Halina 35X. One of the All-Time Worst?

Mos6502

Mos6502

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Recently I've been working my way through a backlog of undeveloped film. I had a whole box of rolls that piled up over the years. Generally if I thought I had a good photo I would develop the roll right away, and if I thought I didn't have a good photo the roll would sometimes disappear into a box of other uninteresting rolls, saved I guess for a rainy day. At the bottom of this box was a roll of Lucky SHD 100, so I knew it was old. Upon development, I was a little stumped. I couldn't remember what camera I used at first, but as I was inspecting the negatives I finally saw a couple frames that ignited long dormant memories.

I had shot two or three rolls through a Halina 35X c. 2010. It was in all respects a terrible camera. It looks kind of cool, I'll admit, but everything about it felt kind of off. It is basically the ripoff of the Nescon camera (see my thread on the Soligor rebrand of this camera here). It has a spring regulated shutter (setting the shutter to higher speeds increases the spring tension... there is no clockwork, and thus no accuracy, in the timing mechanism) and a triplet lens (which in a hilarious fit of penny pinching, only the outer elements got coated!). The advance mechanism feels like stirring a pot of gravel, and the rewind requires you to pull and lift the advance knob up, and press down a rewind "button" against significant spring pressure while using a comically tiny rewind knob to get the film back into its cassette - this ends up being literally painful. And even then I always managed to rip at least a few sprocket holes during the rewind process.

step by Berang Berang, on Flickr

valve by Berang Berang, on Flickr

Above: The recently developed roll. I'm honestly impressed that the Lucky film held the latent image for over a decade without losing much, if any contrast. There was no base fog to speak of either. Prints were made quickly, I may go back and do a proper job of the one of the stairs, I think it has some promise of being a good photo with a little more effort.

And a color image from the same camera:
stone faced by Berang Berang, on Flickr

The 35X was relatively popular in England, where it was just about the cheapest "real" 35mm camera one could get, and there are plenty in the UK who have some nostalgia for these tiny, chintzy cameras. I did not hold on to mine, it left my collection after only a handful of rolls had gone through it.
 
Funny you mention this camera -- the other day I saw a picture in a Craigslist posting where a seller had taken pictures of displays of the cameras he had for sale at an antiques center. One of them was this Halina but I couldn't make out what it was until I went to the place and saw it in person.

I don't think I'd heard of the camera before, so I looked it up and the consensus of the online reviews was pretty much what you used as your caption. It does sound pretty rudimentary, but the pictures you've posted seem pretty good -- decently sharp.

Instead I bought an Agfa Super Silette with Solagon 50 (q.v.) for the same price he was asking for the Halina.
 
I bought one some time ago because I'd liked some of the "Lo-Fi" photos that it gives wide open, which I'd seen online. My problem was that the eyepiece of the viewfinder was tiny (partly 'cos I'm a speccy-four-eyes) and I couldn't be doing with that, so I bought a super 35x with it's big viewfinder to try and get the Lo-Fi "looks like a still from an old silent film" type photos. Not got around to using it yet.
 
The last one of these I owned had an awkward fault - the shutter blades opened a fraction when cocking the shutter. I couldn't find a way of fixing this, for all the shutter's simplicity.
 
Have any of you any photos of the shutter for the self-cocking version?

I'm playing with one at the moment (it only worked at 1/200, so not a great loss of I can't fix it, but I do like to give things the best chance) and I am damned if I can work it how to set it up so that the
 
Have any of you any photos of the shutter for the self-cocking version?

I'm playing with one at the moment (it only worked at 1/200, so not a great loss of I can't fix it, but I do like to give things the best chance) and I am damned if I can work it how to set it up so that the cam ring is cocked, and can allow the shutter to open. The only instructions I can find out there are for the user- cocked version, which cocks from the opposite side of the cam ring. Those are here: Topic – Halina 35x On The Slab
 
Dralowid said:
I reckon some would consider the Bencini Comet to be the worst, the Halina has just a tiny bit of style.
Click to expand...
That's fighting talk, pal!

Shined up as intended, the Comet actually has a bit of appeal, it certainly looks like nothing else. Amazing the difference a bit of shining can make to the look.

I should point out that I have a roll of Rerapan in the fridge waiting to be developed from mine. And that I'm quite pleased of the job I made on the lettering...
 
...and you got stickers telling you what you'd buggered up!

It's not so many years ago that you could get 5 24-exposure rolls of Fuji 200 in there for £5.99, tell kids that these days and they don't believe you.

Mind you, Boots in Oxford now stocks (very small stocks) 120, which it can't have done for decades.
 
Dralowid said:
I reckon some would consider the Bencini Comet to be the worst, the Halina has just a tiny bit of style.
Click to expand...
Oh dear! I have to admit that I have owned both the Comet and the Halina, both purchased new in the late 50's early 60's. The Comet from Boots in Canterbury and the Halina from a small photo shop in Herne Bay. After just leaving school and in my first job that was all I could afford. A few years later I 'upgraded'' to an Halina A1 TLR and eventually a Voigtlander VitoB, my first real camera. Actually both the Halina 35X and A1 took quite reasonable photos, particularly the A1. See examples below:-

Halina 35X
War Memorial Gardens-1959.jpg

Halina A1
img056.jpg
 
Johngwill said:
Oh dear! I have to admit that I have owned both the Comet and the Halina, both purchased new in the late 50's early 60's. The Comet from Boots in Canterbury and the Halina from a small photo shop in Herne Bay. After just leaving school and in my first job that was all I could afford. A few years later I 'upgraded'' to an Halina A1 TLR and eventually a Voigtlander VitoB, my first real camera. Actually both the Halina 35X and A1 took quite reasonable photos, particularly the A1. See examples below:-

Halina 35X
View attachment 4855385

Halina A1
View attachment 4855387
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Wow, I didn't expect Hernia Bay to get a look in on here! I had student digs there 1991-93, literally half way down the West Cliff below the Hotel St George at the end of Ridgeway Cliff.

Canterbury must have been a strange place in the late 1950s, if the plaques reading "The historic X stood here until 1958" are anything to go by. I've always read that as the post-Blitz rebuild didn't start until then. Ironically, while I was there most of that redevelopment was being pulled down and replaced itself - I was last there circa 1999, and didn't recognise sizeable chunks of the centre from only a few years before.
 
I assume the Blue Streak was being deployed by the population of Herne Bay keen to vaporise Planet Thanet?

I was the proud owner of an Instamatic 50, I don't think the US ever bothered with this lowly version. A friend from abroad had a Bilora that came in a tin!
 
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