Halina AFS700 point and shoot

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Gary
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Hi

This is following on from an earlier post regarding my Daughter purchasing cheap point and shoot cameras she is starting to test some of them and not wanting to waste film I thought I would ask the knowledgeable folks on this forum. I have been tasked with this camera whilst she tries another.


Hope someone as some thoughts on this.

Thanks
Gaz
 
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Plain Nev said:
Halina is usually a name that strikes dread in the most hardened of photographers, and one to be avoided like the plague. I've never actually used one, but sometimes feel the urge to see if they are really that bad. :D
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Yes. Thanks to the internet, there are no really bad products today, but pre-internet just about anything would find buyers, and the Halina was one of the worst engineered cameras around.
 
I bought a Halina 35X camera with my savings, every penny, when I was about 12, my first 35mm camera. It lasted me until I was about 21, when I left university. Quite surprising really as it definitely wasn't the best made camera and it was plagued by light leaks and bad frame spacing, don't even talk about massive flare. One thing I'm grateful for is that it taught me all about using a very a simple manual camera. I replaced it with a Zenit B. I still have all the negatives taken with the Halina, by the way. I once toyed with the idea of buying another for old times sake but realised I wouldn't want to ever use it, couldn't be trusted mechanically.

This is one of the first shots with the Halina, you can see how I attempted to get spot on focussing, I pinched the tape measure out of my mum's sewing basket.

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Another very early shot, my dad's car from my bedroom window.


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A couple from a camping trip to Ireland in 1963, I think it was.

Strand bar Cahore, It wasn't like this then; https://www.thestrandcahore.ie/gallery. It was a rough bar and a shop, the only shop in fact.

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Farm house.

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Actually, when stopped down the lens wasn't too bad but you can see here some flare or possibly a light leak on the left. This shot also reminds me that the viewfinder was very squinty and a bit approximate.

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Later, plastic Halinas were just rebadged generic cameras, the same as many other "brands".
Whilst the metal cams were/are very cheaply made and often with problems, the later plastic super simple P&S cameras can be fun and reliable ('cause they don't have features).
I have a couple that are identical to other makes and promotional versions that, although fixed everything, do a good job if used within their limitations (bright conditions and right subject distance).
 
Thanks for the replies.

I have no idea how I did it but my opening thread was only half of what I had written or thought I had written,

I'm definitely loosing the plot :-(

So this point and shoot camera has a flash I have installed batteries and the camera fires up am I correct in thinking if I were to press the shutter and the flash is switched on it would fire without having film in it ? Is that the case with all point and shoot cameras?
The flash doesn't fire, there isn't a flash switch on button but there is a slider under the flash that says sensor override if that is activated a orange light appears next to the viewfinder.

Gaz
 
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If you want a P&S as rule of thumb the newer the better. Newer in this context might mean 25 years old of course. I find the Samsung zoom compacts seem to offer a good balance between price, features and condition. Of course it is still possibule to get one with light leaks or other issues but a look on eBay might be a good starting point. With the zom cameras I view them as a regular wideish angle lens camera that somtimes on a sunny day might also have a longer lens as the max apature at the longend is very dim, often around F12!

"modern" Halina cameras are possiully best avoided esp' thos with AF, motor wind on etc. The fixed exposure, fixed focus type should still work so long as there is no battery leaking, even then it's just the flash that would fail. The fixed ones however just arn't very good as cameras.
 
Mostly Vintage Cameras said:
If you want a P&S as rule of thumb the newer the better. Newer in this context might mean 25 years old of course. I find the Samsung zoom compacts seem to offer a good balance between price, features and condition. Of course it is still possibule to get one with light leaks or other issues but a look on eBay might be a good starting point. With the zom cameras I view them as a regular wideish angle lens camera that somtimes on a sunny day might also have a longer lens as the max apature at the longend is very dim, often around F12!

"modern" Halina cameras are possiully best avoided esp' thos with AF, motor wind on etc. The fixed exposure, fixed focus type should still work so long as there is no battery leaking, even then it's just the flash that would fail. The fixed ones however just arn't very good as cameras.
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Well I like sharp shots as you can always go down if too sharp, but with a crappy lens you can't go up, so just IMO (as I haven't tried all zooms available at the time) you will not get the sharpest shots using an old compact camera with zoom...you'd think with Olympus that they would know about lenses, but I threw away an Olympus 105g because of unsharp results. :(
 
Mostly Vintage Cameras said:
If you want a P&S as rule of thumb the newer the better. Newer in this context might mean 25 years old of course. I find the Samsung zoom compacts seem to offer a good balance between price, features and condition. Of course it is still possibule to get one with light leaks or other issues but a look on eBay might be a good starting point. With the zom cameras I view them as a regular wideish angle lens camera that somtimes on a sunny day might also have a longer lens as the max apature at the longend is very dim, often around F12!

"modern" Halina cameras are possiully best avoided esp' thos with AF, motor wind on etc. The fixed exposure, fixed focus type should still work so long as there is no battery leaking, even then it's just the flash that would fail. The fixed ones however just arn't very good as cameras.
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Great info. Thanks
 
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