Pierre Jarleton has created a great site about submini cameras.Absolutely worth visiting.
French and English
Links to his pages on the right
Look, where I was and what I saw !
To have a camera which could go anywhere, any time has been a dream since the beginning of the photography. Pocket size folding cameras and a numerous variants of the "spy-cameras" , smallest to fit in a ring on a finger are expressions of that dream.
In 1972, Kodak introduced Pocket Instamatic cameras using a new 110 film cartridge. It was a huge success, After three years more than 25 million cameras were produced.
Every camera manufacturer wanted their share of the cake. Competition was hard and the companies had to create what ever attractions to appeal the customers. Some other manufacturers even produced SLR cameras in this format. But in the end the 110 cameras were destroyed by their success. The primal goal to create a camera small enough to go with anywhere was lost. Fitted with all those gizmos, rangefinders, built-in flashes, tele/wide adjustments and motor drives they came bigger and more expensive compared to 35mm cameras.
The High End of the 110 cameras was mechanically and optically excellent, with more acceptable results. Excellent lenses, proper film holders and improvements in film technology made it possible. It was too small frame size and particularly the cheap junk which spoiled the good idea. Biggest part of those 25 million cameras were considered as a photography related junk.
Modern cellphones are the next effort to fulfil a desire of the consumer. To day those are coming more and more versatile and a huge amount of different kind of useful features and also oddities are fitted with phones, GPRS devices, mp players, pulse detectors etc. (I am waiting for a catapult seat)
The original meaning as a phone is rapidly vanishing. This has inconvenienced their use for the primary aim as a phone. Some of them are too complicated to use without a couple of study weeks in a CUTC (Cellphone Using Training Center.) To avoid problems NOKIA is Your choice.
