Talk:Halina 35X

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I had one of these back in the sixties. Basically the construction was poor and it tended to drop to bits. On the other hand it was much cheaper than anything else with a comparable spec. The main problem however was the stiffness of the focusing : you often missed a shot trying to get the lens somewhere near focused. Despite all of which I got a lot of good shots when I remembered to tension the shutter!

Reply to comment above(The following note refers to the UK market) The stiffness of the focussing ring was not necessarily seen as a problem. The Halina 35x was aimed at first time buyers of 35mm film cameras - the kind of person who previously had been using a box camera or simple folder. By definition we are all camera buffs who contribute to this site and we forget how 35mm was sold - You could, it was said, get 36 photographs for the same price as 12 shots on 120 rollfilm. The truth is they came out at a time before cheap automatic cameras and they were designed for people who wanted to use 35mm film without the bother of learning about photography. The assistants in Dixons (or wherever) would set the camera at 1/50th of a second at f8 and the purchaser would go away knowing that they could get away with taking most subjects out doors at a distance from 15ft to infinity as long as they kept the sun behind them. (this technique according to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thorpehamlet/133355668/">Dick Nunn</a> of Exposure Cameras was known as box-camera-ing it). The stiff focussing ring meant that the settings were unlikely to change

Some comment should also be made about the design of the Halina 35x. First of all (and it is the elephant in the room): It looks sort of like a Leica right down to the red trademark. Secondly it was small compared to other 35 mm cameras on the market.

The Halina 35x and the TLR Halina are also the subjects of a persistent urban legend in the UK. I heard it first at a Photographica in London in the 1980s and heard it last in Norwich about two weeks ago. It runs thus; Ilford (or another British camera company) were going to try a final throw of the dice and produce a high quality 35mm camera but before it could go into production they went bust. Halina bought the lenses for this unmade camera cheaply as bankrupt stock which accounts for the good results it supposedly gives. When I was a member of the Photographic Collectors Club Of Great Britain several attempts were made to investigate the truth or otherwise of this story but to no avail. I think it is probably an urban myth or an early example of viral advertising. The truth is of course that any lens -even the bottom of a milk bottle- will give a good result if you stop it down far enough. --Colonel Blink 00:21, 1 March 2011 (PST)