Last Christmas saw me receive a new film camera – and not just a “new to me” camera, an actual brand new model – the Kodak Ektar H35N. Introduced in 2023 as a slight update to the previously released H35, it’s a small, cute, light, simple plastic piece that appears to be inspired design wise by Kodak’s old Instamatic line from the 1960s. Features are limited, there is a fixed focus 22mm f8 two-element lens, just a single shutter speed of 1/100th second – although a “bulb” operation is possible with a remote shutter release, and a built in flash. There is also an optional starburst filter for special effects.

The most distinctive aspect of the camera however is that it is a “half frame” model – it takes vertical images in half the space on the film that a traditional 35mm camera would, fitting twice as many photos in total onto a roll of negative than would normally be expected. This has the potential to provide a welcome economy in a world of ever-increasing film prices. I’ve never used a half frame camera before, and it’s this feature, combined with the pocket-ability of the H35N, that enticed me to put it on my Christmas list.

Readers of this blog will know I’m a public transport nerd, and so I thought an appropriate first use of the camera would be for something related to that topic. Happily the opportunity arose when my friend Daniel, a fellow transport enthusiast, suggested we should have a ride on London’s new orbital Superloop bus service, and so on the first dismal Saturday of the year, we did just that.

The Superloop is a Transport for London initiative to join up the outer London boroughs and make better journeys from one to the other without having to travel into inner London. It will consist of several express bus routes that join up and entirely circle the city – the majority of these started last year and the last few are due to open in stages through 2024 and 2025.

Our adventure began at Kensal Green, where I met my fellow adventurers with the H35N in my coat pocket. We took the Bakerloo up to Kenton – our plan from there was to pick up the SL10 to Finchley, then take the SL1 all the way through to its final destination of Walthamstow.

Arriving at Kenton we crossed the road outside the station, and saw our bus stop quite clearly, marked with a smart lit-up Superloop totem. Within minutes our bus arrived, again easily recognisable with distinctive branding, the standard London red dispensed with and replaced with a two tone white and burgundy colourway – which you won’t see here as I had loaded the camera with Kentmere 400 monochrome film.

We took our seats on the upper deck to get the best view of the scenery as we passed along the route, which from Kenton was to Kingsbury, Hendon and then Finchley. This area of London is very much interwar sprawl territory, and I took a few snaps through the slightly grubby bus windows to try and capture it as best I could.

Whilst advertised as an express service with limited stops, the roughly 9 mile trip to North Finchley bus station still took about 45 minutes. Once there, we decided it would be prudent to have a pitstop and look around to find somewhere for lunch.

After sandwiches, coffees and well-presented smoothies were dispatched, we returned to the bus station where, after another short wait, an SL1 came along to take us to Walthamstow. This segment of the loop was much more varied than the first, after passing the wonderful Arnos Grove tube station the route went along the North Circular road and took us through the great industrial estates of Edmonton, before reaching the Victorian and Edwardian terraces of Walthamstow, where we arrived at Central station interchange after what turned out to be another 45 minute journey.

In Walthamstow, with enough bus travel under our belts, we decided we had earnt a pint in a local pub.

Thoughts on the Superloop

The service is very distinctively branded and signposted. Whilst the Superloop doesn’t pass through my own neighbourhood and I won’t have the opportunity to use it myself on a regular basis, I can see that it opens up clear and faster connections between adjoining outer boroughs in a way that has not previously been provided. Whilst it’s not as exciting as a new Elizabeth line or Northern line extension, we are drying up on big rail projects in London, so I will look forward to the day the Superloop is complete and it’s possible to do the entire circuit. That will surely be the topic of a future post.

Thoughts on the Kodak Ektar H35N

Using this little camera is pure joy, it’s so light and compact and easy to keep in a pocket, it’s a take-anywhere shooter that’s as easy to use as any disposable camera. There’s so little to think about, you just decide whether you need the flash or not, frame the picture in the viewfinder, make sure you’ve wound the film on, and click the shutter down. Knowing that you have twice the number of photos per roll to shoot than normal means you don’t have to worry so much about “wasting” shots and means you can just have fun and snap away.

I had the film developed and scanned at Aperture in central London, and they seem to have done a good job. The photos came conjoined in pairs as the negative had been scanned as though it were a normal 24 frame roll, so I split the pictures myself in Apple Photos and performed a few light exposure adjustments, but nothing drastic. Image quality is obviously reduced compared to normal 35mm as only half the resolution is available, but the brightly lit shots look good and the fixed focus lens seems to make a sharp enough go at it, although the sharpness falls off rapidly towards the edge of the frame, giving a very vintage feel to the pictures.

With the shutter speed and aperture is fixed, it’s entirely down to the sensitivity and latitude of the film to help out with varying lighting conditions, and whilst using the flash saved many of my inside shots, the Kentmere 400 struggled a bit in some of the exterior scenes where bright sunshine was lacking, giving some quite muddy tones. Unless you’re out on a very bright day, I would say a 400 ISO film is the minimum required with the H35N, but bear in mind the higher the speed the more the grain will show on these half frame images.

Away from questions of quality, it’s also obvious that with vertical orientation being the standard with this camera, I took many more upright photos than I probably normally would, but in this world of mobile phones, Instagram and TikTok, vertical orientation is fast becoming the norm for many people!

In summary I really love this little camera, it’s simplicity stops it “getting in the way” and lets you get on and have good time taking photos. I’ll look forward to seeing the results when I put a colour film in next time. I couldn’t quite use up all of my 48 shots on the Superloop trip, so here are a few other snaps from the roll…