I spent a week shooting a roll of film through this cute, little APS film point-and-shoot. It made pictures, which was neat. I held it, and it felt a certain way. I used its sparse features, some of which were interesting. And in the context of a review, such as the one that I’m writing and that you are now reading, I should probably touch upon all of that.

But let’s be real. We’re here for just one reason. The camera looks like an orange.

[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

A Brief History of APS Film

APS film (an acronym for “Advanced Photo System”) is a dead film format that was first produced in 1996 and discontinued in 2011 when Kodak and FujiFilm, the format’s last two manufacturers, ceased production. It was sold under a number of brand names; Kodak Advantix, FujiFilm Nexia, Agfa Futura, and Konica Centuria.

The core idea behind APS film was an intention to simplify photography for newcomers and amateurs, to create a smaller, easier film format than 35mm film. APS film came from the factories pre-loaded into sealed canisters, which could be more easily dropped into any APS film camera than could 35mm film be loaded into a 35mm camera. All APS cameras would then handle the “complicated” operation of spooling the film through the camera for use, and reloading it into the canister after exposure, and APS film cameras were significantly smaller than comparable 35mm film cameras. In size and ease of use, at least, APS film was a success.

But APS film’s image area was significantly smaller that of 35mm film, offering just 58% of the surface area of a 35mm film. This smaller image area had an unfortunate (if predictable) side effect; compared to images made on 35mm film, APS film’s image quality was poorer. The drop in quality would be especially egregious when APS film images were printed or enlarged.

While sales of APS cameras and film were initially strong, within five years the numbers dropped significantly. Serious photographers never liked APS film because of its inferior image quality, and the format’s target demographic, amateur photographers, rapidly eschewed film en masse in favor of digital cameras.

Today, no one makes APS film, and any rolls we find will be long-expired relics of a forgotten time. Shooting expired film is fraught with peril, as described here, and here, and here. And yet my darling clementine Canon begged to be used, so I loaded a roll and crossed my fingers.

Specifications of the Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine

• Camera Type: APS format point-and-shoot film camera
• Lens: 23mm f/4.8 (3 elements in 3 groups glass Triplet design); 23mm is equivalent to 29mm in 35mm full frame format
• Focus: Automatic focus from 2 ft to infinity (3.3 ft to infinity when flash is OFF)
• Exposure: Automatic
• Flash: Built in flash; modes incl. ON, OFF, Slow Synchro, Red-Eye Reduction
• Additional Features: Drop-in film loading; Automatic film advance and rewind; Three framing modes (Classic, Wide Angle, and Panoramic; Date, Time, and Title printing functions; Magnetic Information Exchange (IX); Self-Timer; Strap

Embracing the Gimmick

The Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine is a gimmicky camera that comes from a line of unapologetically gimmicky cameras. By their very nature, APS was a pandering format. It promised to sufficiently dumb down photography to a point that any dolt could succeed. That’s a gimmick.

The cameras were small, so Canon named them “ELPH.” Not “Elf” with an F, but rather a PH. That’s also a gimmick.

And then someone in a board room asked “What if we made cameras cute?” And a product designer, hours later, munching an orange to fight the flu, doodled an orange with a lens in the middle (possibly). Another gimmick.

The result is a camera that’s as fun to look at as it is to shoot. Actually, it might be more fun to look at.

From the moment I first laid eyes on the Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine, I was ready to drink the juice. Its packaging is reminiscent of a box of orange juice. It’s strap is a friendship bracelet of sunshine. It’s plastic shell is a delightfully textured matte rind which begs to be palmed.

Using the Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine

Like most APS film point-and-shoot cameras, the ELPH Shades Sunshine is tiny, lightweight, and simple to use. True to form, one only needs to point and shoot.

The protruding handgrip fits well in the hands, and the camera balances nicely in one-handed operation. The shutter release button is large and positioned readily so that a half-press focuses and a full-press fires. The viewfinder is clean and bright, though admittedly quite small. The camera’s buttons and levers are easily identifiable, and relatively simple to press (though the top mounted SELECT and SET buttons are tiny, the strap has a little tool attached to it for pressing these).

There’s an ON/OFF slider on the front of the camera which also serves as a lens cover. Slide it to ON, peer through the camera’s viewfinder, and press the button. Easy stuff.

The flash is powerful and bright, giving indoor portraits the early 2000s blown-out, ultra-white aesthetic for which Gen Z is currently experiencing vicarious nostalgia. Turning it off or cycling through the other few various flash modes is a matter of a button press, or two or three.

There’s a top-mounted liquid crystal display which is protected by a nicely convex shield of plastic. This screen shows pertinent information, such as how many exposures we’ve made on the roll of film, battery life, our TITLE mode and DATE information, and more. It’s a neat addition, though somewhat irrelevant, given the nature of APS point-and-shoot cameras. Typically, we just don’t really care about this stuff. We’re just going to literally point and shoot.

Remember? We’re morons.

There is no tripod socket. But that’s not really a problem. APS film users don’t own tripods.

The Canon Elph Shades Sunshine has the ability to print “titles” on the back of a print. By pressing the TITLE button on the back of the camera, we can choose one of six languages and one of five messages in each language; messages like “I Love You,” and “Thank You,” and “Happy Birthday.” How cute, though not of much use for those of us uninterested in printing low-quality APS film images (me).

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Image quality

There are two important things to remember when discussing image quality of APS film cameras.

First, in terms of image quality, APS film was always inferior to 35mm film.

Second, any APS film we find today will invariably be expired, which means that image quality is worse than ever.

Considerations considered, the Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine made decent photos in my week of testing. The expired film was indeed lower in contrast than it would have been when new, and some color shifts did present. However, sharpness and clarity from the little 23mm lens were fairly good when images were made in bright light or with the camera’s built-in flash.

There’s fairly significant ghosting, flaring, and distortion, as well as noticeably vignetting in my sample images.

The Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine is certainly not a good choice for times when image quality is important. But, hey, in times when a camera simply must look like an orange, there’s no better machine.

Final Thoughts

I suppose I could end on a metaphor.

If a camera is a fruit, then the photos are the juice. If that’s true, the ELPH Shades Sunshine is a bit spoiled. While not totally rotten or ready for the compost heap, it’s certainly past the sell-by date.

