One of the first memories I have of the SportShot Senior Twenty camera was looking through McKeown's camera (bible), collecting cameras, and noticing the odd shape of the camera as I thumbed through the pages. Then, upon doing a little more digging into what made this camera special to me, a company in Australia made it, and it only existed for a couple of years. These are the cameras I desire, and these it's these items separate cameras in my collection. 

 Whenever I travel alone for business or when my wife and I travel internationally, I always try to find the local flea market to see if I can find items that are rare in my part of the world. There are thousands of extremely popular Kodak box-style cameras, whether made from cardboard and leatherette covered or the bakelite cameras you see in every corner of the world. When I first started collecting, I would snatch up any camera because they were a "camera." But as time goes on and I see more of the odd and unusual items, I increasingly appreciate them.

I traded the SportShot Senior Twenty camera about a year ago for some items I had from a dealer who frequents the US occasionally from Australia. The trade happened at a camera show near to me. I got the SportShot Senior Twenty camera. I picked up a few other cameras from Australia, like the red Swiftshot and the Lexa box camera with an excellent metal faceplate. I believe he was happy getting tradeable items he could return to Australia, as it was hard to find items here in the United States.

The Company:

The SportShot Senior Twenty camera maker was the very short-lived ACMA, which stands for Australasian Camera Manufacturers Australia. They were based in Sydney, NSW, Australia, and existed from 1948 to 1950. I've looked at many different commerce sites in Australia and cannot find anything new about the ACMA company. They were one of Australia's only post-WWII camera manufacturers producing cameras. Inside the logo on the camera where the wording Australasian Camera Manufacturers Australia is located, the words British Make are there. There must have been British backing in the company to produce the cameras. 

My best guess is that while the camera is somewhat awkward to hold and use, it wasn't very popular, and sales never caught on, so the company folded, and what was made are the only examples available today.

 Since a large part of my collection is colored cameras or cameras other than black, I like the fact that this camera came in red and green as well and had a matching plastic strap to match the camera itself. These are now on my radar for future purchases. 

My Camera:

The SportShot Senior Twenty camera is triangular or trapezoidal in shape with what appear to be wings in the back to hold onto when taking a photo. The camera measures 5.5" wide in the back and 2.25" in the front. The camera is 4.5" deep, including the lens, and is 3.5" tall with the viewfinder closed but including the winding knob. The camera weighs 13.2 oz without the strap, which I don't have for this camera. The camera has a single red window on the back and shoots 6x9 format, producing eight exposures on either 120 or 620 film.

The camera is comprised of two separate parts. The top comes off with an effortless latch on the back that is somewhat spring tensioned with a hole that fits into a small knob holding the top to the bottom of the camera. On the top portion of the Sport Shot Twenty camera is also a pop-up viewfinder, along with a very odd winding knob. The winding portion of the film advance that fits into the film roll has a triangular shape; it will fit both 120 and 620 films. 

 Because the camera can shoot both 120 and 620 films, the useability is a bit more interesting as this opens the camera's film up to different types. The downside of having the winding portion shaped as it is is that the film advance is more difficult to use, which is what I experienced when I shot a roll of film through the camera. On the top of the camera adjacent to the film advance knob is stamped ACMA S20.

The camera loading is also not the easiest thing to do. Once you have the top off, you can take the empty roll from the right side and put t on the left side where the advance knob is. When loading the film, the tricky part was the channel it slid into to keep it flat for exposure. You can't just put in the roll, slide it over the shutter, and attach it to the empty spool like you do on the majority of cameras. The SportShot Senior Twenty has a thin slot the film needs to go into to keep the film flat, as you can see in the photos.

To load the film, I put the leader into the take-up spool and rolled out a bit of film to slide it into the thin channel. It took me a few times to get it in because the channel was so thin the film paper packing would crinkle and fold a bit, along with the curvature of the channel. It wasn't an easy load, but eventually, It slid in, and I got the camera loaded. How you load the camera was another factor against it when trying to sell to the masses. You don't want to make things more complicated than they need to be.

When I went to shoot the film, I loaded it into the camera, and I went to clean the lens. When cleaning it, one of the sides pressed in. I thought, "This wouldn't work with one side of the lens, not in the right position." I turned the lens, and it unscrewed from the camera body. I pressed the lens back into place, then re-screwed it back onto the camera.

 There are only two settings for the shutter. "T" for time, where the shutter stays open as long as you keep the shutter button depressed, and "I" for an instant for everyday shooting. The lens is a 13.5cm or 135mm lenticular lens f3.5 aperture. The lever above the lens is the shutter release, and you press it down towards the lens to take the photos. The viewfinder is a simple pop-up style and closes when not in use. There are no other settings to choose a different aperture, which makes this an extremely simple-to-operate camera.

My Results:

After struggling to load the camera, I had put a roll of Ilford FP-4 in the camera and walked out in front of my house to see how it did, and here's the results.

Conclusion:

Other than struggling to load the film into the camera, along with advancing the film. Due to the shape of the advanced knob that fits into the take-up spool, it didn't grab very well, and there were several times when the knob turned, and the film didn't move, but as long as I took my time, it did advance. Maybe it would do better with 620 film since the slot on the spool is thinner, and the advance knob would fit and hold into the spool better. I'm not going to say the camera was hard to use, but it wasn't the easiest, and I can understand why people would get frustrated using it. None of the images are sharp, but some are better than others. This may have been caused by removing the lens.

 Thank you for taking a few minutes from your day to look over this review. I realize it's not a sophisticated camera, but it definitely has an unusual shape.

 I have an odd camera set for next week's post and hope to hear your thoughts on it or other cameras I've written about.

 Until next week, please be safe.