Make Mine a Half"

Eric Dugdale (Area 3)

I can't pin down the date when I first took interest in old cameras. I think it was about the time that my son's car broke down. He asked me if I would fit a reconditioned engine for him and after the task was over he bought me a 1901 haughton & Butcher drop plate camera as a way of showing his thanks.

Soon after I saw an advert in a local free paper for an Olympus Pen EE3, priced at £20. I had not seen a half frame camera before this, but was fascinated when I found that a exposure film would give me 72 negatives, all perfectly exposed.

later, I attended a camera fair in Wolverhampton and bought four more half frame cameras for under £25 each. At about this time my camera collection was starting to take over the house. My wife said she was awoke during the night, the first thing she saw was the outside street lighting reflecting back at her from the camera lenses, all looking at her!

So I made the decision to cut down and specialize in half frame Cameras. I joined the Half Frame Camera Group based up the road in Gloucester, with members world-wide. The chap who runs the group phoned me one day and told me he knew of someone who had a box full of half frame cameras for sale and wondered if I was interested? Was I Ill say I was. This part of the story is like a collector's dream. I was in the car and off down the motorway before you could say "18mm x 24mm" (the size of a half frame negative).

In the 60's and 70's Holiday Camps were all the rage for anyone after a good, cheap holiday. These camps had professional photographers using half frame cameras to take snaps of the holiday makers. This would be on colour reversal film, and when processed would be mounted into a key ring and sold the following day. To cut the story short, holiday camps became less popular and the photographers found themselves out of work. The person with the box full of cameras had run a firm with photographers in holiday camps all over the country.

I made an offer for the box full and finished up with about 30 half frame cameras (some working, some not). I managed to repair most of the none working ones and ended with six that were beyond repair. These I kept for spares. From the piece of good luck my collection of half frame cameras had now grown to about fifty different models.

There are three sorts of camera collector:
1) Those that collect and keep dust free on display:
2) Those that collect and use and 3) Those that collect, keep on display and use. I think I fit into category 3.

There has never been a better time than now to use half frame, with fast and grain free film, developers better than ever before. The half frame user "has it made".

Those of us who use colour reversal will know the pleasure it can give us when we pull out the developing tank 36 colour slides. The pleasure is double for for half frame users - we get 72 slides. So many in fact that we can afford to waste a few by experimenting with under and over exposing a few shots to see which turn out best.

Now you may ask why this format didn't catch on. One of the advantages of the half frame format could be one of the reasons for its downfall. A holiday maker while away would shoot, say 20 photos and after the holiday was over would put the camera into a cupboard until the next holiday came around. So sometimes the film would be left in the camera for about six months or more.

As we know, film deteriorates when left in th camera for this amount of time, so when the poor half frame holiday maker sent his film off to be developed and printed, it came back with colours looking washed out. This, of course, was not the fault of the printer, but he was the one who got the blame from the camera user, so naturally the developing and printing houses did not like the half frame camera or its user. Also film manufacturers found that they were not selling quite so much film, and as some of these film manufacturers were also making half frame cameras (e.g. Agfa), you can see what action they took to put things right.

No doubt the more powerful film manufacturers would also put pressure on to the camera makers to make changes.

The half frame camera was in its hay-day in the 50's, 60's and 70's, but the first half frame camera on record was made in Spain in 1908. This camera was only a prototype and di not reach the production stage.

The oldest half frame camera that I own is the Ansco Memo, made in the U.S.A. in about 1927. This cost $20 then, and is now worth over £100.

In 1988 the Yashica Company re-introduced the half frame with the Samurai x 3.0. The negative size of this camera, for some reason, is 17mm x 24mm, which can give a slight problem when mounting slides, but this problem is not surmountable (sorry, I had to get that in!). In 1989 Yashica brought out the Samurai x 4.0, with a more powerful lens, and in 1990 the Samurai Z was introduced. This latter model was the all singing, all dancing version. All were self loading, rewind, auto focus, zoom etc. Yashica also brought out the ZL, a left handed model.

For anyone wishing to have a go at half frame photography I would recommend the Olympus Pen EE3, Secondhand this would cost about £30 or less. Or the Samurai x 3 for about £70 (I know someone who bought one for £29).

If you do your own developing and printing take special care with eliminating dust and scratches.

For colour prints - Smiths and Boots - but best of all Moorfields Photographic Ltd., 78. Old Hall Street, Liverpool, L3 9PP.

For those who wish to do reversal, you can obtain half frame slide mounts from Mathers, 23. market Street, Bolton, BL1 1BU (about £5 for 100).

The half frame club is run by Fred Adcock, 16. Havelock Road, Hucclecoat, Gloucester, GL3 3PG.

For b&w fine grain film try Photoworld, 7a. Victoria Road, Craig-y-Don, Llandudno, LL30 1LQ. Their 40asa is great - 6 mins 1:10 Acutol 20C. (To be continued).