The first post of 2025 and I have updated the widgets to remind me of one goal for the year, the G.A.S. attack problem. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see 🙂

Anyway, this camera was not from an attack but from a generous friend. He gave me two 127 cameras, this is the first I am writing about. I was going to use them both on 127 day, but the last one coincided with a weather warning. That meant staying home and not playing with toy cameras, and this one seems to be of that ilk. Take a look…

I was also give a very torn up paper which had all the instructions on. Here is are scans which was the only way I could look at them without damaging the paper more.

There isn’t much to it, a simple point and shoot with the additional choice of a few apertures for weather adjustment. You can see those choices in the photos and in the instructions. Interestingly, there is also a shutter lock which always comes in handy. It was made in Japan around 1960. Though there is information about the apertures available, there is no information about the shutter speed. To the naked eye, it seems quicker than 1/50th so I would hazard a guess at 1/100th at the very most, downhill with wind assistance.

I loaded mine with some 120 Kentmere 400 cut down to 127. It has been quite dull…wait, I am tired of writing that where is the sun? Anyway, I pushed the film a little to compensate, but the results were still a little dark. I was careful when cutting the film and I could just about see the numbers in the red window. I also worked out beforehand that I could turn the advance about one and a half turns to move past each 4×4 frame. When I saw the negative strip, I realised I could have gotten away with a single turn after the first 2 frames.

Here are my results which were developed in Pyro-510.

Actually, the results have an interesting look. They are sharper than I expected, with the focus dissipating away from the center. The curve of the pressure plate is probably the reason for this.

It’s a surprisingly expensive camera for what it is, probably due to its age and relative sharpness. If the film size wasn’t so awkward, I would be tempted to use it again with colour film. You can see more results at the Lomography website. I would put it on par with a Holga GCFN. If you were willing to cut film down to 127, it would be a fun addition to your collection. As for me, I am going to return it to the original owner, maybe with a roll of cut 127 for him to play with.