There’s poor man’s Xpans, and there’s craptastic plastic. The Vivitar IC101 falls into the latter category. I picked it up for AU$10, which is probably twice as much as it’s worth, but it does have some cool features for a focus-free plastic camera. Firstly, it has a lens cover. Secondly, it has a frame counter. You may take these for granted, but in the world of cheap pano cameras, these are premium features.

The viewfinder is full pano, almost giving you that Hasselblad XPan feel. The lens is a 35mm plastic f/8 beauty, with the shutter fixed at 1/125 second. I took it down the beach on an overcast summer’s day loaded up with some ILFORD FP4 PLUS. I enjoyed using it in the surf and on the cliffs in northern New South Wales.

The lens is not sharp. In fact, it makes the images I took with another plastic camera, the Disderi Robot, look like they were taken with a Contax G2 in comparison. Yet the photos have a charming, lo-fi, impressionistic, almost pinhole look to them. Even more so because of the tiny jagged edges the pano gates have left on the images.

I only bought the camera because earlier in 2020 my friend Antony suggested I should run a pano challenge via my podcast, Matt Loves Cameras. Antony received a Wide Pic panorama in the 2019 EMULSIVE Secret Santa, from none other than Mr Sunny 16 himself, Graeme Jago. So I bought the Vivitar, and the competition was launched!

The Matt Loves Panos challenge is on until 30 June 2020. There are five rules:

  1. The camera must be made of plastic.
  2. The camera must be fixed-focus.
  3. The camera must weigh less than 150grams / 5oz.
  4. The camera must take taking images in panoramic format.
  5. If the camera needs any kind of battery to operate, it’s probably not eligible.

So far we’ve had some cracking entries in the plastic pano competition from Australia, the UK, the USA, Thailand and New Zealand.

If you have one of these cameras, this is a call to arms: let these fixed-focus plastic beauties have their day in the sun. When you’re finished a roll (or two), head over to the Matt Loves Panos competition page on my website where you can find details of how to enter.

The prizes aren’t worth mentioning, but if we get some good entries, we might do a zine.

~ Matt

Submit your 5 Frames… today

Get your own 5 Frames featured by submitting your article using this form or by sending an email via the contact link at the top of the page.

Share your knowledge, story or project

The transfer of knowledge across the film photography community is the heart of EMULSIVE. You can add your support by contributing your thoughts, work, experiences and ideas to inspire the hundreds of thousands of people who read these pages each month. Check out the submission guide here.

If you like what you’re reading you can also help this passion project by heading over to the EMULSIVE Patreon page and contributing as little as a dollar a month. There’s also print and apparel over at Society 6, currently showcasing over two dozen t-shirt designs and over a dozen unique photographs available for purchase.

Similar stuff on EMULSIVE

7 responses to “5 Frames… On the “Plastic Craptastic” with ILFORD FP4 PLUS (EI 125 / 35mm format / Vivitar IC101 Panorama)”

  1. Matthew Thompson Avatar
    Matthew Thompson

    if it arrives in time I shall try to

  2. Thank you! I was quite surprised by the results. As a colour shooter primarily, I will also try to shoot more black and white!

  3. Excellent! I hope that you will be able to enter the comp Matthew 🙂

  4. Yes, I agree! You can see the originals on the competition rules page on my website 🙂

  5. Matthew Thompson Avatar
    Matthew Thompson

    Oh dear..!

    I just made a huge outlay on a Halina Panorama Compact 35mm Film Camera based on going from this article to your website to evilbay…. Ha!

    I need to find room on the shelf

  6. It seems almost a shame to crop out the letterbox effect – The black bars add a certain cinematic “drama” lol.

  7. Wow, they look lovely to me. Indeed rather “pinholish” 🙂

 

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Discover more from EMULSIVE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Discover more from EMULSIVE

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading