Kodak S500AF, bizarre point and shoot

Kodak S-Series S500AF

Kodak always had a reputation for making strange looking cameras, and the S500AF is maybe the best example.

The camera is large, more than twice, maybe three times the size of the Olympus Mju. It's one of the noisiest cameras I had in hands and has several weirdnesses:

- Absolutely no overrides. Ok, I can live with this, but this camera doesn't allow you to disengage the flash. It will ALWAYS fire, no matter how high the light is !

- The "program" curve is strange. No slow speeds, just ONE, I have no official value, but it's something like 1/125s to 1/250s, with variable aperture, based on the film sensibility and ambient light.  

The camera internals looks extremely complicated for a P&S camera, with lots of integrated circuits soldered on a flexible printed circuit. Too many components to my taste, for a so-so performance.

The only good thing is the lens. The Ektanar 35mm F3.5 is a fine performer and very sharp. The infrared autofocus system has just one central point but it's precise enough for this class of camera.

When you load a new film, the camera will pre wind all the frames to the camera spool, and every time a picture is shot, the camera will wind the exposed frame into the film cartridge, like the old Canon EOS Rebels. The LCD screen at the top shows how many frames are still available.

Works with two AA alkaline batteries.

It's a rather rare camera, made by Kodak Brasileira in the late 1980s

There are other models belonging to the S-Series. The simplest one is the S100, with manual ISO/Apertures (3, actually), fixed focus and switchable flash. I don't have any technical specs of any of the S-Series, it's almost a void about these cameras on the Internet.