In the spirit of play/experimentation I bought a Harman single use camera to see what it is capable of. I chose the version loaded with Ilford HP5+. The camera has a fixed 30mm f 9.5 lens and a shutter speed of 1/100th second. There is a built in flash for indoor use. The lens is reasonably sharp, with a bit of blur and fall-off in the corners, as is to be expected with plastic lenses. The shortish focal length and comparatively small aperture of the lens means that everything from about three feet to infinity is reasonably in focus and sharp enough for most subjects. Harman publishes a technical information leaflet for the camera, www.harmantechnology.com/amfile/file/download/file/590/product/508/
Carrying such a light weight camera felt odd, yet rather liberating, as was using it to just point and shoot (why don’t I just set my digital Canon on auto?). More than once I missed a shot because I’d forgotten to wind the film on! The flash seemed rather under powered when I used it to take groups in cafes. I’ve bought another one, this time loaded with XP2, generally a more forgiving film when the exposure is a bit hit and miss.
