As the four day weekend that accompanies Easter is now well and truly over I thought I would reminisce a bit more about my magical trip to Cornwall last month.

One of the cameras I took with me was my Fuji Instax Mini 25. It’s the most compact of all the instant cameras I have – almost pocket-sized (I have big pockets).

Look at this sweet little car – typically though, the one time I get the horizon spot on is when I was on a hill so it looks wonky anyway!

I quite like the softness of the images, but the colours and how it deals with depth of field is not quite as magical as my trusty old Polaroid.

Hope you’re having a lovely long weekend, be it Easter-y or otherwise. I had chocolate for breakfast so I’m happy! Did you get an Easter egg?

April showers are definitely the call of the day round these parts and they’re making me miss the freaky heatwave we had March – here’s a couple of Polaroids I found squirreled away from a couple of weeks ago. Each pack of original Polaroid 600 film I use is getting yellower and more ropey looking – there’s not much left either… one day soon I’ll be posting my very last shot. I may cry.

Photos taken with Polaroid SX-70, 600 edge-cut film and ND filter

This little chap here is an Olympus Trip 500. For 99p it would have been rude not to buy it, don’t you think? A quick dusting off and a couple of new AA batteries and it was ready for it’s first photo session (for a long while, I suspect) on a sunny trip to Cornwall.

Loading the film, whilst not an entirely automatic process, is still very simple – none of that pushing in of buttons or pulling up on spindles; just plop it in, bring the leader bit of film to the opposite side and close the back – then it whirrs into action and is ready to go!

The Olympus Trip 500 is the most basic of this generation of  35mm point and shoot cameras (guessing late 80s/early 90s). It’s made entirely of plastic and very simple to use. It’s got a wide-ish 28mm fixed-focus lens which is a little soft (I don’t necessarily have a problem with the softness – I quite like it). PLEASE NOTE: It’s absolutely nothing like the iconic Olympus Trip 35 which takes amazingly sharp and beautifully exposed photographs.

Like I say, it’s very easy to use – the trickiest thing you have to remember is to open the little lens cover before you take a photo (or it won’t work). There’s a flash that goes off whenever it feels the need and it will even wind the film on to the next frame for you, so it really is trouble-free.

And the results? Well you can see for yourself that the vignetting in these photos is totally CRAZY – I’ve never seen anything like it! They must make the lenses from the same stuff they make front-door spy-holes from.

Normally I quite like a bit of black cornering, but this is much, much more than that – it seems to encroach all the way to the middle and gives the feeling of tunnel vision.

As these are cameras and not my children I guess I’m allowed to say that this isn’t one of my favourites (aren’t I)? Maybe if the photos were of something a bit more urban they would look more in keeping – I’m not sure there’s a scene in life gritty enough to handle this amount of vignette though!

What do you reckon – have I been a bit harsh? should I give it another try?

All photos taken with Olympus Trip 500 and Kodak ColorPlus 200 35mm film