Halina 35X

[Peltigera]

Just bought this from Ebay - came today. I had a Halina camera when I was a youth and it was rubbish. My main reason for buying this was nostalgia but I was pleasantly surprised. It is a solid, well made camera but clearly made down to a price - not a single actually straight straight edge anywhere on the camera.

Focussing and aperture rings were very stiff before I used lighter fuel on them and now they are fine.

I already have three cameras with film in them so I will not be trying this one this week but will soon.

[Stephen]

I must have been lucky then, I had one, the first 35mm I got whilst at school, and it produced very good transparencies on Kodachrome 11, a little bit soft at the edges, but then the projector lens was not that hot! They looked very good in a hand viewer. The first B/W films made me buy a Practica, as shots at 10x8 were obviously softer than really acceptable, 5x7 was OK, and postcard size good.

In the trade I saw a lot of results from these, they worked in the more experience customers hands, giving good general results on colour negative, bad results were as usual down to the photographer's inexperience.

They do vary a bit on the lens quality, Haking had poor quality control till they got involved with making Pentax products in the Hong Kong factories, nowadays making Digital cameras for many brands. The 35x was better made than cheap Japanese makes like Meisupi, which used single element meniscus lenses, whereas the Halina had a three element lens.

Stephen.

[jack]

peltigera,

Welcome to the newest member of the Chinese Camera Collector Club! ;D

I have a couple of Haking cameras including the Halina 35X. These cameras were made while Hong Kong was still part of the Empire, but are still considered Chinese made. Some Haking cameras have "Empire Made" imprinted / engraved into the camera's bottom cover plate.

As Stephen already mentioned, some of these cameras can be nice shooters. I don't know what adhesive was used for the camera logos, but often times the little red logo on the front top housing or the silver rectangular one on the front leatherette has gone missing.

Eventually I'll be adding my Haking cameras to the "Cameras of China" thread.

Jack

[Peltigera]

I might have freed up the aperture adjusting ring too much. It is moving significantly between shots. It is ok if I remember to check between every shot, but memory is not one of my strong points.

[33dollars]

I got a couple of these heavy little cameras. I think that they used a heavy grease in the apature/ focus ring to stop it moving about when shooting.

[Peltigera]

I have got my test film back. Not brilliant - a lot of flare and vignetting - but the cathedral shows the lens can be sharp enough.

[Stephen]

A bit more vignetting than I remember for a Halina 35x, is there a chance that some internal baffle in the film chamber behind the lens is lose or miss-placed?
Stephen

[Peltigera]

I was a bit taken aback in that the vignetting is mostly on the left of the picture rather than being even which is what I would expect if the image circle was too small.

Looking carefully into the back, there are no baffles to come loose as it is all one piece cast metal but it seems that the two-bladed shutter does not always open fully - leaving about a millimetre protruding at the top left and bottom right. This would match with the vignetting at its worst and the larger of the two shutter blades is moving towards the bottom right which would give the vignetting at the top left of the picture.

[Peltigera]

Here is an image from a Halina 35X I found on the Interweb. It has the same vignetting in the same place, but perhaps not so bad.

[Stephen]

It does sound like the shutter having got lagging blades, there's no easy cure. It might be better at small apertures in brighter light, as the aperture will hide the shutter blades not fully open, and might clear up a bit with usage.

I had wondered about baffles, due to the off-set of the vignetting. Never stripped a Halina, so unsure about the servicing of the shutter, if it opens up easily, then a clean with petrol might help the blades back to normal.

Stephen.

[Stephen]

And consider how much people pay to buy special lenses to get this vignetting effect on an OM-D..........or join the Lomo movement.....

[Peltigera]

I've never really understood the Lomo movement. Our local Snappy Snaps sells Diana cameras for £50odd on the basis that they produce crap photographs - why not spend £10 on Ebay and buy a half decent camera?

I am not intending this Halina to be a user so I am not really bothered by the vignetting but, as you say, if the shutter is at fault a small aperture would cure it - but not had the sunshine recently to try small apertures!

[Stephen]

I was only being flippant about Lomo, I cannot really understand the interest in bad photography. I spent hours in shops trying to explain to customers how D&P had gone so wrong, and it was usually the photographer!, but it was deeply embarrassing when it was down to a bad camera, hopefully not one we had sold! Before you commented you had to ask the see the camera or check carefully where bought, and condition, before any comments that might dam the photographic equipment.

The other obsession I do not trust is bokah, the use of lenses to throw background/foreground out of focus, when the best photographers spent a lifetime trying to get everything in crisp focus, and yes, I do fully appreciate controlled DOF and selective focus, thank you....but buying the lens on the basis of bokah, and then using it badly is simply not good practice.

The lens must be very sound before the techniques are applied to give special effects, soft focus, controlled blur, precise DOF, you still need a good lens to start with. Too many of the shots giving good examples of bokah are exhibiting other issues like barrel distortion and diffraction issues in the focused highlights.

However after saying that I do like to use old lenses, they display odd characteristics, and have a charm of their own, especially when they come from an era without colour film. But even here, I try to get the best from them, not to excuse the shot as an artistic effect, when it is a mechanical failure of the lens or camera.

One thing I slightly disagree with is the premise that it is all down to the photographer, the idea that a Brownie will take good shots in the hands of a good photographer....it does not really work, yes, good results will come, as the experienced photographer know the limits of the Brownie, and uses it within it's capacity to take good photographs.

But the same photographer let loose on a Nikon will produce a much wider range of good shots, and it is the range of shots that matters, these days a lot of digital users have very limited subject ranges, extolling bokah far too much and not concentrating on experiencing a fuller range of photographic tasks.

Stephen

[Peltigera]

Jan 21, 2013 7:54:03 GMT -5 Stephen said:

However after saying that I do like to use old lenses, they display odd characteristics, and have a charm of their own, especially when they come from an era without colour film. Bur even here, I try to get the best from them, not to excuse the shot as an artistic effect, when it is a mechanical failure of the lens or camera.

One thing I slightly disagree with is the premise that it is all down to the photographer, the idea that a Brownie will take good shots in the hands of a good photographer....it does not really work, yes, good results will come, as the experience photographer know the limits of the Brownie, and uses it within it's capacity to take good photographs.

But the same photographer let loose on a Nikon will produce a much wider range of good shots, and it is the range of shots that matters, these days a lot of digital users have very limited subject ranges, extolling bokah far too much and not concentrating on experiencing a fuller range of photographic tasks.

Stephen

I am far from a professional photographer but I do manage to sell some pictures. Surprisingly, most of those are taken with either a Tessar or a Color-Skopar lens rather than one of my expensive Canon lenses. The customers have no idea what kit I use so it must be the qualities of the lenses that make the difference.

There was a TV programme a year or two ago where the TV company gave four professional photographers non-professional cameras to use. One of them (a woman whose name I cannot remember) was given a camera phone (before the days of Iphones and such) and she produced some brilliant pictures.  But as you say, that was down to understanding the limits and using them to good effect.

[mickeyobe]

Stephen,

You have just said it all.

Mickey ;D