Charming Imperfections

The Halina 35X is by no means a perfect camera. Small and compact, yet deceptively happy. Unconventional and slightly awkward controls, but pleasing optics, and a delightful heft make for a satisfying experience. It’s not short on flaws, but neither is short on characterful charm.

Hefty.

The Halina 35X is a pocket sized compact camera, that I can only assume is crafted from depleted uranium. This thing is heavy, over a half kilo, without the film or case. That being said, that heft is not all bad, as there is something reassuring about using a camera that feels sturdy.

Split Shutter Controls.

As mentioned before there is a shutter cocking lever, on the lens barrel. This needs to be armed, and the film advance knob needs to be rotated, before you can take a shot. If you rotate the film advance knob, and depress the shutter release without arming the shutter, nothing will happen. Worse still, because of the double exposure protection, you cannot just arm the shutter and take the photo. You need to wind again, arm the shutter, and then take a shot, wasting a shots worth of film.

Rewind.

The last of my complaints, the rewind controls. You have a rewind disconnect button between the film advance knob, and the shutter release. Once that is depressed, you can use the film rewind knob on the left hand side. There are two issues, and one benefit to that system. A gnarled rewind knob is my personal preference for rewind systems. The foldout handle style can let you put more force into the rewind, which I’m not a fan off, and I tend to find the fold out levers never stay in place very well.

One of the issues is just how close to the housing for the view finder that rewind knob is. There’s no way to spin it easily, you can only ever rewind bit by bit. I suppose this is a trade off for the compact dimensions of the camera, but it is a little aggravating.

The bigger issue is when you get to the end of your roll of film. If you pull any tension at all at the end of the roll, when you try to advance your film, but can’t advance it enough for a full frame, you’re in for a dicey time.

The rewind disconnect button tends to jam under tension, and the only way to free it, is by putting a little more tension into the film whilst pushing it down. The way around this is to be very gentle when you’re getting towards the end of a roll, and at the first sign of tension, stop, and rewind.

That is the last of my complaints, I swear.

Now, I much prefer the mechanism that the 35X, and a number of similar cameras use. Rather than a door that opens, there’s a rotating catch on the base, and you slide the entire rear of the camera body down and off. In my opinion, that lowers the likelihood of light leaks from aging seals, and there’s not really any easy way to accidently flash your film.

Optics & Aperture.

I love the look of the optics on this camera. They’re not “tack sharp” as people love to describe lenses, but they have a wonderful quality to them. They’re not too sharp, they’re not too soft, a goldilocks lens.

Once you get used to the particular workflow of this camera, it becomes easier to use, and you can begin to enjoy the ritual. Then the diminutive size starts to shine, you can set the camera up, and then put it in your pocket. Leaving the shutter cocked, but the film not yet wound is my preference.

You can then have it ready to shoot very quickly, which is great for black and white street photography, where you have a fair amount of exposure latitude, but might be pressed for time to capture the scene in front of you.

The 3-foot minimum focusing range is just fine for the vast majority of shots you might want to take, and the camera is threaded for a cable release, and has a flash output along with a cold shoe, so there’s a good amount of flexibility in the in this camera.