With the recent Passing of our dearly loved Mate in England, the Five Mates Group decided that our current project would involve cameras with a British connection, and with an underlying theme of Renewal, as Spring and Easter approach.

The Halina 35x was made in Hong Kong while it was a leased Crown Colony of Britain. It was made under several other names as well, including Micronta 35x and Cosmo 35x.
When I first saw one of these some years ago, I thought it was a joke. But with experience I discovered that it has surprising capability in making images.
The camera is very tiny, but unexpectedly heavy and solid, with as much chrome as a 53 Buick.. The shutter is 4 speed (25, 50, 100, 200) plus B. The film transport has full interlock but shutter must be cocked by lever each time. Lens is "Halina Anastigmat 1:3.5 f=45 mm" and is focused by guesstimation 3 feet to infinity.

I shot for the Project using an out of date (use by 2006) roll of asa 160 NPS Professional Fujicolor Portrait Film, 36 exposure. Negatives were processed by Walgreens, but I scanned them myself with my Epson.

For the theme, I reasoned that Life is about constant Renewal. It was not quite Spring time, but there were signs of Life to be found, and the Promise of Life.

Camera performed well, except that the slow speeds were a bit fast and low light shots were a bit underexposed (software tools helped to partly salvage some of these); the camera vignetted a bit in exposure; and the peripheral sides of frames were a bit soft. Both of these problems were helped with a little cropping of the frames. In the center areas of the images, focus was true, and lines were sharp and crisp.

Locations include home, Powder Valley Conservation Area, and the Meramec River Greenway in Fenton.
Some of the living room shots were helped with a 650 watt Sylvania Sun Gun mounted on tripod.
Last frame was an accidental double exposure. I did not realize that I was at the very end of the roll, and wind-on did not advance, although it did set up an additional exposure on top of the last.

Please click on thumbnails to see enlargement.
All images are ©2011 E.J.Kowalski.