Ilford Sportsmaster

One of the more bonkers cameras in the collection. This 35mm compact camera was launched c.1961 and is fully automatic. That is pretty remarkable for the early 60s, but it gets even more bonkers...there are 4 shutter release buttons.

The camera was aimed at people who simply wanted to point and shoot. It does the focusing and makes the exposure decisions itself. Each shutter release button is linked to the helical focusing mount and has a specific distance setting. There is one for landscapes (infinity), groups (13ft), full-length portrait (8ft), and head and shoulder portrait (5 ft). When pressed, the lens rotates to the desired setting and the shutter is released.

The built in selenium meter chooses an appropriate aperture depending on the lighting conditions. The shutter speed depends on the film speed, and works thus: ISO 10 = 1/30; ISO 24 = 1/60; ISO 50 = 1/125; ISO 100 = 1/250; ISO 200 = 1/500.

There has been some criticism of this system online as it seems that in bright conditions the favoured apertures are f/8 or f/11, and in overcast conditions there may be insufficient light, even at the widest aperture of f/2.8. You can take the camera out of auto mode. There are manual controls intended for use with flash. This gives you control over aperture. The problem with this approach is that you are then restricted to the single shutter speed of 1/30. The camera is synchronised for electronic flash, and for flashbulbs. There is an accessory shoe for flash on top of the camera.

Assuming you are shooting in perfect lighting, the sharp Dignar, 3-element 45mm coated lens will produce nice results. Later models of this camera used a Cassar lens. Winding the film advance lever cocks the shutter and adjusts the frame counter. The interlock mechanism prevents double exposures.

The optical viewfinder has guidelines for parallax correction with close subjects. At the top there is a small rectangle. This is the optical signal. There numbers indicated in the rectangle tell you the aperture that the camera will use if you press the shutter release. If the rectangle is green you are good to snap away. If the red section reaches the indicator notch the light isn't good enough for the film speed.

The Prontor-Lux shutter takes its cue from the film speed ring, so it's important to set this correctly when you load the camera. The instruction manual repeats this about 3 times, so it's pretty important.

It is possible to use this camera in bulb mode, however, it can only be used with an aperture of f/2.8.

The instruction manual warns not to use colour filters when shooting black and white film. Obviously the camera is a bit inflexible with which settings are available so the chances are the image will not be exposed correctly as there is no way of compensating for the filter, unless you cheat and alter the film speed setting.

So, quite a quirky camera. It's fully automatic but the flip side is you only get one shutter speed, even though it's capable of five. Like we said, bonkers. Basically it's a snazzy box camera that shoots in shutter priority mode and does a crude form of automatic focus based on zone focusing.

This particular model was in a job lot of unloved Ilford cameras that all looked like they hadn't seen the sun in years. It was a miserable sight to behold. We were truly shocked that the light meter in this camera still had some life in it and that its lens was trying to focus when we pressed the shutter release buttons. It's leatherette was utterly filthy and peeling off so some urgent re-covering was necessary. Results soon!