The Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim 22mm camera is a wonderful small plastic camera that from some accounts was once given away as a freebie in a marketing campaign! This sort of supports my experience with this little gem as the lady I purchased it off mentioned in her description that it was a free gift with another purchase. It came in a plain white card box with the words ‘CHINA SUN and 521822 on the thin edge!
It looks to have at least a two element lens with the shutter and a fixed aperture of f11 or there abouts positioned between the two elements. The shutter has a single speed of about 1/100th second, this is cocked by the movement of the film so it is impossible to perform multiple exposures.
The lens is a technical step up from the simple meniscus lens which is often used in ‘toy’ cameras like the TIME FC100 and even some of the Kodak plastic cameras. Under favorable conditions the quality of the images from the Ultra Wide are very clean compared to those from Holgas. This is not to say that they are better just different. They have a quality all of their own and combined with the wide angle offer another tool for creativity. The attraction of using simple cameras are that it frees the photographer from having to judge what settings to use or play with when capturing an image. These cameras force the user to consider the light to a greater degree and move in, around or closer to the subject and think beyond the cameras apparent lack of sophistication. They are sometimes available on the auction sites I have seen them sell for as little as USD$5 and as much as USD$30, when two persons want one bad enough!
