Retinette ? a matter of integrity

Retinette – a matter of integrity

Over the time that I’ve been writing articles and (latterly) blogs on this site, there’s been an undercurrent in my mind that there are some cameras that I like because they work well, and others I really don’t trust to do their job. It’s finally come together in my mind – it’s about their integrity.

Integrity is a very serious word. It’s something that matters: a politician or entrepreneur without it may be wildly successful, but they will never be admirable. Those who have it often limit their careers by refusing to make promises they cannot keep, or by keeping the promises they have made, faithfully. It almost seems like a trivialisation to suggest that it applies to mere cameras.



I think it does, though. The camera I was thinking about in the first instance was the Kodak Retinette Ia that I inherited from my Dad. They sold for a little over £20 in the late Fifties – I’m not sure quite what that translates to in modern money, but it’s not cheap. The specification is modest, and includes a fixed 45mm f/3.5 lens, a lack of a rangefinder, and a minimum focus distance of a little over three feet.

The lens uses front cell focussing – the front element moves, and the rest of the lens stays where it is. This is optically unsophisticated: more upmarket lenses move bodily forwards and backwards, and the filter ring doesn’t rotate. But the mechanism is physically robust, and the results are excellent. And this is true of every aspect of the camera’s operation: while some controls are small and fiddly, they all work reliably, and the production engineering means that they have done so for over fifty years so far, and are likely to last another fifty.



Although vastly more sophisticated, all of this reminds me, now, of the Kodak Hawkeye that Janet (aka Chase) has lent me. It is, literally, nailed together, but it is similarly robust and durable, and gives results that are somehow far better than you expect. They contrast with the cameras where bright ideas for design contrast with fragile build quality and iffy mechanical reliability – like the Diana F that I wrote about a couple of years ago.



Integrity matters, in little things as in important ones. And – for me – it matters in the trivia of everyday life like ballpoint pens (Bic or Pilot disposables for me rather than stylish and rickety advertising specials) and cameras. It’s not a matter of metal versus plastic – my Samyang 45mm lens is plastic, but it has an integrity that the Sony kit 18-55 lenses of 15 years ago utterly lacked.

Integrity may be lacking in expensive trophy goods, too: I love the Cross fountain pen that I’ve owned for more than 30 years, sometimes refilling it three times in a week at work, but I reckon that the Mont Blanc things that boasted of holding one or two fluid ounces of ink were designed to be seen, not used… Sorry – I don’t own one, but you can look them up: bloated, like a cigar – who has fingers the right size to hold one and write for hours?