On a week-long visit to San Francisco more than thirty years ago, I took along my Rolleiflex TLR. It's a superb camera that lacks any automation; it doesn't even have a built in exposure meter. One day I just wanted to do the standard tourist stuff (Hyde Street Pier, etc.), and I was tired of lugging a bag with big, delicate camera, meter, filters, film, etc. I was staying with a friend and I borrowed his Kodak instamatic. Remember those? Plastic, cartridge-loading with, I believe, 126 Kodacolor 100ASA (ISO) color-negative film with wide exposure latitude, strictly point-and-shoot with no adjustments of any kind. I stuck the camera in one pocket and an extra cartidge or two in another and away I went.
I worked within the limitations of the Instamatic, trying to fill each frame with colorful, simple compositions. The sky was blue and the sun was bright and there was just enough atmospheric haze to soften contrast, and I got some pleasing photos. When I returned to work and shared my vacation photos with co-workers, more than once people looking at the Instamatic photos said something like, "Oooh! What kind of camera do you have?"
At standard machine-print size the prints didn't have quite the crispness of Rollei photos, and they certainly wouldn't have stood up to much enlargement, but casual family-vacation snapshooters don't look for those factors. Often they can benefit from a little coaching on choosing and composing their subjects while watching out for harsh lighting contrasts and jarring composition elements (telephone pole appearing to grow from grandma's head, etc.) and understanding their camera's limitations.
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Getting thrown out of railroad stations since 1979!
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