The Lower East Side again (with the Ansco Pix Panoramic)

The Ansco Pix Panoramic is a plastic toy camera that's similar in many respects to the Holga, and one of the most basic 35mm point-and-shoots you're likely to come across. What I like about it is partly the challenge of using it. Far from "you push the button, we do the rest," plastic toy cameras really make you do the work. In other words, you have to compensate for their shortcomings. The Ansco Pix isn't a true panoramic, as you can tell--it's a single-frame exposure taken with a built-in fixed wide-angle lens (approximately 22mm) that is basically cropped in the camera, panorama-style (the top and bottom of the frame are masked off). After a little trial and error, I discovered that the exposure settings are: something approximating F8 at something approximating 1/100 of a second. Which makes it basically an outdoor daylight camera. But with the right film and developer combination, it can function in a variety of different lighting conditions. (In this case, I used Tri-X 400, developed using Diafine, which gives Tri-X about a 2-stop push). I'm hoping to try using it in the subway later this month, with TMax 3200, pushing the film 2, maybe 3 stops. We'll see what happens.

This camera seems to have been made for NYC street photography.