover the lens, therefore also covering the light meter, and depress the shutter button.  If there isn't enough light a red indicator magically rises in the viewfinder.  On my example this didn't happen immediately.  After a few rapid depressions of the shutter release the red indicator ...