But I don’t think a camera like this needs to make great images. Or, to be honest, any images at all. It’s a gimmicky camera, a design exercise, a product to tickle the edge of our lips and remind us that, no, not all things have to be serious.

The Canon ELPH Shades Sunshine looks great sitting on a shelf in my office. It’s cheap and cute. I like its gimmick, and sometimes that’s enough.

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And there he was, on the TV screen, all highlighter bright shirts, denim shorts and sunglasses, pulling up in a white Lamborghini Countach, firing off that famous backhand right at our freakin’ faces and telling us that yes, image is indeed everything, and we absolutely needed a new Canon EOS Rebel to capture that image.

Agassi’s brash new-kid-on-the-block visage was the perfect marketing vehicle for the new Canon EOS Rebel, itself a new thing for the consumer SLR market. Gone were the angles of the 1980s, in came the ergonomic curves of the ’90s. Canon banked upon the same idea that propelled the AE-1 to stardom; the idea that they could make technology cheaper and more easily mass-produced, seducing the consumer and youth market with auto-everything and lower prices, thereby dominating the autofocus future for years to come.

Today we see that they succeeded, unequivocally. The radical design of the Canon EOS Rebels became the de facto, even hegemonic style of both consumer and professional SLR design to this day. But the thing about time passing is just that – it passes. Things get old. Over thirty years, Agassi’s once exciting, trailblazing power-baseline style of tennis has become the standard baseline game tennis fans complain about, his bright visual style has been parroted by Nike, Adidas, and every athletic wear manufacturer over the same span of time, and Canon’s once radically new camera design is just How Cameras Look Now, I Guess. What was once innovative became commonplace; what once was a landmark became just another part of the landscape.

But is that fair to a camera so influential?

I was confronted by this question one day when I found a nearly pristine Canon EOS Rebel XS on the shelf at my neighborhood thrift store. Cameras like this would usually be placed on display behind the counter along with the other film cameras (common practice, as the thrift stores in my area have gotten wise to the film renaissance), but for some reason this was just left on the electronics shelf, priced at a paltry fifteen dollars. I figured something may have been wrong with it, but, nope – the camera’s battery compartment was clean and clear of corrosion, and the body, shutter, and 35-80mm lens showed barely any signs of usage. I took a chance and took it home, stuck a couple CR123A batteries in it, and it sprang to life. The LCD display lit up, the plastic dials still had a brand new snap to them, and the lens’s autofocus was as quick and quiet as ever.

Just like that, I had a basically new autofocus SLR and lens for the price of a roll of Cinestill 800T (need B&H affiliate link).

I was initially surprised that such a famous-in-its-day camera was left on the shelf and priced so low, but then I realized that, even to people who know, this is the least exciting, least exotic camera. For over thirty years, companies have made a million other plastic autofocus SLRs, digital or otherwise, that look and operate almost exactly as this one. Even more primitive cameras like the Canon F-1 or the Canon AE-1 command more respect and possess more individual character – even within the Canon EOS lineup, the original Rebels seem boring.

But when we look at the design of the EOS Rebel line (especially this Canon EOS Rebel XS) in the context of the early ’90s, we find a radical departure from traditional camera design, and a remarkably well-executed exercise in extreme utilitarianism.

The design sensibilities of the previous decades aren’t just evolved or avoided. They’re jettisoned entirely. Canon’s EOS cameras instead maximize ergonomics and ease-of-use. The hand grip dominates the camera, while sleek lines curve around the control panel, pentaprism, and lens surround, flowing with no definitive stopping point. While these concepts weren’t new, they found themselves pushed to their conceptual extreme, making a totally new blobby kind of camera design to ring in the ’90s, the same philosophy that produced rotund machines like the 1990’s Ford Taurus and the Sega Genesis controller. But unlike those two, this camera seems to have escaped its associations with the era – it seems like it could’ve been made in the 2000s just as easily as it could’ve been made in the early 1990s. Even more curious, the design does not elicit the “timeless” moniker from camera geeks the way a Nikon F2 or a Leica M-series camera does, though it arguably shares a more direct relationship with modern cameras than either of those two. For however radical, important, and influential these early AF cameras were and are, they seem to now just be a part of the wallpaper of 21st century living.

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1990s autofocus SLRs like the Canon EOS Rebel XS present many contradictions. Perhaps a bigger contradiction is one that James already handled in his paean for the so-called “Dorky AF SLR.” I’ll paraphrase – though indeed dorky, these AF SLRs from the ’90s represent the peak of 35mm SLR technology, and are the best pure user film cameras out there at any level. The EOS Rebel XS is much the same; it was marketed squarely at consumers, but offered an astonishingly comprehensive set of features which in the past could only have been found scattered across multiple cameras.

It has an electronically-controlled shutter with a range from half a second to 1/2000th of a second, full TTL flash metering, standard evaluative (Matrix) metering with a center-weighted AE lock override, auto film winding, one-shot autofocus, AI servo autofocus, and manual focus override, and full PASM exposure selection with specialized portrait, sports, close-up, and landscape modes. It even features a built-in flash for use in a pinch, a programmable multiple exposure mode, and a separate aperture priority mode that prioritizes deep depth of field. I know there’s a lot to be said for all-manual everything, manual focus cameras (and I will be the first to defend them), but almost every major technological advancement in photography up until 1990 is present in a Canon EOS Rebel, and for cheap. That’s incredibly hard to argue against.

It is then no wonder that Canon sold boatloads of these cameras. It adhered to the simple math that Canon previously used to sell the Canon AE-1, AE-1 Program, and Canon A-1  – make the most features available for the least amount of money (¥89000 with the 35-80mm f/3.5-5.6 lens, ¥59000 body only). The substitution of a mirror box instead of a full pentaprism, and the wholesale replacement of metal with plastic made it cheaper and lighter, making these technologies accessible to casual shooters as well as improving Canon’s bottom line. This is anathema to shooters who demand mechanical quality, but such was the deal Canon made to remain the rulers of consumer photography.

