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This camera came into my posession in an interesting way. I wanted to reskin a camera for a friends birthday. I wanted one that I knew worked, but was also a bargain…you gotta love a bargain. So I went along to West Yorkshire Camera and asked if they had a junk bin, they did and brought it out for me. In the bin was this camera. It was a bit scruffy, but seemed to work as it should, there was a battery inside. I bought it straight away.

I have already tried the CE-4 version, which is my Spiderman camera. The CE-4s has a few differences, the main one being the increase in top speed from 1/1000th to 1/2000th. Another difference I like is the addition of a judas window. I thought the S might mean ‘speed’ due to the increased top speed, but this website says it stands for sporty.

Of course I needed to test the camera worked before I reskinned it. I couldn’t give a pretty, but non-working camera to my friend. So I loaded it will a roll of Double-X and took it to a place I have wanted to visit, Thornton Le Dale. This village has a reputation of being a chocolate box village, it doesn’t appear in that link but it has some other villages that I might visit in the future. (I have visited some already)

Here are some of my results.

Well, the camera worked, so now I can get to reskinning it. Now, I know I promised to write about this process, but I worked on this camera before I made that promise. So, you will have to wait a little longer for a detailed description.

I knew my friend liked the colour purple, so I ordered a selection of materials in that colour. When they arrived I found it difficult to chose just one from the selection. In the end I decided to reskin two cameras, get two straps and let my friend choose the camera and strap combination they liked the most. Both cameras were pretty similar in functions, they were both working and reliable. AND at the end of the day, I think she will like owning one rather than using it, she does have a Rolleiflex and a Hasselblad.

Here are the finished choices.

For the glitter version, I covered the glitter section with a clear varnish to stop the tiny pieces from falling off so easily. Which one would you chose? She ended up choosing the Praktica. That meant I could keep the Chinon.

I loaded ‘mine’ with a roll of HP5 and took it to New Mills, an exhibition where my friend was exhibiting some photographs, and a few other places. She happily posed for some shots too.

I really liked using the camera, Chinons are underrated. They are reliable and cheap, what is not to like? And now I have a super purple version.

Update: After I had written this post and prior to posting, a very good friend of mine lost her battle with ovarian cancer. I decided to sell this camera and donate all the proceeds to cancer research. I placed a ‘to buy’ section here, and it sold immediately. Thank you so much to the very quick purchaser.

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