Had a good holiday this summer? Already thinking of the next one? Could an old film camera be a vital ingredient for the perfect holiday?
Leave your phone in the hotel safe. No selfies, no sharing on social media, no checking likes on social media, just living in the moment. Film is also a great way to store those precious holiday memories – will you remember your password for that old Cloud account in 20 years? Will it even be there?
Take a good book (and hope it remains unread). Fall asleep on a sunny day. Come back refreshed with 36 curated memories of really special moments.
What are the ingredients for a perfect holiday camera? The perfect camera would have (almost) everlasting batteries and be indestructible, small and light and not too expensive. You should be able to just throw it into your bag and forget it’s there. The old Nikons are famously tough enough to stop a bullet but cost around £300. A good alternative which is lighter on your pocket as well as on the scales are an Olympus OM10 (£80 in excellent/almost brand new condition) or for a smaller camera which still have an excellent lens, an Olympus XA (£70 in excellent condition) on ebay. They’re both manual focus, so there’s less to go wrong as a broken autofocus rends the camera unusable. These old manual cameras should last you a lifetime with few or no problems. Generally avoid cameras with electronics which can’t be fixed so I’d steer clear of a 1990s point-and-shoot unless you absolutely need autofocus.
I also had a Nikon scuba camera as my holiday camera. It was bright orange and perfect for the beach. Problem is that some of the rubber seals which are crucial to avoid water getting in are now unobtainable. I replaced all the seals I could and left the camera in the drawer over the winter. When I pulled it out next summer it was unusable, the parts seized up due to saltwater corrosion caused by leaks from old seals. So it’s best to buy a camera which sold in big volumes when new so it can be easily replaced or repaired.
A secondhand Olympus OM10 bought for £40 was my first camera as a teenager and I won awards with photos taken with it. I was really excited to swap it for a secondhand Nikon when I managed to scrape together the cash to buy one. Nikon was the professional choice. Olympus was a brand mainly for amateur photographers. Actually some of the Olympus lenses are better than the equivalent Nikon despite being much cheaper. Go figure. I found this hard to believe so recently checked out some of my old prints side by side. The shots taken with the Olympus were definitely sharper with nicer out-of-focus backgrounds too. Lenses are important as the other functionality of old cameras is basically the same.
Batteries for any of these cameras last ages, months or even years as all they need is a trickle of power for the lightmeter. A roll of film should last you the holiday – 36 great pictures that you’ll have forever. Buy 400 Portra colour film or, if you’re feeling arty, Ilford Delta 400 for Black & White.