Plastic Craptastic Find

The Cortland CX-7, mint in box!

Last month, my mother-in-law told me she found this camera, still in the unopened box, while cleaning out some belongings that had accumulated in the garage.  It felt heavy, so she wondered if it was a valuable camera.  She gave me the name, and I looked it up. I told her that the Cortland name was yet another version of the timeless "Time camera" and that its value was about that of a McDonald's cheeseburger and fries, and that she should send it to me when she had the chance. Well, yesterday, the annual Christmas package arrived, and in the box was the Cortland CX-7.  It was heavy, and after I opened up the box and removed the plastic wrapping from the camera, I took off the bottom plate and yes, there is a pot-metal weight there, as well as weights either on the lens barrel or behind the front grip area.  I put it back together, and marveled at the attempt to make a cheap plastic toy camera look and feel like a more expensive SLR. The manual was also printed in 4 languages, making it much thicker than it ought to be.  The Cortland Optical lens?  Just like all the other "optical lenses" in this type of camera.  There is a somewhat adjustable aperture, and the shutter speed is about 1/125 sec.  There was an offer inside the box for a matching flash for $17 + $3 shipping.

I have had many of these cameras over the years end up at my door, and all are variants on the same basic specifications.

the Original TIME camera

The Sceptre 800

The great Photoflex MX-35

None of them would be called a good camera, and I believe that even the most basic Kodak Instamatics took better quality photos.  However, one never knows the results until a roll of film is put through one.  I'll slap a roll of b&w into the Cortland and see what results I get.    They do accept a manual flash unit, so they can be used indoors.   The actual value?  While there are those on ebay that might describe these types of cameras as something else, these are cheap plastic toy cameras.  Perhaps slightly better than a Holga 35. They are not worth much, but if you find one at a thrift shop for a buck, buy it and have fun.  I do have results on this blog for another variant, the CMYK camera.  Your results may vary, just as mine did.

The Blue Waters of Port Huron

Almost a month ago I went on a road trip to Port Huron, MI and Sarnia, Ontario with my buddies John Baird and Marc Akemann. I finally have scanned in the second roll of Ektar 100 shot with my Minolta X700 from that day. Early April isn't the most summery weather, and it had cooled down from the record-setting March warmth of a few weeks earlier. However, it was a beautiful cloudless sky and just warm enough to not feel cold. We traipsed around the downtown a bit, and hit some of the areas along the St. Clair River. If you don't know much about Michigan, you should at least know that aside from the southern border of the lower peninsula and the south-western border of the Upper Peninsula, it is a state defined by the Great Lakes. Port Huron sits at the bottom of Lake Huron, and the St. Clair River flows S into Lake Erie. Across the water to the east is Canada. Fishing and boating are big along this corridor, and it was apparent in Port Huron. Of course, the St. Clair River is also a commercial waterway, with Great Lakes freighters coming through, and industrial areas along the shorelines of both countries near the urban centers. Like many small cities, Port Huron is not the place it was a century ago, but it seems to have held its own pretty well, and the downtown is a mix of old and new, with only a few empty storefronts. We had lunch at the Cavis Grill (really, it is more of a diner), and enjoyed our meal there.

Enough of reading. Here are some images from the morning there. All were shot with my Minolta X700 and a 24-70 lens or the 135mm lens on Kodak Ektar 100, which is a superb color print film that reminds me a great deal of Ektachrome.

Looking over towards Sarnia, Ontario. The St. Clair River really was a opalesque turquiose blue.

Waterfront property is waterfront property. You don't need a mansion to feel rich when you have a place on the waterfront.

Ring-billed gulls are ubiquitous in the Great Lakes. Yet, I love watching them and their adroit flying skills. The ones that hang around the Bridge to Bay Trail (see following images) are probably quite vigilant in watching what the people fishing are doing. There are a series of sculptures along this sidewalk, and each one had a couple of attending gulls.

There were a number of people fishing along the river, and each person had multiple rigs set up on jigs to hold them on the railing. I am not familiar with fishing laws, but I know that when I did fish, I thought one was limited to no more than two rods in the water at the same time. I asked the guys what they caught, and said they got all kinds of fish there. I didn't see any activity while we were there, but fishing is like the ultimate test of patience in my book.

No bites yet.

This guy was actually casting.

There are lots of channels and docks around Port Huron, and it is obviously a busier place in the summer months.

Well, that's it for this photo essay. It's always a different feeling when shooting film instead of digital. One is more economical with the shots, for one, and two, I think I generally put more care into the composition. Three, every film has a different characteristic, and that's what makes using it so much fun. Try some Ektar 100.