The Amazing Wonderful World of Instamatic!

You would love my archive of my father's 110 Kodachrome slides!
If you were local, I could show them to you using my pocket carousel projectors!

 

I remember visiting Kodak Park in Rochester in the late 60's . I was a kid fascinated with cameras and darkrooms . We started by everyone turning over any kind of lighter or matches. Got on a tour bus that kept us safe inside . Drove through part of the complex. One stop was the injection molding machines for Kodapak Instamatic cartridges, my young mind remembers a vast operation. I remember the guide telling us that Kodak reused the plastic from used cartridges that had been returned for processing. All the backing paper was processed for helping to fuel the power plants on the site. MY first camera was an Instamatic, had a wind up motor drive. My Dad fixed a K2 yellow filter to the lens and I shot Verichrome . I remember the smell of the flashcubes . So much fun! Every year in primary school we had a day we could bring a camera to school. I have 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade Instamatic photos of my chums.

 

I also have a bunch of 126 Kodachrome and (to a lesser degree) Ektachrome slides in that archive.
My father had a fairly high end Instamatic (a 504?) with a glass lens and exposure meter that was, if I remember correctly, manufactured by Kodak Germany.
He was the manager of the customer service department at a Kodak Canada lab. From time to time he also borrowed the Instamatic Reflex that his department had at hand.
Interspersed with all his slides are a few that I took - he encouraged me in photography from age 8 on.

 

My first camera was an Instamatic X-15F that my parents got me around 1976, that's what started my interest in photography. I still have the camera and still use it every now and then. I also still have every picture I took with it. It was a nice simple camera for a 10 year old kid to start learning how to take pictures.

Kodak Instamatic X-15F by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

 

Wow, a blast from the past. My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic 500. Some of my school friends had the 104, 204, and 304 models. I did not know anything and assumed a bigger number, the 500, must be better. I lived in Greece then and a friend of the family brought it to us from Germany. This 500 had a Gossen light meter and a needle display in the finder. I think the 500 was made in the same factory that made the Kodak Retinas. I did not know anything about photography then, so most of my pictures were atrocious. And I did not know anything about filters, hoods, or why you would use them. A tiny AG-1 bulb holder called a Kodablitz provided flash. Oddly, the camera took reasonably good pictures technically, despite the lack of pressure plate in the plastic 126 cartridge. Kodachrome 64 slides were decent. The b&W scene below is Athens, Greece, from Lycavitos Hill. Even by 1964, the once gracious city had become a concrete mess of hastily-constructed and utterly boring concrete box apartments. They tore down thousands of elegant late-1800s villas and town homes in the haste to "develop" in the post-WWII era. Now these buildings look like tired crummy 1960s concrete boxes with inadequate ventilation and electrical supply and questionable earthquake engineering.

 

Instamatics did a great job taking photographs and supporting people taking snapshots.

 

I never ever came across that 500 model.
I guess that is telling about a german made model.

Buf it is on my list...

 

If one reads Instamatic as a generic name, then I would consider the type 110 Agfamatics the most beautiful of that class. They also got that "sensor" release.
However the basic design of standard type 110 cameras is prone to tilting, even with such good release. Kodak approached that issue with the cover turned into a handle. (Agfa even copied that idea with one model.)

 

Nice stories and photos. As a kid, I "upgraded" from 127-format film to an Instamatic: a simple rectangular plastic and aluminum camera - possibly a 104 model. The cartridge fascinated me. After a while, I put black electrical tape over the camera's front surface and added a tele adapter lens. The black tape let me make photos from inside a bus without getting reflections back from the window. It also looked more like a "real" camera.

I still have many Instamatic prints from those days. I hope to find the camera again some day in my storage unit, in one of the many boxes.

I always thought the pocket Instamatic 60 was the cat's meow.

 

When Kodak introduced type 126, Agfa is said to be taken by surprise, hard to believe though. Anyway, they re-invented and upgraded their Karat cassette idea, design and cranked out their new Rapid cameras based on the new Rapid cassettes. Technically the better system than 126, but lesser in loading simplicity.
Agfa did not succeed to counter Kodak in America. And finally cancelled the Rapid system and took over type 126 instead. But the Rapid camera were a super seller over here, seen the number of samples still around.