Vintage Kodak Instamatic X15 camera

Just another finds here at my old family house.

 

 

 

could I make money off of this?

CONDITION: 9/10 rate

In good vintage condition Working advance lever and shutter

It uses RARE 126film cartridge. 126 Film is now discontinued from production.

This is probably a $5 garage sale item--Kodak made thousands upon thousands of them and they were cheap when they were new.

This is probably a $5 garage sale item--Kodak made thousands upon thousands of them and they were cheap when they were new.

 

Only worth anything to someone willing to load 35mm film into a 126 cartridge themselves--experiment with lomography--and process it themselves. Few labs can deal with the square printing format...

This is probably a $5 garage sale item--Kodak made thousands upon thousands of them and they were cheap when they were new.

I see a lot of them in estate sales. I wouldn't even pick them up.

Old black and white film usually works, but I would find a better camera for it.

 

You might find a roll for $10 or so on ebay, with shipping.

'Vintage' + 'Instamatic' = oxymoron.

'Vintage' + 'Instamatic' = oxymoron.

 

Instamatic goes back to 1963, old enough to be vintage for me.

Instamatic goes back to 1963, old enough to be vintage for me.

 

- No, that's just old.

The word vintage implies something old that has some inherent merit or superiority due to its age, such as a particular year of wine or model of car. Not all old wine is vintage, and the same applies to old cameras.

 

Garbage is still garbage, no matter how old it gets.

I don’t think all instamatics were garbage.

Sorry Joe, can't go along with that statement. Were they the greatest cameras? Of course not but I'll bet more family photos have been made with Instamatics on 126 and 110 film than everything else put together. The X-15 was my first camera and it got me started on this lifelong adventure. I still have one. Garbage? Don't be so close minded.

 

Rick H.

There are the 714 and 814, and even the Instamatic Reflex. Not so bad.

Joe has a point. Compared to what was available when those cameras were produced, they were at the bottom of the commercial market in terms of quality.

BUT they cultivated a market for demand for decades in better stuff.

There is an inescapable value in the sentimental affection for such things. They inspired millions of people to take pictures and those same people are still taking pictures today.

My first camera was a Kodak Hawkeye I ordered around the age of 5 or 6 with three box tops off of Corn Flakes.

You can’t get much more quaint than that.

But to a young kid that camera was pure magic.

It planted a seed that has grown throughout my life.

If 126 cartridge film was still on the market I would buy one off EBay.

Later Mom’s 104 got considerable use by me until I bought my first Pentax ME.

I can’t imagine “garbage” ever making the contribution to the photography market that was made by those instamatics in the hands of MILLIONS.

Most of my most cherished family photographs were facilitated with the Kodak Instamatics.

They really did record the “Times of Your Life”.

 

If forced to choose, I would give up ever seeing an Ansel Adams photo again if that were the price to keep those instamatic family snapshots. And I recognize that is a purely subjective choice.....

Edited July 27, 2018 by Moving On

The Instamatic was an instant success; more than 50 million Instamatic cameras were produced between 1963 and 1970.[1] Kodak even gave away a considerable number in a joint promotion with Scott paper towels in the early 1970s in order to generate a large number of new photographers and stimulate lasting demand for its film business.

Instamatic - Wikipedia

Edited July 27, 2018 by Moving On

An Instamatic is one camera of many featured in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Here's Roy Neary (Richard Dreyfuss) trying to load the cartridge and shooting with one:

 

 

 

Jillian Guiler (Melinda Dillon) is more sophisticated and has a Rollei B35 (with endless film, BTW).

The lenses weren't so bad for the price.

 

Before Instamatic, and even for some time after 120/620 simple cameras were common.

 

If I figure it out right, the smaller format, and shorter focal length lens, allows more depth of field with the same shutter speed and f/stop.

 

Also, it was easier to use flash, making indoor pictures more likely to work.

- No, that's just old.

The word vintage implies something old that has some inherent merit or superiority due to its age, such as a particular year of wine or model of car. Not all old wine is vintage, and the same applies to old cameras.

