Argus Pocketpak 5000

The Argus Pocket Perfection

This camera has almost no information or documentation online. Only brief mentions of the camera’s specifications and features. No real date or history of the camera was found on forums, magazines, or newspapers… but I had to start somewhere. I tried my hand at the name Argus Pocketpak. It’s a somewhat unique name and one that might give me hints to the manufacturer. Nothing. Only small references to ads in newspapers from 1977 and 1980. I tried only Pocketpak, and a handful of cameras that used this name came up, all from different manufacturers. Caprice, Olympia, and Birex were all third party rebrands of vaguely similar cameras, but not quite what I was looking for. That was until I ran across Porst. The 1970s font of Pocketpak was identical, but that only confirmed that this camera was in fact not Argus made. As far as rebranding goes, one of the largest companies to do so was Porst. The Porst Pocketpak 2001 was very similar and made by King (of Regula fame). The aesthetic and plastic color was a very close match, but there was an underlying issue. As I recalled, King cameras were German made, not Japanese. Further reading lead me to see that King had financial troubles and started to import cameras from Hong Kong and Japan in the 1970s. My guess is that the Argus Pocketpak 5000 was a King camera, being one of the later models made in Japan. A very interesting search and I finally have a pretty good idea of where this camera came from and a reasonable timeframe.

The Pocketpak 5000 has a great look to it right out of the gate. It’s hard to go wrong with mixtures of black and silver, and this 110 camera pulls it off. The main body and controls are black, while the outside shell and faceplate are silver. There are few other colors, besides the orange and green of the exposure controls, making this a sleek and non-attention grabbing design. The only branding is a metallic silver plate on the front of the camera, screen printed with the Argus logo, Pocketpak 5000 printed to the right of the body, and a few specifications near the lens.

To see through the viewfinder, you need to first open the camera. With the camera’s lens facing away from you, if you place your left hand index finger, and thumb on the indentations of the camera’s body, you can pull the camera apart. This action does a few things. Similar to the Rollei A110, the opening and closing of the camera advances the film to the next frame and winds the shutter. Now that the camera is open, you are able to see through the viewfinder and take a picture. The Pocketpak 5000 is a scale focus camera and you are able to see the classic symbols of a mountain, people, and a single person on the top of the viewfinder. Frame lines and a parallax correction area are present as well. In addition, there are three LED lights on the right hand side of the viewfinder. The top is an over exposure warning, the bottom is a slow speed warning, and the middle lets you know that the ND filter is in front of the lens. That’s right, there is a built in ND4 filter that you can slide in at any time.

The Pocketpak 5000 is equipped with an unbranded 24mm f/2.7 lens, covered by a glass protector. All of the main controls are located on the top of the camera. On the right hand side, you have a square shutter button with a cable release. To the left of that, you have two slider controls for the focus and aperture. Focusing is in meters and goes from infinity and 10 meters, down to 1.2 meters. Below that is the aperture scale of f/2.7 down to f/22. Simplified picture guides are on the scales as well for reference. There is no direct control of the shutter speed, being this is an aperture priority camera. No official shutter speeds are documented online, however, there exists a single mention within an ad of a 1977 newspaper. This ad states that the camera’s shutter ranges from 15 seconds to 1/500th of a second. The Pocketpak 5000 also has a hot shoe on one side, and a tripod socket on the other. The flash setting is automatically set with a switch built into the hot shoe. Lastly, loading the film is pretty straightforward. To open the back, you must open the camera first then press the black tab on the back side. Once open you are now able to put in a 110 cartridge or change the 4LR44 battery.

THE SPECS AND FEATURES

Shutter Speeds - aperture priority, 15 seconds to 1/500th

Aperture - f/2.7 to f/22

Meter Type - CDS

Shutter - leaf shutter

Lens - scale focusing, infinity and 10 meters to 1.2 meters

Flash Option - hot shoe flash, X sync

Batteries - 4LR44

Film Type - 110 cartridge

Other Features - threaded shutter button, tripod mount, ND4 filter built in

The Experience

I’m a big fan of Argus cameras. One of the first cameras I remember buying from a thrift store was an Argus A. Since then, whenever I’m looking in stores or online, I check to see if there are any interesting Argus cameras. That is how I came across the uncommon Argus Pocketpak 5000. It was listed online as an Argus camera, no model, As-Is, and I don’t know how to use it… a typical roll of the dice auction. It was a reasonable price and I took the chance hoping there would be no major problems. Luckily the camera arrived in great shape. A few wear marks on the bottom, but everything looked well kept and in working order. I threw in a battery and the shutter worked with no problems on the first shot. After a light cleaning and a few tests, the Pocketpak 5000 was ready to go.

Shortly thereafter, I found myself focused on completing a few other projects and this camera slipped my mind. The Pocketpak sat in the backlog for quite a few months, before being shuffled to the front of the line when I was looking for a pocket camera to take with me to and from work. Once spring hit and the weather improved, I found myself carrying this camera everywhere I went. The main camera in my bag would change up every so often, but this 110 camera was always in there. Over the course of a few months, I had a newfound appreciation for this incredible camera and it still resides in my camera bag today.

This was also my first time trying out Fukkatsu film in black and white and color. It performed much better than I anticipated, producing very usable results enlarged. I even needed to use the ND4 filter on a very sunny day, and the pictures came out great. Something I want to try out soon would be a few portraits. I have done portraits on 110 before, but I did not have control over the depth of field. An interesting experiment for the future.

This unassuming Argus 110 camera really won my appreciation for how wonderful it is to shoot. Incredibly intuitive controls, an easy to use design, and very small in size. It only takes seconds to take a picture, going from your pocket to focused. If you are able to find an Argus Pocketpak 5000, I cannot recommend it enough. It belongs up there with the greats of 110 cameras.