A few weeks ago a friend gifted me a Rollei A26 in mint condition. The A26 is a 126 format camera. 126 film, or Instamatic film, hasn’t been produced since the late 1990’s. There are options to spool 35mm film into custom 126 canisters but that sounded like too much work for me.

I had a look online and quickly found some Kodak Gold on eBay that was “fridged” for 20 years. It sounded too good to be true but I didn’t have any other options so I plopped down $20 on a roll.

I headed to Victoria BC for the weekend for some R&R with the little Rollei tucked into my back pocket. It’s a beautiful camera. A boxy clamshell with a 40mm f/3.5 sonar lens that pops out when the camera is opened.

The film canister is about as easy to use as a light switch. Drop it in. Close the camera and the film advances half a frame. Open the camera and it finishes winding the film to the next frame and cocks the shutter.

The camera has zone focusing. The viewfinder isn’t coupled to the lens so you need to choose 1 of 3 focus zones. They’re the typical head (close up) two torsos (sort of close up) and trees (infinity).

My close focus results were… not good. And to be honest most of the shots I took were touristy snapshots. The expired film has all the old school tones of old instamatic shots. The only thing that gives these away as modern photos are the cars. Other than that these could be my parents photos from the 1970’s.

This is what Instagram was going for when it launched. Square photos with vintage tones. Nostalgia dripping with more nostalgia. I scanned these on my tabletop scanner after the local photo lab processed them. Processing is simple C41 if you want to tackle it yourself.

Will I ever shoot with this camera again? Not unless someone starts making 126 film again. Maybe Lomography? Who knows, but it was a blast shooting with this thing. Come on Lomography, make some 126!

Scott.