 

Garbage is still garbage, no matter how old it gets.

The Instamatic cameras definitely weren't garbage. Some were better than others of course but Kodak sold them for years and they were very successful for them. It was even successful enough for them to produce the Kodak Instamatic Reflex camera, which put almost every other model instamatic camera to shame. With the thousands of instamatics still around, you think that someone would think it was worthwhile enough to manufacture 126 film.

One of the first cameras I encountered, but it was pretty awful in every possible way. There were some decent 126 cameras but even a late disposable would have a better lens.

There's someone who lives near me and has been listing the same item on Craigslist for two years or more. A "vintage" Betamax VCR for which he is asking $400.

This could get deeply philosophical quite quickly, but first let me clarify that I didn't mean to imply Instamatics were garbage. Although I see how it might read that way. I was simply saying that age doesn't necessarily add value to anything.

For example: A fossil millions of years old can be bought very cheaply, or even picked up for nothing.

I also think we need to divorce sentimental value from intrinsic value. Just because an Instamatic was your first camera, that doesn't make it worth any more than the now useless black plastic box that it has become. Especially since it was churned out among millions of identical others.

 

My first camera that was bought out of my own pocket money was a Ferrania 12 on 120 'Brownie' copy. As grateful as I am to it for the experience of using it; I freely admit that it was a cheap and inferior thing that I quickly outgrew and forgot about, with negligible monetary worth today.

 

I think we also need to separate the concept of the Instamatic from its embodiment. The democratisation of photography brought about by the Instamatic, as well as its predecessors and descendants, is a very praiseworthy ideal. And almost as successful in democratising photography as the idea of putting a digital camera into a mobile phone.

 

I find it very strange that something like an Instamatic can be so enthusiastically supported, and by some of the same people that denigrate the phone camera for its same ethos of easy, foolproof and ubiquitous use.

There is and always has been a difference between personal and market value.

A broken in pair of Red Wings is more valuable to me than a new pair, but those boots lost value for everyone else the moment I slipped them on.

The fondness for the instamatic in my case is 90% sentimental. It introduced me to photography. It is inextricably connected to all the canoeing, swimming, shooting, horseback riding, grade school, birthday parties, state fairs, fishing, camping, hunting, holidays.

In short, as I’ve recalled before from the Kodak jingle, the Times of my Life, and that is a powerful connection.

But I well recognize it falls far short in quality, craftsmanship, and photographic utility.

For what it was it was a great value, magnified by the memories it captured.

As superior as my phone camera is, it isn’t connected to my past the way the instamatic is.

Additionally, this brings up another point. I recently purchased a NIB Nikon S3 2K for about 1/5 of what it originally sold for. I’m sure the original owner never expected to use it maintaining or increasing it’s value with time.

While I understand and appreciate that line of thought, I always placed a higher value on my own personal use of things. I take good care of the quality but can’t imagine not seasoning any of my “tools” with good use.

They're not worth much, but they weren't bad cameras - especially for the price. I picked one up for nostalgia purposes last year - this was the first camera I used as a kid. I have a supply of Magicubes anyway, since I also have a Polaroid Big Shot. And while the lens wasn't great, if you were using decent film and there was good lighting, you could get some pretty good shots. Not having much to fiddle with forced you to focus on composition, which isn't the worst exercise. I've got 126 negatives from the mid 1970s that probably look better than shots from a 1 or 2 megapixel P&S digital camera.

 

I also think 126 film's square format was a plus. When I first started using 35mm cameras, I found that I missed it.

 

I saw a brief interview with Todd Gustavson from the George Eastman Museum about the format (might have been in the BBC's "Genius of Photography" series), and he pointed out that it had a bad rap. If I remember correctly, he went back and looked at test shots taken and found that there weren't any quality problems - focus was fine, etc. Apparently some manufacturers of both 126 cameras and film cartridges weren't great on QA, but it wasn't an inherent issue.

37 years pass between a Kodak instamatic and a 35mm in the same spot. The little 126 fulfilled its purpose.