In the summer I spent a week in the south of Germany, flitting between agreeable cities on the train with my missus.
I’d met her in Paris after attending the Bievres International Photo Fair, famous for Europe’s biggest camera market. For the last few years I’ve sold film there, but this year I was there as a punter, doing coffee runs for mates selling and ogling all manner of temptations. The camera bag was much heavier on the Sunday afternoon than it had been on the Saturday morning…
Amid the purchases, I’d packed a handful of compacts on the list to review for Kosmo Foto. One of them, in particular, has been a bit of a discovery: the Hanimex 35 HS. This 80s-era compact is an Aussie rebrand of a cheap-and-cheerful pocket camera from Hong Kong called the Halina 150.
It is no right-thinking person’s idea of a cult compact. And yet, this boot fair staple, the kind of camera you might find for £2, is an absolute dark horse.
The Hanimex 35HS is focus free and has a single shutter speed; if you want flash you have to attach a small flashgun to the top of the camera via the hot shoe. But it comes with a three different apertures matched to different weather conditions, all marked with the appropriate image.
The glass 33mm lens is surprisingly nice, albeit with some LOMO-style vignetting in the corners. It’s not a camera that requires deep reading of the a thick manual, nor premium film. I loaded it with an expired roll of Kirkland Signature 200 – Costco’s finest rebranded colour film – and snap away.
I shot a couple of rolls on the Hanimex around Konstanz and St Gallen, just over the border in Switzerland – and some of them are among my favourite pics of the holiday.
This is one of them. We were in Konstanz, which borders Lake Constance (or Bodensee in German), the largest lake in Germany. Konstanz was spared bombing during World War II thanks to being so close to the Swiss border and almost all of its historic old town remains; it has a genteel, moneyed air reinforced by a boating marina that brings yachties flocking to just about Germany’s farthest point from the sea.
One of the city’s main landmarks is the train station, just a stone’s throw from the lake and complete with an impressive spired tower. It was while heading towards the station this woman walked in front of me, coat in one hand and the other pulling along her suitcase, the bright summer sunshine creating patches of reflected light on her suit. I had the Hanimex in hand and didn’t even need to focus – just compose, click, and hope for the best.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
