"Darren & Tara Sutherland" wrote:
> I think they are often sold through magazine subscription companies.
[...]
> Who knows...I'd like to think that I have enough sense to research offers
> like that before getting "taken" that way.
It looks a lot like the plastic "toy" camera I used to keep in my
glove compartment just in case I saw something I absolutely had to
photograph and had somehow forgotten to grab an SLR on my way out
the door. Fixed-focus, all plastic, tiny, and styled to look like
a more expensive camera in photographs of it (though smaller than
whatever it's trying to look like when you see it in real life).
Even down to a "brand name" similar to some more expensive camera.
Yunon, Can-something, etc.
I got mine as a freebie for signing up for some credit card -- probably
an oil company one -- that I was going to sign up for anyhow, so I
wasn't "taken". I figured it was some sort of cheesy thing, and when
I got it I wasn't surprised. I was afraid to actually trust it to
take pictures, so it sat on my shelf for a few years until I had
something I needed to photograph Right Then and no other camera
available.
And that was what took that annoying itch in the back of my skull
that kept making me look at the world as though I were going to
photograph it, and turned it into a monkey on my back forcing me
to spend money I couldn't afford on film and developing, cursing
the pathetic tool I was using the whole while.
It was essentially a 35mm version of the plastic Brownie I had
in 7th grade, only not as good. Fortunately a friend saw what
I was using and heard me talk about what I _wanted_ to do that
exceeded the capabilities of the camera, and offered me a real
camera. That was the Pentax H3 I mentioned in another thread.
(It was months after he made the offer that I finally saw him
again, and in the meantime I'd picked up the Olympus, but the
H3 offered me something the OM-10 didn't: full manual control.
The OM-10 can do that with an add-on adaptor, but I didn't have
that. I did like the OTF (like the LX) metering though. Alas,
it developed an electrical problem.)
Whether this "Mintax" on eBay is similar to my little plastic toy
(hmm ... sounds suggestive that way) I'm not sure -- it might be
a little fancier, or it might just be the same thing with a more
modern-looking shape to the plastic.
My "Yunon" vanished when my mother's car (which I'd borrowed
while mine was in the shop) was stolen. I was more upset about
the Pentax flash that was with it and the two-thirds used roll
of film that was in it. (And, of course, the car.)
Some folks keep a single-use camera in the glove box. One of
these things is probably no worse to use for that.
-- Glenn
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