Voigtlander Vitoret 110 EL

This is weird. Writing about 110 film in plain 2016 is really a strange feeling.

110 film was a miniature just 16mm wide and sold in the form of a plastic cartridge that you simply drop it inside the film chamber of your camera.

AGFA Agfacolor 200 film in 110 format cartridge

The frame is tiny. It's exactly the size of a micro four-thirds sensor. For film, it's tiny, about 16mm wide.

The concept of the Instamatic film was interesting and the idea was to make film loading absolutely foolproof. It's impossible to load it wrong. If you accidentally open the film chamber you'll lose just 2 frames instead of the whole roll.

Nothing is perfect, the small frame size is a challenge for both optics and film grain, and it was very difficult to keep the film flatness due to the cartridge design.

The vast majority of the 110 film cameras were junk, with single meniscus 1 element optics with a fixed aperture and just one speed. Some better ones had 2 or 3 element lenses with fixed focus and maybe two or three aperture settings usually set by choosing the correct "weather" symbol. 

But there are some really cool exceptions to this rule, like the Voigtlander Vitoret 110 EL. It's very elegant, well made and small (120 x 35 x 25 mm).

Voigtlander Vitoret 110 EL and flash

Voigtlander Vitoret 110 EL and 110 film cartridge

The camera itself is almost foolproof. All you need is to load the film, load the shutter and shoot. Ok, you may need to choose between the "weather symbols". For me, it's the best fixed focus 110 camera.

110 film cartridges may have or not a notch that specifies the film speed. A long notch is for a "low ASA" film (from 80 to 200) and a short one denotes a "high ASA" film (400). The camera senses between the low and high ASA types and the weather symbols can change, depending on the film type. It's strange but works.

For low ASA: Sun = F11 / Clouds = F5.6
For high ASA: Clouds = F11 / Window = F5.6 

The electronic shutter will then choose the proper speed, from 4 seconds to 1/300s.

The lens is a fixed focus, multi-coated 24mm F5.6 Lanthar (3 element) and believe me, it's very sharp and has a generous depth of field.

So, it's essentially a tiny aperture priority camera with fixed focus, a razor sharp lens, two choices of aperture (F11 and F5.6) and a broad automatic shutter speed range.

There's also a flash hot shoe and an electronic flash powered by AAA batteries.