Initial thoughts on Fujifilm Zoom Date 115

So last year, I was given a Fujifilm Zoom Date 115s. Aside from the rather stupid name, my initial impressions were that there wasn’t anything that remarkable about the camera.

It has a silver plastic finish, a 38-115 zoom lens, a zoom control on the back, a flash and a few small buttons that control the flash, the timer and should you wish, the date. I seem to recall back in the day, cameras would expose the date on negatives. I wasn’t much of a fan of this trend back then, and I still hate it now.

It runs on CR123A batteries and as you’ve probably guessed by now, it shoots 35mm film.

The first roll I put through it was one of my last rolls of AGFA Vista 200. When I saw what it had produced, I was quite disappointed. For the most part, the focus was on point. However, I felt that the images lacked any real detail and the colours were a bit grubby.

I decided that it might be worth putting a roll of black and white film through the camera. For some reason I had a roll of Ilford XP2 lying around, so decided to put it to good use.

And I have to say, I think the camera handled the black and white film much better. To be fair, the fact that the XP2 has an ISO of 400, whereas AGFA Vista is only 200, might have something to do with this.

But the black and white film definitely worked wonders with the Zoom Date 115. I also decided to not use the zoom. While it may boast of having a lens that can zoom in at 155mm, it is not very good – quite a bit of camera shake going on. So for the second roll, I shot a majority at 38mm.

So to round up, it’s a fairly basic camera, with not much manual control. Colour photos may leave you a little disappointed, but with a roll of black and white film, you may get some likeable results.