The experience of shooting an old EOS Rebel XS is one that is shockingly modern and simple. The full shooting experience is as follows: load some film and the camera will automatically roll out the entire film into the take up spool and wind it backwards with every shot. Pick a shooting mode, and watch the relevant adjustable values show up on the LCD screen. Pick either an aperture or shutter speed value using the single multipurpose dial (or not, if the camera is on a programmed auto-exposure setting) and look through the viewfinder, which provides a full LCD readout of the settings, plus a light meter display. Then half press the shutter button to focus, compose, and shoot until the roll’s done, at which point the film will have already rolled itself back into the canister.

The EOS Rebel XS’s design emphasis on extreme utilitarianism works – it’s ludicrously simple to shoot. Every immediately essential function of the camera of the Rebel XS lies perfectly under each finger and is accessible with the press of one distinct button or dial setting, with secondary functions (of which there are only a couple) accessible with two movements, maximum.

If AE lock is needed, just press the AE lock button. If the flash is needed, press the flash button. If the self timer is needed, press the self timer button. And if exposure compensation is needed, hold down the exposure comp button and select a value with the dial. The camera can be set to take the reins yet does not lock the shooter into a programmed auto-exposure mode – everything can be overridden, and overridden easily (even, to my surprise, the ISO setting). This shooting interface makes sense to me, even as a staunch supporter of mechanical dials and buttons. It keeps me feeling connected and in complete control, which is something that I can’t say for later automated 35mm AF SLRs.

The ingenuity and novelty of the EOS Rebel XS did, however, come at some price. The auto-everything, purely utilitarian design discarded the tactility and outright romance of the manual focus cameras of before, a move that again alienated purists and collectors. What’s more, this design philosophy eventually birthed the multi-purpose button, the practice of menu diving, and the endless fiddling with settings that drives digital SLR and mirrorless shooters crazy, and makes them seek comparatively simple and primitive mechanical film cameras as refuge. I suspect it is this quality that keeps the prices of these cameras low, and their cultural cachet being near nonexistent regardless of their actual performance.

However, the irony of the Canon EOS Rebel XS is that while it offers a modern user interface, its age ensures it is not as overwhelming to use as a modern machine. Even though the shooting interface is modern, this camera was still released in 1993 — time hadn’t yet given camera companies the opportunity to *ahem* transform these cameras into the feature-bloated, inscrutable, aesthetically anonymous cameras we’ve come to know as DSLRs in the 21st century. There are no menus, no hidden technologies that take over, no display hieroglyphics to decode before you take the shot. It is as raw and direct as one can get in this genre of camera, and a breath of fresh air.

But even if the Canon EOS Rebel XS was a total chore to shoot, it still would be worth its ludicrously low price simply because it mounts the full range of Canon EF mount lenses. The camera came with a perfectly versatile Canon EF 35-80mm f/4-5.6 kit lens, but really comes into its own with Canon’s professional lenses.

Canon’s L lenses are quite literally the industry standard (and have been for over thirty years) and can be mounted natively onto the humble EOS Rebel XS. The prospect of 50mm f/1.2L, the 24mm f/1.4L, the gargantuan 400mm f/2.8L, and more is a tantalizing (and slightly hilarious) one, and also points us to a key characteristic of these consumer EOS Rebel film bodies – they’re a ridiculously cheap way to access full frame in the EOS system, and can function as a second film body to full-frame DSLR’s. At prices consistently under $60 ($15 in my case – got lucky), it’s a no-brainer.

There are, however, three real drawbacks to the Canon EOS Rebel XS. The first is its construction which, as mentioned before, is nearly completely plastic. This is less of a big deal considering the low prices of these bodies, but still concerning if the camera is being used in rough environments and situations. As with any camera, try to find a good example and roll with it, and try to find a backup too. They’re cheap and plentiful.

The second is the quality of the autofocus. While the EOS Rebel XS does offer AI servo autofocus (which enables subject tracking) and a so-called wide AF zone (which enables a wider range of autofocus), this still is a very primitive AF system. Being from 1993 and being a consumer model, this early AF system hunts quite often and can miss focus if the shooter isn’t paying attention. It should be noted that I did miss a few frames with this initially, but got used to it as I got acclimated to the camera itself. Even though this camera bears a striking resemblance to newer AF cameras, prospective shooters should not expect the acrobatics of newer AF SLRs or DSLRs.

The third drawback is a little more subjective, but ultimately points to what I think makes this camera important to shoot today. For all the technology crammed into it, for however new it was at the time, this camera is almost disturbingly normal. Not unremarkable, not ugly, not inconsequential, but just… normal. Compared to other cameras, the big boys of the segment, the Canon EOS-1v, Nikon’s F6, the Minolta A9’s of the world, or even the Nikon N90s or later Canon Elan 7s, there’s just not much that makes this camera stand out, even though its design laid the foundation of consumer autofocus SLRs for decades to come.

But after pondering it for a while, one thing stands out about this EOS Rebel XS. Oddly enough, that thing (person, rather) is… Andre Agassi.

The marketing admittedly worked on me – I can’t look at the EOS Rebel logo without thinking about him and that ad campaign (which, for different reasons, actually affected Agassi himself). Agassi’s hard-hitting, power baseline style was once radical and new, but by the time his career ended, it had become the de facto style, and was even decried by some as “ruining the game.” Yet, when we look back at the actual highlights of Agassi in his prime we can see why everybody started to play like him. Look closer and we see, with every perfectly struck backhand winner, with every impossible return off the Sampras serve, that nobody was able to do it quite like Agassi. He moved the game forward.

The Canon EOS Rebel XS and the rest of the early autofocus SLRs could and should be considered along those lines. The EOS Rebel was revolutionary in its day, and today remains maybe one of the best and most influential consumer camera lines ever made, no matter what reputation time foists upon it. I don’t know what the future holds in the world of film photography, but it would be interesting to see these SLRs in the hands of shooters just as often as we see the Nikon F3 or Leica M6. It would only be fitting – after all, the man who to whom this camera was inextricably tied eventually grew up, shed his image-obsessed reputation, and made a comeback on his own terms.

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Alas, all we find is an old roll of film.

But if we’re lucky, that roll of film is Panatomic X, because unlike old, expired color film, Panatomic X is often usable (and able to make excellent photos) even fifty years after its date of expiry!

