Last year a co-worker loaned me an old Trusite Camera to shoot with, and I had some fun shooting with the old 127 film camera. Recently Troy received another old camera and asked if I wanted to shoot that one as well. Never being one to walk away from a challenge, I accepted his gracious offer.

The camera he gave me was a Herbert George Camera Company “Insta-Flash” camera. It’s a psuedo-TLR design and takes 620 roll film. I’ve seen a few of these pop up in my for-sale feeds over the last few years, but never pulled the trigger on one as I have plenty of 1950’s era “plastic fantastic” cameras already in my collection.

Doing some research online about the camera, I quickly found that there just isn’t much info out there. Not even a manual. This is essentially all that is out there, on a few different sites:

“The Insta-Flash camera was manufactured by the Herbert George Company of Chicago Illinois in circa 1950. It was a low priced twin lens reflex camera with a synchronized hot flash ejector and safety features. The camera was constructed of a platic housing and a decorative satin-finish aluminum front. It featured a full-sized top mounted built-in view finder with built-in sun shade, a fixed focus meniscus lens, and a side mounted instantaneous snap shop lever. It was capable of capturing twelve 2 1/4 X 2 1/4 inch sized exposures on number 620 roll film. It was sold for approximately $6.95.”

Once I brought the camera home, I gave it a good cleaning and an inspection. The shutter stuck every second shot, so I decided to crack it open to see what was wrong. The shutter mechanism is very similar to a Holga camera. It was missing a spring for the return, so I found one in a parts bin that fit and I replaced it. With a little TLC it was back to working again.

Without a manual or much info, below is my best-guess about the particulars.

Lens: Glass meniscus, approx 75mm
Shutter: Single speed, approx 1/50th second
Focus distance: @ 7ft to Infinity
No tripod mount
No double-exposure protection
Red Window film advance method

Here are a few shots of the camera after I cleaned it up and got it working again.

I loaded a roll of Ilford HP5+ film that I had re-spooled onto a 620 roll, and headed out to shoot on a humid, somewhat foggy Saturday morning in Dayton, Ohio.

Shooting with the Insta-Flash isn’t much different than other psuedo-TLR cameras of its era. Basically you just point it at what you want to shoot and push down the shutter lever. Then advance to the next frame. Repeat until you made 12 shots.

Even with a good cleaning of the ground glass and the mirror, the viewfinder is very dim, especially compared to other competitors of the day like the Brownie Hawkeye and the Argus 75. I just made the best of it - it wasn’t bad in the daytime, but I could see where in low light it could be a problem. But then again, these type of cameras weren’t meant for low light situations. They were meant for sunny days.

After I finished the roll, I developed it in Rodinal 1:100 for 60 minutes with the Semi-Stand method. The images were then scanned on my Epson V600 flatbed with minor edits for dust.

Below are my 9 favorite images from the roll:

I have to say, I was quite pleasantly surprised at the results. While they aren’t clinically perfect, they do have a certain charm to them. They are very “Holga-like” - sharp and decently contrasty in the center, but sharpness and contrast fall off quickly outside of the center of the image. Shooting with it was certainly more enjoyable than a Holga - looking down into the viewfinder is easier than trying to peak through the tiny window that a Holga has. And the shutter lever moves much more freely than a Holga, meaning its easier to keep the camera steady.

Would I purchase one for myself? Not likely, as I have plenty of other cameras from that era already and it doesn’t really offer anything over any of my favorites. It is much better than expected, though. It wouldn’t be at the bottom of the list of cameras that I’ve shot with in the past.

Do you have an Insta-Flash at home? Have you shot with one before? If you have one sitting on the shelf, it might be worth dusting it off and taking it out for a spin.

As always, thanks for reading! Please let me know if you have any questions or comments, thanks!

Jeremy