135compact.com 35mm half format cameras Superheadz Golden Half
Powershovel
Ltd. is a Japanese company, founded in 2000 and is based in Tokyo. They
design and sell Lomography kind of film-based photography products.
They use the brand SuperHeadz for their cameras.
The company also distributes Holga cameras, a Vivitar Ultrawide and Slim clone and the revived Agfa 35mm film.
The Superheadz Golden Half is one of their products, its front is
designed to look like an old Kodak Brownie Holiday. It's a small
plastic half frame camera, said to be one of the smallest cameras for
35mm film. Like most half frame cameras, it's vertically orientated, so it's portrait mode. The camera's main features are:
35mm film half-frame camera, picture size 24 x 18 mm
22mm 2-element lens system, shutter between the 2 lenses, 1/100 single speed
2 Apertures F11, F8.5, F11 flash
Hot shoe, tripod socket
Size 88 x 72 x 32 mm, Weight 90 gr
Some pictures of the camera:
Front.
Viewer and lens. The horizontal stripe pattern has nearly completely
worn off, you can see it still around the lens. There were other front
patterns later including the enevitable "Hello Kitty" version.
Back
view. Finder. The text on the back reads: "Golden
Half is a half size format camera for 35 mm films. 72 photos could be
produced with a 135-36 exp. film. Apertures of the camera are; F=11
when Sunny, F=8.5 when Cloudy and F=11 when you use Flash. So throw
away your book and why don't you go out!"
Seen from above. Tiny film counter. Shutter release.
You need good eyes to see the numbers of the counter, 72 on the photo. With mine I got 8 more.
Seen from below. Rewind handle. Tripod socket (doesn't make sense with 1/100s speed and no B setting). Rewind release.
Camera back open. The second lens elements helps to avoid vignetting.
The hot shoe on the side. Note the tiny aperture symbols on the lens ring.
Camera with a very small Holga 12s flash.
The
Superheadz Golden Half is a very light and very small camera, easy to handle. It
takes
sharp pictures. Spacing is tight, so you get at least 75 photos from a
roll. It's for outdoor photos. There is a hot shoe for flash, so
interior photos are possible. No night photos, as there is no B
setting. So this is an easy camera of limited
use, but
it's much fun.