Kodak Panatomic X was first created in 1933 as an ASA (ISO) 25 sheet film for making photos in which a high level of detail was required (aerial photography, professional editorial, scientific applications, etc.). It was designed to be a fine-grained, extremely sharp panchromatic black-and-white film for making extremely large prints.

Later, its sensitivity would be increased slightly to ASA 32. Even at this higher sensitivity, Panatomic X remained the slowest of the Kodak X series of black-and-white films, slower than the faster Plus X, Super XX, and Tri X.

The film was discontinued at some point in the 1940s, only for Kodak to bring it back in the late 1950s. After that, Panatomic X would remain in production for decades, until in the late 1980s or early ’90s, it was definitively discontinued.

Making the Photos

It was in just such a dusty camera bag that I found one old roll of Kodak Panatomic X. The box was stamped with an expiration date of 1970, which placed my roll’s age somewhere around 55 years. I held the film for a moment and wondered.

In late 2019, I’d stumbled upon a similarly aged roll of Kodak Plus X Pan in much the same way. That roll of film was forty-or-so years old, and yet it had made pretty good pictures. My experience with that roll of film even resulted in a well-loved article, an article as interested in film photography as it was in pets, kids, life, and living it.

Would this slower, older film make decent pictures, too?

The camera bag in which I’d found my new old roll of film contained a number of other things. Notably, a Canon EOS Elan II, one of the best, most advanced 35mm film cameras that Canon ever developed. Which is not what I would have expected.

How, I wondered, did this roll of film end up with a Canon EOS camera made sometime between 1995 and 2000? Even then, this roll of film was almost 30 years old.

Weird. But then, the whole world is weird.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of perceiving that old things are precious. I might have looked at this fifty-year-old roll of film and said, “No. Not today. Today is not special. I must await a special moment.”

Perhaps that’s how this roll of film survived to the 2020s. Who knows.

But things are meant to be enjoyed, or at least experienced, and on the very day that I unpacked my new old Canon EOS Elan II and discovered the barnacle of film clinging to its underside, I knew its days as an unexposed emulsion were over. Later that morning, my kids and wife and I went for a walk. The Canon went with me, loaded with a fifty-year-old roll of film.

The waterfront at Plymouth, Massachusetts is a funny place. Superficial wisdom would have us think that it’s where the United States was born, where the Mayflower sidled up to the coast, and where The Pilgrims first set foot on American land in 1620.

Plymouth Rock, the rock upon which the Pilgrims placed their wiggly toes upon first disembarkation, is cradled within a majestic granite monument, which probably cost millions of dollars to make. There’s a towering statue of a Native American (which, I add without comment, was erected by a white’s only, men only club known as the Improved Order of Red Men), and an exact replica of the Mayflower which can be toured for $18 a person.

There’s a Hawaiian-themed smoothie bar. There’s a guy who endlessly plays a flute, but the only song he knows is Under the Sea from Disney’s The Little Mermaid. There’s a cupcake shop sitting within the perpetual stinking miasma of the active commercial fish pier. On the day that I most recently visited, there was a sword-fighting instructor conducting classes upon one of the many small park spaces. He had a two-handed broadsword and what appeared to be hockey pads, and he was being repeatedly and noncommittally slashed by his apprentices, one of which was wearing a Naruto t-shirt and cargo shorts.

See? Funny place.

I’m just here to take pictures.

Kodak Panatomic X is slow. At ISO 32, it’s going to need a lot of light, and since my roll of film is fifty years old with an expiration date of—

Uh oh! Hold on. Am I about to mention the expired film rule? The decades? The exposure compensation? Am I, really?

Yes. I am. But only to once again lambast it as being nearly as absurd as brandishing a broadsword in a public park on a sunny Sunday morning. The “over-expose by one stop for every decade past expiration” rule needs to die.

Think about it. I need to set my exposure compensation on an ASA 32 roll of film to plus 5. That’s what the rule says. Plus 5? Do the people who spout this nonsense know what an image made at +5 looks like? Because I’ve included one in this review. And here it is.

For results like this, remember to definitely adjust your exposure +1 for every decade that your expired film has aged.

The truth about shooting expired film is this. It’s very simple. To shoot expired film, any expired film, over-expose the film by one stop. Just one. A single stop, regardless of when the film expired. Set the exposure compensation dial to +1, or do it manually. After that, just meter normally, shoot normally, develop normally, and expect the worst.

I mounted a 28mm Canon EF lens to the EOS Elan II. It’s a fast prime lens with a wide focal length that I enjoy shooting. It’s modern, with excellent optical coatings, all-encompassing depth of field, and a fast aperture for use in low light. Great lens, great camera, old film – a nice combination.

I spent the day walking about with my kids and wife. We went into some shops. Touched some plants. Ate and drank some sensible yet delicious refreshments. I even found a Nikon film camera for sale in an antique shop for just $25.

Wow. What a day. The only thing that could ruin it is if I botched developing the film.

Developing the Film

Much as I’m repulsed by the expired film over-exposure rule, so too do I reject over-thinking film development.

I don’t imply that those careful, meticulous photographers who can recognize the difference between a negative developed at 78 degrees versus one developed at 74 degrees are wrong to be so meticulous and careful. I’m only admitting that I’m not among them.

My development process with this film was identical to my development process with any film (black and white). I look at Kodak’s data sheet (archived here by the ever-generous Mike Eckman), I look at Massive Dev Chart’s site, I take their recommendations for time (if available – if not, as was the case here, I default to my randomly-selected and largely uneducated guess time of 9 minutes), add about a minute when developing expired film, use whatever developer I find under my bathroom sink, and I develop the film.

In this case, I developed with Ilford Ilfosol 3, mixed 9:1 with water that felt as warm as the air in my bathroom. I developed for about ten minutes with agitation for the first thirty seconds of the first minute, and then further agitation for just fifteen seconds every minute afterward. I rinsed and fixed at 9:1, for five minutes.

After that, I use Lightroom to edit (read: ruin) every picture I make.

Those meticulous and careful photographers that I mentioned earlier might look at my images and fret that the highlights are blown out, or that the shadow detail is lacking. But for me, the resulting images are better than I could expect from a fifty-year-old film.

