/ˈsnæp.ʃɒt/Filling The Gaps: The Ilford Photo Pixie 35 II
It’s not that easy finding anything about the Ilford Photo Pixie 35 II. Apart from a couple of Reddit posts, practically every entry, and video, is a boilerplate product entry on an online shop. I couldn’t even find anything on the Ilford website. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. I was idly scrolling through BlueSky the other day, when I came across the most wonderful image from @Stigofthedump. It was of a building in a cemetery, but what made it special was the most incredible blur of the lens around the edges of the image.
As you may know, I love this kind of effect, and I’ve created similar digitally using the homemade ‘Deakinizer’, a wide-angle converter held reversed over the lens, and with film by reversing the front lens of a single element camera like the Agfa Clack. But this was the first time I’d seen this effect coming straight out of camera, and I had to know more. Turns out it was from a fairly new camera released by Ilford in October 2025, the Pixie 35-II. It didn’t take me long to decide that I must have one of these, though I was put off by the 80€ price tag. Then, a couple of entries popped up for Pixies on sale for 50€ in our local electronics store, and that was enough, I placed an order.
Reading around about the Pixie, and as I mentioned there wasn’t much, revealed that Stig’s images were definitely typical for this camera. The Pixie has a fixed 32mm plastic lens with three available apertures (f/6.4, f/16 and a pinhole option of f/100) and distance focusing of 0.3—2m and 2m—infinity. It has a single shutter speed of 1/100s and bulb mode. And that’s it. There’s a plastic ‘viewfinder’ on the top of the camera which shows whatever is in focus, but this covers just the centre of the frame and the rest of the images is soft and blurred.
When the camera arrived, my first impression was that it was a 3D printed camera, and everything about the Pixie screams self-assembly. In fact in one ‘review‘ of this camera it says it comes ‘fully assembled ‘, and that got me wondering. In a comment on Stig’s original image, @thereisnocat mentioned that the Pixie ‘doesn’t appear to be available in the U.S., just in Europe and Asia. Based on a camera from Gakken, the Japanese magazine that occasionally features kit cameras you build yourself’, and Stig had confirmed that Gakken was imprinted on the lens surround.
I wasn’t really familiar with Gakken, so that was my next rabbit hole to look into. Gakken is a Japanese publisher that produces a range of magazines. Each edition of the magazine Otona no Kagaku, which translates as ‘Science for Adults’, contains a kit of a featured product with that issue, and back in 2009, in issue 25, Gakken included a self-assembly TLR camera, which became known as the Gakkenflex, and has become something of a cult item. If you look at the taking lens of the Gakkenflex, and compare it with the Pixie, there is definitely a resemblance. as if Ilford/Gakken have taken the Gakkenflex and rejigged it slightly to fit into a 35mm body.
Like the Pixie, the Gakkenflex has this wonderful blurred effect around the edges of the image, and though the Pixie has more options for aperture selection, the Gakkenflex and Pixie feature one fixed shutter speed. The Pixie is pure ‘self assembly’ in appearance, and I can imagine it coming flat packed in a magazine instead of ready assembled in a box. Everything about the Pixie is basic, from the wholly plastic body to the cheap construction as you turn it over in your hands. Yet at the same time that’s part of its appeal, and I couldn’t wait out take it out for a test.
The weather has been quite poor just lately, although really those sort of conditions are quite well suited to the Pixie, which recommends using ISO 400 film. But I wanted to try a roll of Harman Switch Azure in this camera and with a box speed of ISO 125 was waiting for a sunnier day. Eventually, the weather cleared and the sun came out. I had previously decanted some Harman Azure into a Rapid canister, so the remaining film I loaded into the Pixie, about 20 frames, I reckoned.
I took the Pixie for a ‘walk around the block’, in the fields behind our house, and visited some of my favourite places. I used the Camera Meter app to set the aperture, which on this unusually sunny day this was mostly f16. In the shade under the trees, the app suggested an aperture of f5.6—f8 so I assumed f6.4 would work. I also calculated that with an ND8 neutral density filter, on a sunny day the aperture could be reduced to about f6.4, so I’ve invested in a cheap ND8 filter, that I hope will allow me to get the maximum blur possible.
Having only used about a half of the film, a week or so later I took the Pixie with me to Aveiro where I used up the remaining film. By this time, I had obtained an ND8 neutral density filter, so I used this to try and use the heavily blurred f6.4 aperture. Once completed, I took the films from the Pixie, the Belca Beltica, and the Sprocket Rocket to Forever Blue to be developed.
According to what I’ve learned about this camera, the viewfinder, which is a roughly film proportioned piece of plastic on the top of the camera, only shows what will be in focus in the centre of the frame. The actual field of view of the lens is much bigger, and all of this is blurred, so what I tried to do was fill the viewfinder with the subject, and leave the rest of the frame to the whims of the gods (since this is definitely a ‘shitty’ camera, the gods in question are the Elder Gods). And I must say, it worked a treat.
With the aperture set to f6.4, even with the neutral density filter, the blur of the Ilford Pixie was amazing. At f16, the blur was less pronounced, but it was still present. The colour shift of the Switch Azure was very reminiscent of Lomochrome Turquoise. I found the tones of Lomochrome Turquoise a litter richer than the Switch Azure, but aside from that they’re quite similar. For me though, the best thing about the Switch Azure over the Turquoise is that it’s much easier to obtain. If you’re interested, I’ve posted the whole series in an album on my Flickr if you want to see the rest of the images.
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#ColourShift #HalfFrameCamera #HarmanSwitchAzure #HarmanTechnology #IlfordPhoto #ILFORDPixie35II #TiltShiftVibesGakkenLens #ToyCamera
Keith Devereux
Dr H
