Chai Wan War Cemetery

Mine, on the right, was an Agfa Silette L 35mm fixed focal length German camera. I bought it on 9 November, just 2 weeks after arriving in Hong Kong, and it cost me HK$210 (over a month's pay as a lowly R.A.F. airman) but I had been saving up for some time in anticipation of going to such an exotic destination from a very drab England. A poor quality photograph in my 1957/8 gallery (Causeway Bay outside Roxy Cinema) was a failed attempt to let my fashion conscious young sister see what the slit skirt on a cheongsam looked like!),  That, photograph was taken at the very end of October 1957 on my first visit into the city from the camp at Little Sai Wan, when I was still using my very old 1917 vintage Vest Pocket Kodak camera.  This used a 12 exposure roll of 127mm negative film.  However, I knew that colour slide 35mm film was the only way to capture what was seen in those days as a once in a lifetime experience.  Little did I then know that I would make 11 more nostalgic visits to Hong Kong.  It was the German firms, Agfa, Voigtlander (my pal on this photograph had a Voigtlander) and Leica (very expensive) that were dominating the 35mm camera market, with Kodak way behind.  I have a feeling that they were still concentrating on bellows and box cameras and they never really caught up with firstly the Germans and later the Japanese.  So, with the exception of that one  very low grade image all my 1957/8 photographs were taken on the Agfa.  Each Kodachrome slide film (36 exposures on very slow 25 ASA film) cost me HK$30, well over half a week's pay.  Every frame had to count and, as the film was so slow, bright sunlight was a virtual necessity if there was any movement.  I used the Agfa to take some cheaper black and white photographs but developing the film in the dark room at the camp was very hit and miss (due to the cold water not being cold en0ugh!) so many potentially interesting images were a failure.

With regards to the resolution, Kodachrome film was very good but the lenses in those days on medium range cameras such as mine, while better than on my old Vest Pocket camera, were not as good as on the really expensive cameras.  Years later, I copied the original slides by using a digital camera aimed at the slides projected onto a white wall.  This gave better results than slide copiers did, but the images possibly degraded a bit.

I wondered whether to add images of both cameras onto Gwulo but that didn't seem appropriate, but Google Images has photographs of both - My Agfa Silette L was the earlier model from 1956/7  with a built in light meter, which indicated exposure but was not coupled to the shutter or aperture settings.  Huge numbers of the then very small Kodak Vest Pocket cameras were given to all American soldiers during the First World War so that they could record their own 'once in a lifetime' experiences of visiting Europe.  Many of these convenient pocket sized cameras eventually ended up for sale in England - at a time when bulky box cameras were the only cheap alternative. My parents gave me mine in the late 1940s.  I hope all this is of interest! Andrew