Not bad, Kodak. Not bad.

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So? Who cares? Has Casual Photophile turned into a personal blog/travel influencer machine? Not quite. I won’t peddle travel hacks or tell the best time of day to see the Mona Lisa (in my opinion, don’t). Nope, I’m here to drag you along for the ride as I reflect on the existential question all photographers ask themselves before a trip – “What camera should I bring?”

One thing you need to know about me before we embark on this adventure is that I’m a self-proclaimed film girlie. My first “serious” venture into photography was a high school darkroom class and while I’m a technical person who works with computers daily, I have never clicked with digital photography (horrible pun not intended). I have no rational justification for it. I just don’t like digital. It’s not as fun as shooting film.

Another thing you need to know about me is: I am but a lowly hobbyist photographer – if it’s not fun, I’m not doing it. Add all of this together and the answer to the original question, which camera should I bring, is obvious. Of course I’m taking a film camera with me on a once-in-a-lifetime trip, right?

Wrong.

I know, it’s crazy and makes absolutely no sense but, I left out some other key info: I’m the cheapest person I know and I’m also a certified X-ray technologist.

If you’re in the film community I’m sure you’ve seen at least one Reddit thread or Instagram story asking “My film was scanned in the airport – is it trashed?” These discussions are riddled with contradicting responses.

“If it’s less than 800 ISO you’re fine.”

“My film was x-rayed 25 times and now those photos are on the cover of Rolling Stone.”

“Why didn’t you just ask for a hand-check?”

I’ve even seen a few responders go as far as suggesting we all haul along powdered chemicals and develop our film at our destination. Insanity.

I’m not going to get into all the caveats regarding film and X-rays. Kodak and others have well-documented the issues seen with the new CT scanners in airports (which are x-ray tubes that spin in circles but deliver a much higher dosage of radiation). As an X-ray tech and the cheapest person I know – all I can tell you is this: I’m not putting a single roll through an X-ray, ever. It’s too expensive. There’s a chance the film will be fine, but there’s also a chance it won’t be. One roll of film can cost as much as $18 nowadays. Not to mention, the photos on the roll itself on a trip like this are priceless memories. I’m not risking it.

I love photography, but again I’m a hobbyist. I just want to take an amazing vacation and document the memories along the way. I don’t want to be anxious in the security line and spend my precious PTO arguing with a foreign agent that my film absolutely must be hand-checked because *mY qUaLiFiCaTiOnS*. I also don’t want to carry around a heavy digital camera worth a thousand, or even hundreds of dollars through cities I’m not familiar with. None of that sounds fun.

So what’s a girl to do? I say, bring on the digicams.

Digicams! They’re small, cheap, and unassuming. Now, I know what you’re thinking – “You trusted once-in-a-lifetime memories to a tiny sensor that’s 10+ years old?”
Yes. Yes, I did. And I don’t regret it.

In the winter, when I was deep in my “I don’t know what camera to bring” crisis, I stumbled across one of KingJvpes videos in which he and a friend walked around town and pitted a Ricoh GR III head-to-head against an old Canon S95. I initially thought all the same things you’re probably thinking – “These kids today. Why not just use your cell phone if you’re going to use a camera with such a crappy, old sensor?” But as I watched, my main takeaway wasn’t that the photos were indistinguishable between the two cameras – they were obviously very easy to tell apart. But I did realize that the old Canon S95 really held up much better than I thought it would and it was only $100.

As I did more research by endlessly scrolling through photo examples on Flickr, I found that the older pre-2010s digicams with their CCD sensors produced photos that had a unique look to them that I really liked. They felt a bit more “vintage” to my eye. I’d heard people in the photography community say that digicams “are the new film” and give a “film look.” I personally don’t think that’s true, but I do feel they provide a certain nostalgic look to photos that younger Millennials and Gen-Z would attribute to their childhood eras. It’s definitely a look that resonates with me more than the super crisp amazing digital sensors that are out there today.

So, off I went down the rabbit hole of DP Review’s camera feature search (kudos to onemonthtwocameras on Youtube for that gem) and filtered for cameras that had all the features I was looking for: RAW capabilities, “larger” 1/1.7 inch, 10-megapixel CCD sensor, and an optical zoom. I came away with two options that I was personally interested in: the Canon S90 and the Panasonic Lumix LX5. I cross-referenced prices on eBay and other used retailers and they were each around $100 at the time so, against my frugal heart, I bought them both and planned to sell whichever one I liked the least.

After testing for a few months before my vacation, I ultimately decided to bring both cameras along. Each camera had different ergonomics and I couldn’t decide which files I favored more. They’re both so small and light, they took up less space and weight in my bag than one of my 35mm SLRs would have anyway. In the event one of them got lost or broken, I’d have a backup. It was an easy decision.

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In Japan, Digicams are the New Film - Guest Post by Johnny Yokoyama

I’d like to introduce a new photography trend. Welcome to the exciting world of “Digicams.” Wait! Don’t roll your eyes just yet!

I had the time of my life. I kept one of the digicams on me at all times during the trip. They easily stashed into my little travel purse. I never felt weighed down by my camera or felt the need to leave it back at the accommodation. I didn’t worry that someone was eyeing me up as a potential target for carrying a bunch of expensive camera gear. I never thought twice about plunking my bag up on the belt to be x-rayed a million times. I was carefree and living my best life. The digicams did exactly what I needed a camera to do for this trip – get out of the way and let me take photos.

Since I carried a camera with me everywhere, I got a lot of great shot opportunities that I might not have had if I’d opted to bring along a bigger camera. The RAW capabilities and manual settings made shooting feel more like actual photography than simply using my cell phone, which for me is not an enjoyable photographic experience. I’m very happy with the decision to use digicams for this trip and I’m confident that the 10-megapixel files will have plenty of detail to print the photos into a memory book.

With that said, I want to reiterate that this trip wasn’t an African safari, Paris fashion week, or a destination wedding that I was being paid to shoot. It wasn’t even a photography-focused leisure trip. I didn’t take the most ground-breaking, iconic photos ever. But what I did do is have an amazing time traveling and get to sneak in some fun, low-stress photography whenever it was convenient.

