I am posting this on January 20th, 2026, but dating it back 1 year to January 20th 2025 - the final day of our week-long trip to Aspen for the Winter season.
I was filing away my last roll of film (widelux winter in east LA) and reviewing recent wavebelly posts and realized that there are a few rolls from that long dry spell of no photography that are still missing.
Two of the most prominent rolls are these from our Aspen trip - a major success in both fun and pictures. This is made even more special by the fact that the camera used was a White Elephant gift Pantea had received from a friend (rule was $50 and under), a camera that we had never tested or used.
Its a Vivitar Series 1 ZM100DB - I didn't even know Vivitar made whole cameras. All plastic, with zoom, red eye reduction and date back feature - classic 90s. Its interesting that there can be so much variation in popularity and price between point and shoot models. For example, my own Konica Big Mini is probably around 150 to 200 bucks...then the popular Contax T2 is like 2K...and this right here is like 20 bucks:
I know they are different in build quility and lens and (probably most of all), hype. But this 25 dollar camera really does a good job - especially where it counts for me at least: close ups, flash pics, of friends having fun. It seems reliable and fast enough, and the zoom is fun to play with too. The camera definitely adds a nostalgic, vintage feel to the pics like they are straight out of the 90s. Check these out in both color and B&W...
(remember these were taken with an untested (by us) camera received via white elephant...you can imagine our pleasant surprise when they came out like this...)
(PS we also didn't turn off or change the date function - which places us square in the middle of February 1987 lol)
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| IYKYK |
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| I believe this is the only pic from the whole trip with all of us in it (analog or digital) |
