Kodak Instamatic X-30

The top three pictures where before I installed the battery mod, and the bottom three are after. With the second to last picture you can see how even after the fix, I had problems with slow shutter speeds and overlapping frames.

The Auto exposure Instamatic

In the 25 years that Instamatic cameras were produced, Kodak made a variety of one shutter speed plastic cameras to intricate rangefinders and SLR cameras with interchangeable lenses. The Instamatic X-30 is not a remarkable camera by any means. It’s a point and shoot, auto exposure camera with a plastic lens with the option of Magicubes for flash pictures. There was a handful of ‘electronic exposure’ Instamatic cameras made, and this would have been a lower entry within those cameras. I enjoy the simplistic look of this camera. Not many flashy colors or logos, a textured black body and accents of mat silver with a hint of blue. A very minimalistic but dignified appearance. It does not have the strange toy look that other Instamatic cameras have, it wouldn’t be mistaken for something other than a camera.

I was very surprised at the build quality of the X-30, given that it’s a mostly plastic construction on the outside. The X-30 has a solid feel in the hand and a reasonable weight. The hand wind on the rear of the camera feels solid enough for winding a 126 cart and did not give me any trouble when my re-rolled cartridges were putting up a fight. The viewfinder is decent for the time, with frame lines and a handy indicator light when you half press the shutter to tell you the exposure is too low to handhold. There is also an led on the top of the camera next to the Magicube socket that mimics the one inside the viewfinder. The flash fires at 1/45th of a second, and when a used bulb is facing forward, a warning curtain comes down in the viewfinder and prevents the exposure.

The front of the X-30 has the CDS cell for the shutter, to the right of the lens, and the shutter release on the left side. I didn’t expect this camera to have a threaded cable release socket and a tripod mount as well; both are great to have when you don’t have any Magicubes handy. The X-30 has a 43mm lens with a fixed aperture at f/11, but the shutter can vary via the electronic meter. The manual states from 10 seconds (or longer) to 1/125th is the range, but there is a default speed of 1/200th when there is no battery. To open the back, on the bottom right side, there is a recessed button that is a bit difficult to push. The battery for said meter is located inside the camera, being shoved into the inside of the camera by the hinge. On top of that it’s a super odd K battery, but with an easy modification, you can get the camera to work.

THE SPECS AND FEATURES

Shutter Speeds - 10 seconds (or longer) to 1/125th of a second, with no battery 1/200th

Aperture - a fixed f/11

Meter Type - battery powered electric eye, CDS

Shutter - electric, single leaf

ASA - no real setting, but the manual indicates nothing faster then an ASA of 125

Lens - 43mm plastic lens

Flash Option - Magicube socket, used bulb indicator in viewfinder

Batteries - 4 volt K style battery

Film Type - 126 film cartridge

Other Notable Features - slow speed/flash indicator light in viewfinder and on top of camera, tripod socket, cable release socket

The Experience

I was pleasantly surprised at how advanced the X-30 was. When I used to think of an Instamatic camera, I thought of a plastic throw away camera with little control and a bad lens. But after stumbling across a couple of cartridges, I decided to see if I could re-roll some 35mm Kentmere 100 film on the spools with the backing paper. It proved to be quite the challenge to do so in the dark, but after a couple of weeks of messing around with the cartridge, I managed to get it working... more or less. You have to keep your body very still when taking pictures, and I get overlapping frames every so often, but I guess that's the quirk of re-rolling 126.

I initially wrote off the battery, but when I developed those pictures the exposure was horrible. Even in bright sun, f/11 at 1/200th of a second is way too fast. I decided to create my own battery out of a few contacts and soldered some wires to the terminals with 3 LR44 batteries (4.5 volts) in between and call it close enough to the 4 volts of the K battery. The pictures still had a few light leaks, due to me trimming the edge of the backing paper, but overall much better exposure. I was shocked when I found that half pressing the shutter caused the light to go off in the viewfinder when it was too dark. One warning with that mod though, you will need to take out a battery when storing, because after a week the batteries were completely drained.

I made too many reservations of what I thought the Instamatic line was, and what 126 film was in general. I now have a much higher appreciation for 126 and am very excited to see a world of hundreds of cameras open up to me. Hopefully, Lomography will start producing 126 films in the same vein that they did with 110. One can only hope, but for now, I’m content with re-rolling my own cartridges. I highly recommend everyone gives it a try, the Kodak Instamatic X-30 is a great place to start.