So, if you’re a frugal-to-a-fault hobbyist photographer with a love of film and all things vintage but don’t want to deal with the hassle of flying with film (or heavier, bulkier cameras) and you’re taking a trip that isn’t photography focused, I encourage you to give digicams a try. They’re great little companions. Lastly, thanks for making it to the end of this long-winded article – why are you still here? Just bring whatever camera you want. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. Happy shooting!

Buy your own Digicam on eBay here

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Digicams (Digital Point and Shoot) — F Stop Cameras

A camera shop specializing in vintage cameras; 35mm, medium and large format, film and digital. 

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While it’s true that the Contax T cameras are wonderful, and the fancy Yashicas and the svelte Olympuses are, too, the prevailing myth is just that – a myth. I’ve written plenty of articles to bust the idea that hose trendy point-and-shoots are the only cameras worth owning. In fact, the opposite is true. There are many other point-and-shoots that I’d rather buy, with apologies to the fourteen-hundred-dollar T3.

Last month I used a Canon point-and-shoot that seldom makes headlines. The Canon Sure Shot Tele is big and old and clunky, at least in outward appearance, but it’s a serious sleeper. A camera that does things that many other point-and-shoots can’t.

It has two prime lenses (one of which includes a fast f/2.8 aperture), a mechanically switched user-controlled flash, multiple exposure capability, a soft-effect filter, and exposure compensation at the press of a button. Most important and impressive of all, it makes excellent, surprising, SLR-quality photos.

Canon Sure Shot Tele Specifications

• Camera Type : Automatic 35mm point-and-shoot film camera
• Focus System : Near-infrared beam triangulation auto-focus system; pre-focus capable
• Lens : Two focal lengths – 40mm f/2.8 (4 elements in 3 groups) and 70mm f/4.9 (7 elements in 6 groups)
• Shutter : Electromagnetic programmed shutter and aperture; EV 6-18 at ISO 100; In 40mm config. f/2.8 at 1/8 sec. – f/22 at 1/500 sec.; In 70mm config. f/4.9 at 1/3 sec. – f/27 at 1/350 sec.; Built-in self-timer, multiple exposures capable
• Viewfinder : Automatically switches to selected focal length; Reverse Galilean VF with projected frame lines; 0.45x magnification at 40mm focal length and 0.72x at 70mm
• Viewfinder Information : Displays the autofocus frame, in-focus LED light, near-distance warning LED light, combined flash-ready and camera-shake warning LED light, parallax correction marks
• Film Speeds : ISO 50 – 1600 with DX code capability
• Flash : Built-in flash, guide number 10.5 (at ISO 100 in meters); Flash On, Flash Auto, and Flash Off modes are user-selectable
• Power Source : One 6 volt 2CR5 lithium photo battery
• Additional Features : Film frame counter on top-mounted LCD screen, motorized film advance and rewind, multiple exposure, self-timer, backlight compensation (+2 EV), built-in user-selectable soft filter, date printing with date-back model
• Weight and Dimensions : 400 grams (14.1 ounces) with battery; 134 x 79 x 62mm (5.25 x 3.11 x 2.44 inches)

The Canon Sure Shot Tele was first released in 1986. Known in Japan as the Canon Autoboy Tele, and in Europe as the Canon Top Twin, it was designed to be an easy-to-use point-and-shoot that also offered advanced user-selectable features and image quality comparable to that found with prime lens-equipped SLRs.

In addition to this generally high design brief, Canon fitted the Sure Shot Tele with a number of unusual, yet useful, gimmicks. It has a built-in soft-focus filter and a multiple exposure mode, which Canon lauded in their print ads of the time. And indeed these features weren’t often found on competitor cameras, especially those in the consumer-oriented point-and-shoot segment.

Their ad also focused on the excellent auto focus and accurate auto exposure, and promised that the Sure Shot Tele would make us “a hot photographer overnight.”

Wow! I can’t wait.

Ergonomics and Use

Holding the camera in the hands we find a top plate with just two buttons – a subtle burgundy shutter release, and a more surreptitious self-timer button (which interestingly acts as a shutter release button as well – just press the self-timer button once and the shutter fires ten seconds later). Next to that we find an LCD display which tells us our battery health and film frame number.

On the back of the camera we find the switch to alternate between the 40mm and 70mm prime lenses. Flicking the switch sideways toggles from one lens to the other. The flash controls are also positioned on the back via a sliding three-way switch for Flash On, Flash Auto, and Flash Off. This mechanical switch gives the added benefit that, when cycling the power off and on again, the camera retains our chosen flash settings. Users who own Sure Shot Tele models equipped with the Date Back will also find their date controls on the back of the camera, positioned in the usual spot, center of the film door.

The front of the camera houses the On/Off switch. This multi-purpose switch also opens and closes the lens cover, and when toggled further, fits the built-in soft filter over the lens. Next to the lens we find the buttons for multiple exposures (we can hold this down and take as many exposures as we like on a single frame) and the exposure compensation button (hold this down and our shot will be exposed with a compensation of +2 EV).

The lens block has a built-in filter thread which allows us to screw in any 40.5mm diameter circular filter. This is especially useful for black-and-white photography. And it should be noted that the camera’s metering cell is positioned within the filter area, so the camera will automatically meter properly when filters are attached.

There is such a thing as a perfectly-sized camera. For me, the Sure Shot Tele comes pretty close. It’s not ultra-compact, nor is it SLR-sized. It sits somewhere in the middle, in the Goldilocks zone where portability merges with usability.

The buttons sit where they should, the grip is large and sure, and the camera feels balanced and natural. It won’t fit into the pocket of your pants, nor will it disappear when not in use. But weighing in at under a pound means that it won’t give us a stiff neck if we leave it hanging by its strap all day.

The viewfinder is large and bright, and the projected frame lines are highly legible in all shooting conditions. The useful focusing patch is clearly indicated, and the LED lights do exactly what they’re supposed to do. I never experienced any problems in messaging with this camera. If the light illuminates green, all is well. If there’s a flashing red lightning bolt, rethink your life.

