Halina Viceroy (Almost) Fit For a King

Here’s a little bit about this little, nice, vintage, twin-lensed fellow that you probably never heard about until now!

I found this cheap(ish) little TLR camera in a little flea market in Mexico City where I have found many other cameras, I got the reluctant seller to lower the price and got it for a bit more than the price I payed for my Lubitel 166U.

It’s small(ish) and (I dare say) good looking; it has a small plate on the top (not mine but the other ones do) that says “Halina Viceroy” and it says “Hakings super reflex” around the lens (I must admit I love this), on the back it has a sliding door-like thing that covers the little red counter window and says “made in Hong Kong”, it was produced sometime ‘round the 60’s (in Hong Kong) by Haking (of Hong Kong)

As some rubbish/toyish cameras it has simple settings (something like the Diana) three apertures(f.8, 11& 16), one fixed speed and bulb, I like this because you get some choice but not too much. It has a double meniscus, non focusing, f/8 lens that produces some slight vignetting. It takes 12 square pictures on 120 film or around 24 or 17 pseudo-panoramic photos with sprocket holes if you stick a roll of 35mm film in it (but that’s a tricky thing to do with this camera [in my opinion]).

Sorry if the photos aren’t the right side up.

written by lomollete on 2010-01-18 #gear #medium-format #120 #35mm #review #square #hong-kong #halina #60-s #b-w #tlr #lomollete #viceroy