PN 919

What is PN 919? You ever heard of PN 919? No? Neither did I until about three months ago when I decided to buy one. Oh, yes, I bought one without even … without even knowing that exists, knowing much about it or having too much expectation.

But the moment I’ve seen one, I said to myself that I have to try one and the only way to try it was to buy one. Even in the photo it looked like a toy, a fun one. After I bought it and I had it in my hand it was confirmed: it is a fun toy, one of them toys that you’ll never know what you’ll get from it.

Ah, sorry for keeping you guessing, a PN 919 is a camera. A tinny plastic camera lighter than the “single use” ones that Kodak or Fuji makes. It is a film camera and except the film you load in it, everything is plastic as you can see in the photo bellow. Including the lens!

As you might guess this is one of my tries at keeping that diary going. I’ve seen the PN 919 in a photo and I thought it will be perfect for carrying in the pocket every day. (And it is.) So, I got it. After that I did short researching it on the internet and I found out that the camera will work approximately as follows: a shutter speed of 1/125s and an aperture of f/8 no matter what film I’ll put in it. With the 28mm lens, focusing shouldn’t be a problem as long as I keep a minimum distance of 1m from the subject. The following images are the results of putting camera to work using a HP5 film (for those not familiar with film, it is an Ilford made, black&white, 400 ISO).

On the street, on a sunny morning, details in the shadows are retained

In the park, on a contrasty situation, the results are very good

At the small waterfall in the forest

I’ve tried to use the camera in different lighting situations and I have to say that I’m impressed how it performs. Ok, if it is very bright outside, the photos are a bit washed out but on a normal day or very contrasty situations, the results are very good for a plastic camera. Even in a dark-ish environment of a forest the camera performs better than I expected.

So, happy days, the saga continues.

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