Auto focus works beautifully, and a half-press of the shutter release button locks focus. This makes it possible to use the focus and recompose method of framing. Simply center the focus spot in the viewfinder upon whatever subject we want in focus, half-press the shutter release button to set focus distance, and recompose for the final shot. Works on my Nikon Z5, works here.

The lithium photo battery is housed in the hand grip. This is attached via two tiny screws, so changing out the battery will require a small screwdriver. While this is slightly less convenient than a flip-open battery door, bear in mind that the trade-off may be a net positive.

Most point-and-shoot film cameras from the era of the Sure Shot Tele possess weak, pathetic battery doors which break in a stiff wind. The Sure Shot Tele’s solution is stronger and more reliable, and per Canon’s manual, the battery should last five years of normal use. (This seems incredible. Look for my update in five years.)

One final positive note to end the battery conversation. The Date Back models, like mine, use power from the same lithium battery that powers the rest of the camera. Many cameras of the time opted to separate the Data Back from the main power supply, these instead running on a separate battery (often a CR2032 watch battery). I like the simplicity of the Sure Shot Tele’s single power source.

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40mm lens mode.

70mm lens mode

The Canon Sure Shot Tele’s Beautiful Prime Lens(es)

What really sets the Canon Sure Shot Tele apart from similar cameras of its era and beyond, is its lens. Or more accurately, its lenses, since it has two. And just as important as quantity, these lenses offer quality. This comes largely from an important design choice. The Sure Shot Tele’s lenses are primes (lenses of a single focal length), not zooms.

This detail should not be overlooked.

Zoom lenses, more common than primes in the point-and-shoot segment, bring compromise. For a zoom lens to be capable of zooming in our out to any focal length within their range, they must be optically complex. This complexity, especially true of the early zooms from the era of the Sure Shot Tele, results in a degradation in image quality. Additionally, zoom lenses often come with smaller maximum apertures.

Prime lenses, on the other hand, are formulated and optimized to provide the best image quality and the fastest aperture at their single specific focal length. This is why we photo nerds tend to love primes.

The Sure Shot Tele’s two prime lenses offer comprise a 40mm standard lens made of four elements in three groups, and when we switch to the 70mm tele lens, an additional lens packet flips mechanically into place within the camera’s body increasing the optical formula to seven elements in six groups.

This transforming prime lens is activated with the simple flick of a finger. We hear the lens clunk into place, the lens assembly extracts out of or retracts into the body, the accompanying viewfinder automatically slots into place, and we are ready to shoot one of our two glorious primes.

And it’s not hyperbole. These primes actually are glorious.

At 40mm, images are sharp and punchy. While we don’t have control over our aperture or shutter speed, the camera does a good job of selecting the appropriate settings for the scene. And we aren’t totally bereft of control. By using the backlight compensation button or by switching the flash off, for example, we’re able to coerce the camera into longer exposures with larger apertures. Stunningly, this point-and-shoot actually produces nice bokeh, something not common in the class.

At 70mm, things are similarly effortless, and the results are similarly beautiful. Sharp, crisp, and lovely. And even at a significantly smaller maximum aperture (f/4.9) close-focusing on subjects still produces lovely out-of-focus backgrounds.

It really can’t be over-emphasized. A point-and-shoot camera which costs less than $70 (average price taken from recently sold eBay listings at time of writing) should not be able to make photos this nice. It puts those cult-favorite point-and-shoots to shame.

[The following gallery of photos were made by Agni Ayushatya and are published with permission.]

[The following gallery of photos were made by the author, James Tocchio.]

Ten Great Point and Shoot Film Cameras From $25 to $99

For every expensive, over-hyped point and shoot camera there are ten or twenty others that are damn near as good at one-tenth the price. Here's a list of a few that we've personally enjoyed.

[Photos in the gallery below provided by Nathaniel Kaufman and published with permission.]

Those Bonus Features

The camera’s bonus features, the soft focus filter and multiple exposure mode, work as they should, though in both cases results will vary from user to user.

The soft focus filter does what it says it does; it renders image with a soft glow. The effect was popular in the 1970s and ’80s, for some reason, and while I don’t necessarily understand it, I can say that the Sure Shot Tele’s filter works well. I recently shot the Canon Snappy Q, which featured a similar built-in “soft corners” filter. That one was pretty terrible, in that its transition from soft to sharp was too stark. The Tele’s filter, in comparison, is subtle and refined.

The multiple exposure mode works great too, as long as we know how to make good multiple exposures. I don’t, necessarily. I know how the technique is supposed to work, but as in many things, I lack true talent. Those photographers who live for multiple exposures, however, will likely have fun. Just hold down the multiple exposure button and fire away.

[I should add that I’ll be holding onto this camera for the summer, and will update this review with additional photos over time. Let’s see how I improve with multiple exposures, eh?]

A bad multiple exposure.

Final Thoughts

I began this article comparing the Canon Sure Shot Tele to legendary point-and-shoot cameras like the Contax T3 and the Yashica T4. That’s stiff competition. And yet, I think the Canon Sure Shot Tele holds its own, and then some.

While not as compact or as luxurious as the many newer, sleeker point-and-shoots, and while it lacks the cachet that comes with being seen on the red carpet, this Sure Shot Tele quietly delivers.

Its two lenses make beautiful photos, the aperture is fast, the ergonomics are solid, it’s the right size, and returning to that earlier comparison, it costs $1,300 less than a Contax T3, $750 less than a Minolta TC-1, and $150 less than an Olympus Mju II. Even at double its average price, I’d still say it’s really good camera.

Get your own Canon Sure Shot Tele on eBay here

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post A 35mm Point-and-Shoot Sleeper – Canon Sure Shot Tele Review appeared first on Casual Photophile.

Photographic-minded and sentimental-hearted people of 1989 would have wanted to press their summer memories into film. They might have done it with a Snappy Q.

Today, those of us of similar heart and mind feel the same urge, and the Snappy Q still does what it was designed to do. It takes pretty good pictures with zero effort. More importantly, it gives the user room to live.

