Roniflex Plastic Toy 35mm Film Camera Video Review

(Please click here if you can't see the video.)

 The Roniflex X3000 film camera offers a tantalising mix of plastic lensed lomo loveliness with the convenience of 35mm film, and I picked this one up from a charity shop for a couple of pounds.

Technically the Roniflex uses a 50mm fixed focus lens, and 4 aperture positions to control the exposure - Cloudy, Overcast, Light Sun and Bright Sun. These settings equate to f/4, f/5.6, f/8 and f/11, although they must be approximate as the lens says it has a maximum aperture of f/5.6....

 

Build quality, as you'd expect, is wonderfully poor. It's tricky getting the rear door open, and the wind-on needs carefully checking. I managed to waste a whole roll of film by not fixing it on properly - so make sure you're looking at the wind-back lever when you wind the film on - it should rotate too!

The black and white self-developed film you see here doesn't really show the Roniflex off to its full potential. I expect it to take the best looking photographs on colour film, on sunny days, probably with plenty of interesting flare and light leaks.

Keep your eyes open for these little beauties while you're scouring the thrift stores and garage sales - a plastic toy camera that uses 35mm film rather that the more difficult to handle 120, deserves a place in every camera enthusiasts collection.

Cheers, Rob.