Pentax Auto 110

In an earlier blog post about the vintage Valiant 620 camera I alluded to the fact that there were some other items I won at the “shopgoodwill.com” auction. Well, cleverly (or not so cleverly depending on how you look at it) hidden in the list of goodies I bought was a “working Pentax Auto 110” camera. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that little gem among the other goodies, and working it was (and still is).

When I opened the well, worn diminutive Pentax case and slid the Auto 110 out the first thing I noticed was that it was in excellent shape. Obviously the worn out case had done its job protecting the contents. I also noticed the camera had film in it. A couple minutes scanning the user manual (included) and I was ready to take some pictures!

I would have normally expected this copy of the world’s smallest ever SLR to get top billing on any auction description but not this time – which is probably why I was able to scoop it up so cheap along with all the other items. 

The Auto 110 came with a 24mm, f2.8 (normal) lens, two rolls of 110 Kodacolor 200 film (one already in the camera), an AF130P dedicated flash unit, and manuals for the camera and flash. There were also two little gadgets that looked like miniature lens filters but turned out to be close up and macro attachments, presumably for the 24mm lens. I haven’t tried them yet but I can say with some degree of certainty that the camera and flash work perfectly.

I have already been reprimanded by friends for “bad-mouthing” cheap plastic cameras that take the kind of crappy pictures that sometimes pass for “creative photography” these days so I will refrain from saying anything bad about the 110 format, at least until I get some film back from processing. 

What I can say is that I went straight from 127 to 35mm and purposefully stayed away from the 110 format from the time it came out in 1972 until now because all the images I saw resulting from 110 film were generally pretty poor. If there is any possibility of getting quality images from the 110 format however, I suspect it will come from this cute little SLR which I am told was designed and built with the same quality standards as the fine 35mm SLR’s Pentax was known for. 

I would never have paid the kind of price these little cameras demanded when new or even at auction today but having got it on the cheap with a bunch of other stuff I plan to put it through its paces and keep an open mind.