Specifications of the Canon Snappy Q

• Camera Type : Fully automatic 35mm point and shoot film camera with a 24x36mm image area (full frame)
• Focusing Method : None (fixed focus camera)
• Lens : 35mm f/4.5 (3 elements in 3 groups) with a built-in user-selectable “foggy corner” soft filter
• Shutter : Mechanical shutter with single speed (1/70th of a second) with a built-in mechanical self-timer
• Viewfinder : Reverse Galilean VF with 0.4x magnification and 84% coverage
• Exposure Meter : CdS cell, EV10-EV15 at ISO 100
• Film Speeds : ISO 100/200 and 400 (user-selectable)
• Flash : Built-in flash with guide number 9 at ISO 100 in meters. When flash is required, the flash-required warning lamp will pop up and the flash will fire automatically. Flash can be over-ridden by holding down the flash warning lamp
• Power Source : Two 1.5v AA batteries
• Additional Features : Strap lugs; tripod socket; automatic film advance and rewind; user-activated mid roll rewind; film frame counter with auto reset
• Weight and Dimensions : 300 grams (10.5 ounces) with batteries installed; 118 x 90 x 49mm (4.6 x 3.5 x 1.9 inches)

Highlights of the Canon Snappy Q

The Snappy Q is a camera with many of the highlights which differentiate the point-and-shoot from all other cameras. First impression is that it’s small and lightweight, cute, easy-to-use, and fun. It’s oddly-shaped, and has one or two uncommon features which make it an interesting choice, even within its own point-and-shoot class.

Held in the hand, things feel comfortable. On the top of the camera we find the shutter release button, a film frame counter, and the pop-up flash-ready light. On the back we find the film door and film door latch release, and the viewfinder. The right-hand side features a strap connector, strap, and, interestingly, a tripod socket (the positioning of this indicates that Canon expected this to be a people camera – one used to shoot portrait-oriented snaps).

The front of the camera holds the lens, a Canon 35mm f/4.5 glass lens with three elements in three groups, the manual ISO selection switch (toggle-able between 100/200 and 400 ISO), the mechanical ten second self-timer, and the (somewhat strange) “foggy corners” lens filter and its corresponding switch. This lens filter also doubles as a lens cover for when the camera’s not in use.

There’s nothing too exciting, here, especially for serious photo nerds. But let’s look at the most interesting of all of the admittedly sparse features – that “foggy corner” lens filter.

For some reason, in the 1980s, people loved soft images with glowing highlights. I’ve seen quite a number of photography guides and owner’s manuals of the era contain pictures of extremely softened bodacious babes on sandy beaches, the waves glistening with starburst highlights. I don’t really get it. But Canon did, apparently, because they built this “feature” into a number of their cameras in the Sure Shot range. And the Snappy Q is one such camera.

And the filter does what the manual says it does. It applies a super soft effect to the edges of our pictures, leaving only a circular patch of clarity in the middle. Artistic license aside, the effect is applied rather inartistically. There is very little gradation from softened edges to sharp(er) center.

After using the filter quite a bit, I admit that I still don’t really get it.

Where the Canon Snappy Q Falls Short

The Canon Snappy Q has an adequate lens in the same way that a cup of lemonade is an adequate lens, meaning that it’s made of glass and light can pass through it. It’s not a lens to impress those who like high fidelity images. It’s basic and leaves something to be desired in the areas of resolving power and clarity, and contrast, and flare control, and distortion correction – basically, the Snappy Q’s lens measures poorly by any metric. It’s just not that great.

The camera’s shutter is similarly primitive. Capable of just one speed, it’s as basic as it gets. In fact, some Kodak 127 film cameras from over a hundred years ago contain more versatile shutters in their leatherette shells.

The Snappy Q’s single shutter speed of 1/7oth of a second means that we’ll need to be aware of our lighting conditions and load the appropriate film for the occasion. I’ve found that using even the general purpose 400 speed films that the camera-makers likely intended us to use, my shots were often under- or over-exposed, depending on the light. Shots in my house at night were too dark to be usable. Sunny shots outside in mid-afternoon were often over-exposed, almost too over-exposed to be used.

The camera’s automatic flash does what it can to balance things, both indoors and out, but it’s far from perfect.

The truth is, the Canon Snappy Q is a pretty rudimentary camera. It’s not made for people who actually care about image quality. It’s for people who want a cute, happy little film camera through which they can shoot their carefree days. And those people will love it, so long as they’re not too bothered by the frequently wrongly-exposed photos that the Snappy Q seems to make.

Canon Snappy Q for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for Canon Snappy Q at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

Canon Snappy Q Sample Images

Ten Great Point and Shoot Film Cameras From $25 to $99

For every expensive, over-hyped point and shoot camera there are ten or twenty others that are damn near as good at one-tenth the price. Here's a list of a few that we've personally enjoyed.

Read More

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Final Thoughts

The Snappy Q is a cute, fun camera. I love the way it looks, and I appreciate the philosophy behind it – that it’s more important to make memories than it is to photograph them in perfect fidelity. It’s a camera for the beach, for summer strolls, for picnics and theme parks and relaxing with friends and family. It’s a camera that fits in the pocket, comes out quickly to snap a shot, and then, away it goes.

It’s not the best camera, nor the best point-and-shoot. Far from it. And while I like the Canon Snappy Q for what it is, I think because of what it isn’t, I’d buy a different camera.

Canon made hundreds of point-and-shoot 35mm film cameras throughout the 1970s, ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s. The Sure Shot range alone contains dozens of models, and nearly all of them have better lenses, more features, and more advanced shutters, metering systems, and flash control than the Snappy Q. Thing is, they’re just as small, and they don’t cost much more, too!

Nikon, Pentax, Ricoh, Olympus, and others, all made thousands of different models of point-and-shoot, and most of them will make better shots than the Q.

Unless you love the design and the philosophy of the Snappy Q, consider a “better” point-and-shoot. For those photo nerds charmed by the Snappy Q’s shape, its weird foggy cornered filter, the tenuous connection to Star Trek: The Next Generation, or that it’s charmingly called “The Sketchbook” outside of the USA, buy one and enjoy it. For everyone else, look elsewhere for a memory-making film camera.

Get your Snappy Q on eBay here

Buy one from our shop, F Stop Cameras

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post Canon Snappy Q – a Film Camera Made for Summer appeared first on Casual Photophile.